Beach Cat Beads: March 2012

Wow! It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted, but at least I have something to show for my time way. :) My husband, Dell, and I renovated our master bathroom. Yeah!!! Truthfully, he did most of the work and I handled design and procurement. Here are a couple of pictures of my coastal cottage style bathroom.

My beautiful new pedestal sink! It was a bargain too. Home Depot has discontinued offering the Kohler Devonshire line in the store and will only have it special order. So I got the last sink for 80% off! We used bead board for the walls and Dell installed lots of molding to give it that cottage look. The walls are painted "antique linen" with white trim. The antique linen paint has a hint of green and a hint of yellow depending on the lighting.

See the frosted edge around the mirror? It has a cool retro look that I really like.

This little alcove was originally the shower. It was so cramped and cluttered. Now I have all my girlie supplies organized in this cute cabinet. It helps me keep the space neat and tidy!

My beautiful new shower. This space was a mirrored closet that had the water heater in it. We moved the water heater to the utility room and that made space for the perfect size shower. It has a nice shelf for shampoo and soap and a beautiful brushed nickle faucet.

I have had this mermaid and dolphin sculpture for many years. They are a soothing verdegris with hints of warm bronze. Perfect for my coastal style!

The little compass was a gift from a neighbor. It is from the 1930s. My Mom gave me the little ceramic flip flop. It was made by students at the Brevard Achievement Center.

This lovely watercolor of a dory is by Ruth Wilton, a Nova Scotian artist. I really like the cool greens and yellow in the painting and am so lucky to have this original piece of art.

Sorry I don't have before pictures. I disliked the room so much, I refused to take the pictures! It was a sad 1980s disaster with too much mirrored wall and Hollywood style lighting. Now it's a soothing retreat! Tomorrow, I will be back to beads! Happy Caturday from the Beach Cats!

Today is the day!Let's all do the Bead Soup Party Blog Hop! First a picture of the beads I received from my partner Menka Gupta. Menka sent me an amazing agate focal, some tiger eye, jade, freshwater pearls, lovely toggle clasp and more.

I really love the beautiful greens and carnelian colors in the focal and wanted to show it off properly. I tried several different designs and wasn't satisfied. I knew I wanted the focal to be displayed horizontally and wanted some sterling wire. After several false starts, I ended up with this.

I hammered a sterling frame and wrapped it with finer gauge wire adding three pretty briolettes. I used tiny silver seed beads for the necklace and included carnelian chips, agate rondelles, amazonite rondelles and tiger eye lozenges and squares. I am happy with the design and will create some earrings and a bracelet with the left over pieces.
Well I am heading off to Menka's blog to see what she made with the beads I sent her.

Hostess, Lori Anderson Special Book Sneak Peeks, Cindy Wimmer

1. Adlinah Kamsir (Singapore) and Hajer Waheed (Kingdom of Bahrain)

2. Adrienn Lukacs (Hungary) and Agata Grygiel (Poland)

3. Agi Kiss (Hungary) and Carolien Muller-Genger (the Netherlands)

4. Agnes Asztalos (Hungary) and B.R. Kuhlman

5. Alesha Conklin and Becki Mendivil

6. Alice Peterson and Carol Dillman

7. Alicia Marinache (Canada) and Dita Basu

8. Amanda Dittloff and Brandy Thomason McNair

9. Amanda Tibbetts and Andrea Trank

10. Amy Freeland and Kay Mallery

11. Andra Weber and Christine Murrow