The eyes have it!

I went from Buddha Eyes to creepy eyes!  A while back I bought a grab bag full of clearance beads, most of which were great.  There was one strand that completely creeped me out.  From a distance I guess you could say they looked purple - ish... but close up they were disturbing and to me at least, looked like dead eyeballs.  Take a look and see for yourself... am I wrong?

I've been keeping an eye out (haha!) for beads I could put with the eyeballs and make something to go with my witch costume on Halloween (I swear, it's a costume!).  I thought along the liens of witches brew, bat wings, or even black hats would be fun.

In the end, I settled on these plain black glass beads.  They remind me of pupils. How the pupils got separated from the eyeballs we'll never know.  Is that a cackle I hear in the distance?

On to something more beautiful!  Greta mentioned the white lotus seeds she shared with me and I realized I had not posted them.  I recently restrung them to include this chunk of jadeite.

Along with the lotus seeds are unakite, jasper, mahogany obsidian, and tiny bone mahjong tile beads.  I think this one wants to be worn to the art museum on Saturday.

I also made earrings out of red, green, and blue pairs of mahjong tile beads.  Just for good measure I included the pair I made in July in the photo.

The tiles Greta gave me were small, but they look big compared to the others here.

These pairs are matched with colored marble with the exception of the green.  The green set is malachite. 

I like the 'chinese lantern' style shape overall, and now I have a pair to wear no matter the color of my mood.

Last but not least, I finally decided on stringing a chocolate brown and pale green glass heart with brown glass pearls.  I struggled a bit with this glass heart because the pattern seemed so busy, even though I loved the colors.

When I came across the pearls, I realized I could change up the strand by size and not color, and that would help me keep the balance I wanted. Alternating larger and smaller glass pearls did the trick.

I added some jade to the earrings to tie into the pale green in the glass.  It's admittedly hard to see here, bad light and poor photography, I admit it!

For the moment I am back to crochet and will share those projects soon.  In the meantime, today is my daughter Christy's birthday.  She's 27, which means I am not.  In fact, she is now the age I was when I re-met Steve at our 10 year high school reunion... can you believe it?!  Happy Birthday Christy!