Once a teacher, always...

This afternoon I spend a wonderful two hours teaching two lovely ladies about digital cameras, computers and merging the two. We had a great time and they put up with my less than perfect knowledge, ending with them being more comfortable with their cameras, downloading photo managing software (Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Free Edition 3.2), uploading photos to share on the web and just getting up and going with their cameras. Fun.

If you are looking for an easy piece of photo software try going on the Photoshop website for a free download as mentioned above. You can put in many, many pictures from your camera or those already on your computer. The photo managing abilities are clear and simple. The photo enhancing capabilities are few but easy to use and to back out of if you don't like the changes. You will not find the manipulating abilities extensive but for a few enhancements, it is just fine.

I like the Kodak Gallery for uploading pictures to the web. Saves emailing pics and clogging up some friends' email accounts. (Those with dial-up particularly.) You can choose to share with the world or just with friends and family.

So maybe you'd like to get out there and upgrade your photo/computer skills. And don't forget the videos you can take of your grandkids for emailing to the world!

Mind Moments

This title may confuse some but my creative outlets are for my mind. Something sweet and lovely happens inside my head when I see, create and behold beautiful things. Here is a second bracelet completed in green tones with purple accents. I still like the blue one better but this is very close to the first one which I sold. How exciting that was! I showed it to a group of acquaintances and made an immediate sale. A few weeks later I met Katie in the market and she was wearing her bracelet. I had a nostalgic visit with my handiwork.

Also in this picture are earrings in progress. One is finished and the other is waiting for the silver earring wire to be attached. Tonight I'll do it.

She was short, plump, with blonded hair, a few spots telling her age, and laugh lines, her ready smile. Her eyes sparkled with every new idea and softened with love as she thought of her new granddaughter and expected grandson. Whenever she mentioned “her” Ron of 42 years marriage her voice warmed and her smile widened. On the surface she was a happy woman.

But underneath the loving-life persona lurked questions and doubt. Was there not more to life? She understood the lyric, “Is that all there is?” and continually looked for new fulfillment. She swam, walked, biked for a healthy heart. She read, read, and read some more for her mind. Ideas excited her, especially those which came unbidden as she thought about what she was reading. And then she expanded to writing.

Her first book was for her husband and two grown children, the self-published account of her childhood, growing up in a loving family of thirteen children on a farm in Oxford County. She inserted pictures, each one a song of her childhood. Her children were entranced.

Then she wrote a similar book of her love affair with her husband and their joy in raising their boy and girl. Again pictures prompted memories and she laughed and cried as she composed at the computer. Another popular self-published volume.

Her thirty-something son challenged her to write: “Mom, you’re sixty years old, in perfect health, with lots of writing skills. If you don’t write that novel now, when will you?” And so she started. And she wrote. She wrote of history, and love, of war and death, of babies and heartache. She wrote a novel of over 100,000 words.

Now she is stuck in a rewrite funk, trying to decide how best to bring this baby to its birth day. And she has put it aside for a few weeks while her life smooths out again and she regains the strength and, yes, the fortitude to persist.

And so I am here.

NOTE: The above is the bio I have written for my writing piece for our inaugural writers' group meeting tomorrow. Hope they like it.

Beadergirl is Back

Today I am inspired to write on my blog again. Why? Look at the bracelet I just completed this afternoon!

Here are a few things from the last few weeks, a beaded chain necklace, one with a Swarovski pendant, a dragonfly focal point, another Swarovski pendant necklace and a hemalyke choker. The possibilities are endless.

I got the idea to try some other medallions for neck jewelry using all Swarovski crystals. They are stunning. I think I'll use the chain stitch from the pic above to finish them off.

I also have fallen in love with the butterfly bracelets, a course I took last year. Here I've made them in black, blue, pink and beige, all fabulous.

Of course you noticed the other bracelets in the two pics. It is such fun to use memory wire and use up leftover beads, letting my imagination go wild. My friend taught me the bottom stitch in pink and black. It is somewhat heavy and I think I'll have to redo the clasp as I'm not happy with it yet.

All of these will be on sale along with hundreds more at our Christmas Open House sale on November 8. Should be fun!