The Wigglebutt Blog

...getting accomplished this week besides the occasional random spontaneous happy dance. And this... Actually this isn't what I ended up with, it's just what I started with (after 4 tries) I usually don't use a lot of different colors in my designs. It's not that I don't like color, I LOVE COLOR! It's just that I am not comfortable with my ability to put a lot of colors together in a pleasing way. Well, once I stood back and really looked at this I thought, "I like it but I think it could use some yellow." and since I didn't have anything in the yellow I was wanting, I had to make some. I made two different shades of yellow disks. So after curing, varnishing and re-curing, I started adding the yellow. Then I thought that maybe the focal looked kinda small with all of the others I was adding, so...................... I changed out the focal for a larger one, and I am SUPER-duper happy with this. To me it says "light, airy and happy". ...

Since learning the circular peyote stitch, I have completed two necklaces using it. the first one you can see here and here . Then I was over visiting Dawn's blog As she was talking about learning a new technique making the "chain" part of the necklace, she mentioned that she used a stitch called a "russian spiral"  ( Thanks Dawn☺)  and since I love the spiral look, I had to find out how to make it. I hunted around on the net and finally came across a video tutorial. To me it was totally worth the cost, I learn so much quicker if I can actually "see and do". Step by step photos in a printed tutorial are good, but it is much easier for me to 'get it' if I can work along with the instructor as they explain each step. Especially when it comes to seed beads. That was two weeks ago and I fell madly in love with this stitch. Once you get past the first three rounds you can do it without hardly thinking about it. It is the perfect  "curl up i...

I have spent the weekend feeling very busy but I'm not sure what I accomplished☺ I've been on a jewelry kick lately and I worked on a couple necklaces over the weekend. One I have re-worked more times than I care to remember and it still isn't what I want so I'm not going to show you.   Yet. And this one happened very quickly. It is very simple but I really like it. It makes me think of summer. (I've been reading on some blogs how the crocuses are blooming  and in some cases where the gardens are being planted, and I am SO jealous. We have had a lot of sunshine in the last week or so but the high has still been in the low to mid thirties) I am REALLY ready for summer! Also this weekend, when not hunched over 'the devil necklace that will not cooperate', I started playing around with the "pages" on blogger. If you click on the tabs you will see that I have learned how to make a page but I haven't put anything there yet. LOL! So you can save y...

The other day on this blog I saw a recipe for Cinnamon Chip Scones, and since I have been absolutely dying to have a Cinnamon Chip Scone ever since my Starbucks stopped carrying them, (I don't know if it is rotational or seasonal thing, all I know is that when I'm craving one they have none) I figured I would bake some. So I print off the recipe. In her post she says the cinnamon chips are on the grocery aisle right next to the chocolate chips. Not if you live in my neck of the woods. After checking all three of the large stores we have, Walmart, Fred Meyer and Carrs/Safeway, and coming up empty I decided to try toffee chips in place of the (non-existent in the state of Alaska) cinnamon chips. I was kinda bummed until I came across this   Isn't it the coolest thing you ever saw? Well maybe not THE coolest, but pretty darn cool. It is a 3D wooden puzzle. It is 10"x10"x5"H After I put it together I glued all of the pieces in place. After it dries I plan on ma...

(Photo taken today - 2 days after Scooby's 9th Birthday) A quick update on my baby Scooby Doo. We got into the vet on Tuesday morning and after a good exam the vet said he seemed to be doing well. Didn't seem to have any residual effects from his seizure and since this is the first time he ever had one it could have been an isolated incident. The vet said he couldn't say it would never happen again but if it did we could treat him with phenobarbital, the same thing used in humans for epilepsy. They did blood work just to make sure there weren't any underlying issues, and all they found there was that he is a little low on phosphorus. So the boy gets to have a little milk with his food every morning for a week. He seems to like it☺ The vet also said that he was a little heavy, OK he actually called him obese but we all put on a few extra pounds in the winter don't we?

Have you tried to refinance your home lately? OMG what a pain in the butt! I don't even think we had to jump through this many hoops when we bought our business three years ago. The filling out and or gathering of paperwork (lots of paperwork),  the faxing back and forth. All of it has been stressing me out a little;~( But apparently we are now on the home stretch. The last email we got from our mortgage guy said all we have to do now is have our water tested to make sure it is drinkable (HUH?) and have our septic tested (?) It's not like we are just buying this house (and water) or selling it, we have lived in this house for 10 years and drank the water every single day and we're still standing,  but if that's what they need I'm all over it. And I'm not sure how they test a septic. In my experience it either works or it doesn't (eww). And ours does. But I guess I will see if I can find out who does that kind of thing and have it done. On top of all of t...

Well, the little fellow that I mentioned here  has arrived safe and sound at his destination in Munich so I can show him off now. This fellow went to Germany to live with Birgit She named him "Sutton" after the name of my home town. I think it fits nicely☺ And I am still plugging along on my "tubular peyote" thing. lol! Someday I hope it turns itself into a necklace. I know it's not 'perfect' but LOOK! IT'S TUBULAR!  and it's WAY longer than the totally deformed 2 inches of completed bead crochet that I disgustedly threw out after 'thehellishtwoweekordeal' of trying to teach myself how to bead crochet. (for some reason some of those beads want to look purple  but they are lying, they are brown) I haven't been feeling overly inspired lately, (it could be weather related - ie. winter sucks!) but I did try some experimenting last weekend with tinted liquid polymer. I was going for a 'faux' ceramic look. I used blue because it...

Let me start by saying --> I CANNOT DRAW <-- I've always wanted to be able to draw, but I am just not artistic in that sort of way. I do a lot of doodling but in more of zentangle way, not actual doodles of people or things. Then this morning as I was having coffee and perusing my blog roll,  I came across this post by Donna at Doings of Doone She wrote: "Give yourself a quiet calm undisturbed Hour. Listen to your most lovely music whilst you draw - and do NOT listen to any thoughts in your own head - for this one hour You Are Mine, and you will enjoy your love affair with Art .... I Say Do IT.....Do It Now - you can always curse me for the wasted hour later...." And: "Get sketching people, it ain't hard girls... Art is not the preserve of the 'talented' " So I figured OK. What the heck. And guess what... I drew a face ☺ She is NOT the face I was supposed to draw. She is NOT proportional. She is NOT shaded properly. She is also NOT hi...

I have been busy. I have been busy making myself frustrated:~( I saw this necklace and I really liked the look of it.  It was a bead crochet necklace. Well..... I love to crochet so why not teach myself how to bead crochet. I spent every evening for two solid weeks trying to figure it out.  I would get about three rounds into it and loose track of where I was and that would get torn out and I would start over. Once you get 4 or 5 rounds in you can better tell where you really have to go next but I could never get that far. At the end of the two weeks I decided to try ONE more time and I actually got a piece of work that was almost 2 inches long and it was so NOT RIGHT that I gave up (for now) on bead crochet. Since I felt like I hadn't accomplished anything in two weeks I decide to do something with some pendants I made ages ago☺ This is the third try for this FINALLY simple necklace. I knew I wanted to use the pink turquoise square beads, (I don't know why but ...