After deciding it was time to tidy my stringing area—even if I hadn't completed all the beaded flowers I wanted to—I strung up a bunch of mouse tails to ‘use up’ all the seed beads that had piled up over the 6–8 weeks I spent developing materials for the class & exploring new french-beaded flower ideas. This mouse is the first of that series to be showcased[1] .
Length: 8.5 inches (not including large keyring); focal bead, about 13–14mm. lampwork, vintage czech pressed, goldstone , seed beads, dyed fwp, leopardskin jasper, wood, unidentified splotched stone, beadalon, base metal, 22ga 308 stainless steel. July 2018. Image edits: combos of 2 exposures; cloning to remove dust from background; cropping. E620 with zuiko macro lens and manual flash.
The focal bead, which is about 13mm (roughly the same size as the one shown yesterday) was probably made as part of a 2005 bead challenge that sat in my samples box for a decade or so before I decided, since I'd never looked at any of the beads excepting those that ended up in the bead curtain,[2] ever again to throw in the open bead tray of mostly designer odds-and-ends that I use for dead mice and other projects for which I don't feel the need to specifically make beads.[3] —It's not a perfect choice, as it only echoes the white and green, leaving aside the yellow, and aqua, as well as the blues & browns in the tail-tips.
Much of the tails of this mouse reflect the colour scheme I used for a second dragonfly pin sample, which also shaded from yellow, green & to aqua—those being the colours that were the correct size & on sale when I purchased beads for the class, along with a bunch of clear silver-lined bugles for the wings. It works pretty well, I think.
The mouse is a little bit unusual that brownish bead in the upper right that looks a bit like goldstone is actually wood. The mustard yellow & black diamond is vintage. I also took advantage of the fact that I'd purchased some thinner 308 (22ga) steel for the class, that is easier to use for the gallery wrap on the mouse body.
[1]though to be sure I have a backlog of other dead mice that I need to post...
[2]Specifically, the vases with the open loops—if you follow the link & click on the working image, you can see the dark green vessel with loops in the lower part of the image pretty clearly.
[3]Even if this bead isn't specifically part of this project, I'm pretty sure at least the colour choice was inspired by it.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
