Spring is Springing

YYYYYEEEESSSSSS!  The crocuses have burst from the earth!   The robins are back singing to me in the morning and evening!  The snowbanks have all but disappeared!  I love the transitional time between the seasons.  Every day I notice something different. 

Sweet Liss gifted me this adorable (really adorable) paper clay cabachon that she made. 

Click on Pics to Enlarge

I'm using it in a 5" x 7" bead embroidered picture which is not coming together as easily as I wish it would.  I've spent more time ripping out and starting again than I care to admit.  I know, I know, I can hear Nicole telling me that she never rips out -- I just haven't reached that level of expertise yet.  Some things are just plain hideous!

Using a piece of Nicole's super-duper-how-did-I-ever-bead-without-it BeadBacking, I placed these little cabs all around the focal (I don't know why).  It reminds me of those candy dots I used to get as a little girl.  Do you know the ones I mean?  They came on a long strip of white paper. 

The next morning I was heading out the door to work and it was a hateful windy cold day and I thought "ugh, definitely time for spring."  That's it!  Time!  Time for Spring -- that's why I put those cabs around.  I must have been thinking of a clock.  When I got home from work and took a look at the placement again, I thought, NOPE.  Didn't put them in a clock formation.    Great.  Now what do I do?

I started encasing the focal and realized when I was done it look like I had made a little nest around it. 

I came across this spring-looking mix of seeds in my stash and wanted to use them somehow.

I encased all the inner cabs and the outer most cabs became flowers.

Then, because it was raining outside, I thought I would do little umbrellas in each of the corners.

I started out making a line of cylinder beads

another row and some seeds

and.....bleh. 

So bad I didn't even take any pictures of the finished umbrellas (I actually made two of them just to make sure they were as awful as I thought -- they were!)

Now I'm making some of the inner cabs into flowers too.

The jury is still out.......

 ~ * ~ Bead Happy and Often  ~ * ~