What's NOT Gonna Happen

I had all these ideas for places to go with the Owl tiles. Maybe even play some hands at the Chinese Garden. But as it turns out, it will just be a series of gatherings at my house. Which is NOT a bad thing!

Here are some of the iconic Oregon places I considered....

Portlandia

Lewis & Clark trail's end

Made in Oregon store

Rose Garden Arena, oops I mean Moda Center

Neveh Shalom

 Nike Campus in Beaverton

Oregon Convention Center

Pioneer Square

 Chinatown Gate

Lan Su Chinese Garden

Portland Timbers Game

 Powell's Books

Stumptown Coffee

Voodoo Doughnuts 

Food Trucks!

Portland has a lot of fun places to take visitors!

Excitement Mounts...

Getting ready to host the Owl tomorrow, I set some things on a table and walked away. Come back to find Gershon has added a sign. Do you think he is mocking my enthusiasm?  LOL!

Preparing for a Weekend of Owl Mahj

You know me... sometimes I get a little carried away. But hey, that's how I roll!  I ordered some little owl snack plates online, plus some Owl molds. None of the molds were the size I expected, but I forged ahead.  

I decided it was time to learn how to temper chocolate, so the molded owls would come out nicely. Turns out... tempering is a pain in the tush, and I probably won't do it again. But I must say, the chocolate came out glossy and smooth, just like it should. 

After some misadventures that I won't discuss, I found a video online that showed how to make these cute pretzel chip owls. The video is just a few minutes long, and and is taught by two adorable little twin girls. Too fun!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8KkMiKxDaE

I found a beaded owl pendant online, and figured out how to make it myself. Not sure what I will do with it afterward, but it was great fun to wear it throughout the Owl games.

I also found this veggie platter online, and had to make one myself. I really didn't know if it would turn out, but it did!  Gershon and I had a bet about how long it would take to prepare.  He won; it took 53 minutes.  Now we're ready for a weekend of Owl Mah Jongg gatherings.

Seeking a Friend For The Owl's Arrival

The Owl's cousins went with me today to the Audubon Society gift shop, looking for goodies for Thursday night, and we found a new friend!

Beading and Boating

I just finished this bead-embroidered pendant necklace for a fundraising auction. It's for The Valkyries, a dragon boating team here in Portland, Oregon. My daughter-in-law is very active on their rowing team. The wings are part of their logo. It will be part of an auction event next month. I hope it brings them a lot of money! (Click on one of the photos to see more detail.)

The team logo:

.

The Owl Odyssey

The Owl Odyssey

Many of us have ordered stickers and replacement tiles from "CHarli" (Carol Ann Harper) online.  But recently she posted that she's not doing any tile searches for awhile, because of some exciting new project of hers.  Well, she has revealed what the project is, and WE'RE GOING TO BE PART OF IT!!!

You can read her description below (everything below the pictures is HER text). But here's the short version: Carol Ann is sending her Mah Jongg set (with owl one-bams) around the country for individual groups to play with. Each group sends her pictures and descriptions of their adventures with the set.  

I applied to be included, and have been accepted. If I can schedule it right, I'm hoping to he able to share it with both my weekly group and my monthly Couples group.  This is going to be waaaay fun!

For more information about the Owl Odyssey, and CHarli's 

owl-bam MJ set, click on this link to her website: 

    http://www.owlodyssey.com/welcome.html

Here's a clearer pic of owl-bam tiles. 

**************************                    

The Owl Odyssey is an on-going adventure story for our wonderful mah jong community. Friends sharing our passion for the game and the love of collecting. One continuing theme discussed with my friends in emails, over the phone, and even over lunch is,  "What stories would we hear if this set could talk?" or "I wish I knew who had played with it, and where it has been".  

Just days before Christmas of 2016, something happened that inspired me . . . 

I own and love a unique Owl Bam mah jong set. My vision is for this set is to fly around the world, be played with by all of my mah jong friends and just maybe, some soon to be new friends. It would travel from city to city, foreign lands and back again, all the while collecting stories from its encounters. As Mark Twain put it,  "How far we travel matters far less than those we meet along the way." 

This Owl Bam set will answer that question of "who", "what", "where" and "when, with a documented record of its travels and all the friends who shared in it's story.

If you are interested in playing with this set, sharing the set with your group and your story with the rest of us,  this is all you need to do...

Tell me your story of why this Owl set should visit you.  Be creative.  Happy, uplifting and fun stories are encouraged.  If the Owl loves your story, the Owl will come and visit your group. Let's have some fun and make history!

The scrapbook will chronologically document all the stories, photographs, and trinkets. (please take pictures of your group playing and send it to me via email).  If you have something you would like to contribute to this Odyssey, it should be "posted" (snail mail) directly to me.  Who knows what will be added to this story and collected along the way.

At the end of its journey, the set will be auctioned off, the highest bidder will be awarded the Owl Bam set and the scrapbook complete with all the mementos.  What a treasure to have a documented history. 100% of the proceeds will go to a charity which will be announced at a later date.  

The Odyssey started on Christmas Day 2016. The Owl spent the holidays with a large extended family in Lansing MI,  next it was played with by a group in Lansing and from there it went to another family members group in Harrisburg, PA. The set is now back in parliament and waiting for its next destination.

