Beads, Bugs & Brian Bateman

It just doesn't get any better than this!

I'm excited about having a nice whistle again instead of using a plastic one, or worse yet ... my fingers.  I can whistle pretty cleanly with my fingers, but the second I put my fingers in my mouth, it makes me think about everything I've touch in the last couple of hours and, as many people know, when working with sheep and dogs, that's not real appetizing.

Anyway, since I lost my buffalo horn whistle along with the nice lanyard I had it on, I needed to make a new lanyard for my new corian whistle.  I had some charms from a gift my awesome neighbor, Diana, gave me and really wanted to incorporate those into the lanyard.  The pieces are little, brown Reese's peanut butter cups, and one even says "Reese's" right across it.  How cool is this????  And appropriate to start Reese on whistles with!

My deck.  I love my deck.  I spend more time on my deck than in my house.  Being that my "brand new future ex" is working a million hours a week and isn't around to distract me from the million things I should be doing ... I need to find a way to distract myself by doing the stuff I want to do.  So, I went and found my beading stuff, and sat out at my new table and chair set, and whipped up my new favorite album ... The Brian Bateman Blend's self-titled album ... and cranked it up while designing my new lanyard.  When the sun started to set, the bugs came and joined me and we had a regular party on the deck!

So, while this isn't my best work (I am seeing just how blind I am becoming as I age), it will hold me over until I am able to afford the chocolate colored pearls and Swarovski crystals I'd like to make this with.  I couldn't figure out how to make the three charms work on the lanyard, so I whipped out a pair of earrings.  It's a bit (I accidentally typed "bitch" ... how ironic) much to wear it all together, but here they are.

The new whistle is a gold-ish color, so hopefully it matches as well as I think it will.

I've got a really cool little mini-vacation coming up this week.  I'll fill you all in later with details and photos.  I can't wait!

Jodi