Spring - finally!

Well, it seems spring has officially come to our neck of the woods. The flowers and trees seemed to be holding their collective breath and then ... one warm day and - kaboom! They bloomed, and bloomed, and bloomed....

These tulips and daffodils line our driveway. In normal years, the daffodils bloom first and are almost gone by the time the tulips start to show. This year - well, you can see the beautiful riot of colors that greets us when we return home.

Bulbs are such a gardeners' leap of faith. It seems to be quite a chore to plant them in the fall. Often it's a little nippy and/or windy when they are planted and it just isn't the most pleasant job. But then, in the spring, all the work is rewarded many times over with the glorious reminder of the return of the sun!

So, this is what happened to the beads I showed in my last post. You can see I added to the "collection".

I love this style of necklace. It may look like a random conglomeration, but you would be surprised how much thought goes into the combos and the placement of the beads.

It is casual enough to throw on with a pair of jeans and a T shirt and these colors match so many things that I wear.

The central bead is the hollow at the bottom of the picture and then there are symbols of life and spring - fauna and flora - a birdie (done in a style I have seen used by Jen Geldard - thinking of her because the class I was to have taken from her last weekend was cancelled - dang!), a fish, a butterfly and a flower.

Sometimes when I am somewhat uninspired, I grab a couple of colors and just go to town trying to make every style I can think of with those few. In this case, it was Lapis and Aloe Vera. I discovered that the dark sage transparent works well with the combo as well as a lighter blue.

Maybe next, it'll be the colors of the first picture. How springy would that be?