JAM FINE ARTS

Oddball Art Labs organized an amazing art show with a huge reception on July 13, 2018 at Artspace in downtown Elgin, IL. If you ever have a chance to participate in one of their show/happenings jump on it! The show was a blast of pop surrealism. Click here to go to their Facebook page and see some video and more photos from the show.
JAM Arts’ contribution was a bead mosaic vase entitled “The Hapless Missionaries Arrive on the Ravenous ExoMoon.” I finished it the day before the entry deadline. Here’s a cell phone shot of it. (If you look closely you can see that the glue is still white because it is fresh, fresh, fresh.)

…Ravenous Exomoon was inspired by my youngest daughter’s TY toys with giant eyes and some homage to Lisa Frank, as well.
Here are some more cell phone shots from Strange Imaginations and Other Perplexing Wonders:

Materials for necklace above:

• 2mm rattail satin cord. (I recommend turquoise, blue, white, grey, or silver)
• 100- everyday 1″ silver safety pins
• 100-4mm blue, turquoise, or white miracle beads (if you can’t find miracle beads use a contrasting color that is lighter or darker than your other beads)
• 1 to 5 colors of size 6 seed beads (E beads)
• needle and thread the same color as your satin cord
• measuring tape to measure your neck, wrist, ankle
• Scotch tape
• Another safety pin as a very appropriate clasp
• Optional dab of glue, wax, or nail polish
  

Prepare a length of your satin cord to twice the length you want your necklace plus another six to eight inches. Protect one end of your cord from fraying by wrapping a tiny piece of clear tape to the end of it. Twist it into a needle shape to feed it through the tail of the safety pins. (You can also use glue or nail polish if you feel like waiting for it to dry)

Follow the diagrammed pattern above. Pick up a safety pin and add a miracle bead, then two medium blue beads, then two light blue beads. Make two of these and string the looped tail of the safety pins onto your satin cord. (This repeat is important to make it look like a wave instead of a zigzag.) Make sure your safety pins are always facing the same direction. The next pin should start with dark blue–then miracle bead–then one medium blue–then two light blues. You will always have five beads to a pin.
You do not need to only use 3 colors of beads. For this project you can do one color of blue background and just do the wave in a contrasting color OR you can use 5 different shades of blue light to dark with whatever contrasting wave color you want.
Slide the pins down as needed to give you a 3″ tail of cord near where you started. When you have strung all of your pins, check over your work then loop back through the head of the last pin you added and continue stringing through the rest of the heads of the safety pins. When you’ve finished temporarily knot the two ends of the satin cord together to measure it or fit it. Make adjustments as needed.
When you are satisfied with the length, use your needle and thread to stitch the two ends of the cord together so that when you hold the necklace up the loops coming out of both ends are equal and not too long. You can put a little bit of glue or wax on the stitched ends to keep them from fraying.
Use plain 1″ silver safety pin as a clasp. Voila!