Chatelaine's Heirloom

Last summer the Portland Bead Society hosted a weekend of awesome classes with international instructor Helena Tang-Lim.  We had a great time, and the projects are very impressive!  Also very time-consuming.  Well, I finally finished one of them during our recent PBS Bead Retreat.  Here is my completed Chatelaine's Heirloom.  I made one small change to Helena's pattern: I added magnetic clasps to the necklace strap, so it can be converted to wear without the pendant.

  

Jewish Arts Month

This morning we put up our Week #2 exhibit of Jewish Arts Month (JAM) at Mittleman JCC. Each week in March, we feature a different group of artists in the lobby exhibit.  My work is up this week.

In addition to our weekly rotation of artists, this year we have introduced a new element to JAM. This is the debut of our new charity project "6 x 6 for $36." Twenty-nine of our member artists have created artworks in their own media on small "cradle-board" canvases measuring 6" x 6".  They are all for sale for $36 each. Artists are all donating half of the sale price to our new Scholarship Fund, and many have chosen to donate the entire sale price to the Fund.  A number of these sold on our opening night, but there are still quite a few left to choose from.  Come find yours soon!!

In the Beginning...

I haven't worn these earrings in ages, but decided to wear them this evening.  I bought them 23 years ago, and that started the whole thing!  Susan Hillyer, the woman who made them, came to deliver them, and I begged her to tell me how to make them. The rest is history.  Over the years I have re-strung them, replaced the faded seed beads, and added new ear-wires. But the pattern and the materials in the fringe are all from the original pair. And I still love them!

Bead L.O.V.E.

In a time of so much hostility, Marcia DeCoster and some other beading luminaries have started something called BeadLove, and it's off to a running start with a communal project creating the letters for the word LOVE in beadwork. Each week, Marcia published the pattern for another letter, and we all followed along. I got off to a late start, but caught up and now I've finished all four letters. I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but it's been a lovely experience, especially seeing what so many other leaders did with the same pattern!

Here are my letters, and a link to the site where you can see the others.

http://lovebeadlove.blogspot.com/2017/01/bead-love-by-marcia-decoster.html

Worth a Try

A couple of friends and I did a 2-day pop-up show at a local brew-pub, Baerlic Brewing.  No charge for the space, so it was worth a try.
Lesson learned: beer drinkers don't buy jewelry, but they do like glass plates and wooden trays.

However, one young couple was very cute... the young woman really admired a fairly expensive bracelet of mine, and later when she went to the restroom, the young man hurried over and bought it for her. It made my day!

Post-Olympic Beading

Since the Olympic Pool necklace was so successful this summer, I decided to make another Cellini Spiral necklace. The new one features Autumn colors, and satisfied this month's beading challenge to create something with only seed beads. I love how it came out!!

So now I have summer and fall. Maybe I should do two more for winter & spring?

.

Olympic Beadwork?

This month's beading challenge from Operation Tackle That Bead Stash is anything related to the Olympics. After several false starts, I came up with this crazy idea.

3 metallic colors to represent the medals: gold, silver, and bronze.

4 more colors of blues and greens, representing the ever-changing colors of the Olympic diving pool this summer in Rio!

I've been wanting to do a Cellini-spiral necklace, and here's my chance. The spirals represent the twists and turns that bring an athlete to the amazing Olympic experience.

So here it is:  "Olympic Pool."

Hamsa!

This is my latest work, created for an online beading challenge to do something that includes  an eye.  How could I NOT participate??
I haven't done any bead embroidery in awhile, but this Hamsa wall-hanging was a pleasure to work on, and flowed pretty easily once I got started.  It's about 5" x 6", beaded on stiff interfacing, and backed with ultra-suede. The beadwork was very loosely planned, with most choices being made as I went along.  Materials include stone, glass, metal, crystal, shell, and pearls.
I completed a lot of it during my recent trip to Seattle, so it evokes that feeling when I look at it.

My questions now are:
- Hanger or frame?
- Sell it or keep it?
- How much can i charge for 30-40 hours of work?

High-quality problems, right?

P.S.  The underlying Hamsa shape and lotus-flower idea came from a free clip-art graphic by Rebecca Davidson.

How I Spent My Thursday Night

I was disappointed that I couldn't be at Mah Jongg on Thursday night, but it turned out really well. 

My Mother-in-Law Sonia was invited to be the guest speaker at a Holocaust Remembrance event, and it was a women's event, so Gershon couldn't attend.  I felt I should be there for moral support. 

Well, she did a great job, and I was really proud of her.  The young women were so impressed, and grateful to her for sharing her painful personal history for their benefit.  In the end, she did an artful job of bringing it all around to today's refugee issue. With her heavy accent and quirky English, she was still articulate & eloquent, never dipping into self-pity, and emphasizing her point effectively that humans can, and must, survive much more than they think they can, and make something worthwhile of their lives.

During Sonia's talk, there was an amusing moment when some of the women realized that she was Gershon's mother. Many of them know him through their children, because he leads children's services at Neveh Shalom. Suddenly the whole context of the evening made more sense to them.

The event was in a private home, attended by about 15 people. Mostly it was young moms, but there were also a few kids, a baby, and a couple of people my age. Also two dogs and a rabbit. We got the hostess' 10-year-old son to take a group photo.  The feeling of intimacy was lovely.  Sonia gave her talk, about 25 minutes, and then there was a Q&A session. Once the formal part of the evening ended, individuals had a chance to talk with Sonia, and she was really in her element.

In the end, everything worked out the way it was supposed to, and I was glad I went.