Divine Mercy Jewelry and Other Things

 My beautiful friend came over to pick up a rosary and she kindly posed for me with my new jewelry. 

Divine Mercy Necklace

Divine Mercy Bracelet to match necklace

Here's a close up of the kaleidoscope bead out of the rays I used on my Divine Mercy Jesus bead and I used this bead on the jewelry and the chaplet below.  The kaleidoscope bracelet has quickly turned into my favorite bracelet that matches with everything. I may have enough beads to put this in my shop. I will be putting all the other things in my shop this summer sometime.  Email me if you want something sooner. 

Divine Mercy Chaplet with all Handmade beads and Divine Mercy Jesus

Divine Mercy Chaplet Centerpiece

Divine Mercy Bracelet

Kaleidoscope Bracelet Handmade beads

This kaleidoscope bracelet has quickly turned into my favorite bracelet that matches with everything. I may have enough beads to put this in my shop.

 I will be putting all the other things in my shop this summer sometime.  Email me if you want something sooner. Enjoy the fleeting summer days!

My Baby's Feet

Faustina has found her feet. I love when babies do this.

I am out of baby feet beads, but we having lots of fun with real baby feet over here! 

Faustina is developing beautiful and is doing well. 

Kaliedoscope Fun

June has been a nice, laid back month and I've had some time to have fun with kaleidoscope beads. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these yet...probably bracelet and necklace beads.

Divine Mercy Bead

centerpiece beads and Pater beads

Let's see, where did I start with this bead...

after I had my inspiration ready, a rough sketch and a bunch of mixed clay ready to use, I started making the eyes. 

I kept working on the face, agonizing over the facial hair.  I never realized how little I knew about the placement of men's facial hair! Here's the finished face.  You can also see the heart and hand in this photo.

Then I put together the rays. Here is the red ray...

Fast forward a few steps..working on the halo.

 Fast forward super speed...finished cane:

I had some problems with the consistency of the clay on the lower half of the cane and much of it was lost. However, the most important part remained and I even made some square beads by slicing off the sides. The smaller squares are for rosary beads, the larger ones are for bracelets.

My next post will be on the meaningful imaginary in the Divine Mercy Jesus bead.

My Almost 6 Month Old

support sitting!

I can't believe I'm even typing these words, "almost 6 months old"! Has it really been a month since my last post! Where did May go?? 

Well, for us, we had a wonderful visit from Minnesota family, a baptism, and we just finished up with a visit from my husband's parents.  The fun never stops! and somehow neither does the dirty laundry or the dirty kitchen even when we're having fun. That's just not right.

Check out my Ann Burt retablos! I know, I need to rearrange them, but aren't the neat? The kids love them too. Here's a link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Art4thesoul

Faustina had her first meal in May and many more since. She enjoys everything I've given her so far except for French onion soup. I am laughing as I recall her face. Babies make the cutest looks of disgust. They also make the cutest pouty faces.

eating her avo

Speaking of food, my oldest son has hit some sort of magical time where he suddenly likes everything I cook! Well, almost everything.  He now whoops in approval of what I am cooking and during dinner, he showers me with compliments.  It's an amazing transformation. I've waiting 5 and a half LONG years for this day.  I'm still in disbelief.  It's not like I've changed anything about what we are eating. He's always hungry too. I guess he's going through a growth spurt.   I am so happy about this, I feel like doing this:

I've been working a new bead. I hope it turns out so I show you...I've only been working on it for a month-almost. It's almost done if I could only find the time to work on it!

But life with the kids is the most important and I'm trying to enjoy it amid the busy. Such a balance! I try to take my cues from these silly guys who always know how to enjoy life:

 Eric and Faustina play the piano whenever she is upset and it always calms her down. She loves music!