Here's my offering for AEM20 (which I also happen to wearing today).  (and I just realized I have two AEM18s, so I had to get in here and put the actual "20" on today's…I'll just leave two 18s.  What's a bit of confusion).  Happy me, the jewelry I've put upyesterday and today is for me, not for sale.  This is Ocean Jasper; the earring and accent green beads are African glass).  I love Ocean Jasper – just look at all the colors – I wish I could get a better close up – I'm starting to think my lens is off kilter with what it focuses on – the top beads are nice and clear while the focal bead is a bit blurry.  New camera.  I need a new camera (but only for close ups).

So today I am celebrating beads (day 2 of celebrating with Sue at Artful Adventures, traveling the Life is a Verb project).  I would like to point out that my celebrations are in no particular order, therefore my family may also show up at some point, but it's not like I don't celebrate them (we just celebrated with candles last Sunday, actually).  Anyhoo, here are today's celebration picture, starting with  a closeup  of my "celebration gang" because they're so fun to celebrate with, moving on to beads in general (ok, my bead station is a mess.  I know that), and finishing with my very own hand made glass beads.  They are hardly the lovelies that I made into a necklace yesterday, but you have to start somewhere.  I am working on finding a kiln that can fuse/slump glass and also act as an annealor for larger beads.  I figure whatever beads I create will cost about $100 a piece (well, really, hopefully, eventually I'll get the hang and they won't net out to that much.  But I do understand the artist's "Oh I can do that!" and spending thousands when you could go buy more than enough to make you happy forever from someone who is actually good at it.  But where's the fun and stretching in that, right?!)

All of these are happily pasted into my journal and years from now daughter or son will note my small celebrations and wonder why they weren't first (just kidding.  They know they're first).

thought for the day:  Commit to something you love and you will find that the needed supplies come to hand.  ..Our creative energy triggers a creative response…It may well be that the "self" in self-expression is not only the voice of our finite, individual self but also the voice of the Self, that larger and higher force of which we are both subject and substance.  When we express our creativity, we are a conduit for the Great Creator to explore, express, and expand its divine nature and our own.  We are like songbirds.  When one of us gives voice to our true nature, it is contagious and others soon give tongue as well  There is an infallibility to the law that as we each seek to express what we are longing to say [create], there is always someone or something that is longing to hear [or see] precisely what we have expressed.  Julia Cameron, Walking in This World