It's Been a While, But........

Hey there fellow Bloggers, Anyone still here at my lonely deserted blog? Anyhow, been on sort of an extended vacation. Realized that I am missing my blog, so I have plans to bring it back for the new year. In the mean time, could you please help me support handmade, which is something I am very passionate about?

Not to leave you without any eye candy, here is my latest creation, which can be found here

 http://www.zibbet.com/abracadebra .

Thanks for visiting my blog, can't wait to start posting regularly once again in 2014, I really do miss blogging.

TTYL and make it a good night,

Debbie

Z End

Mission accomplished. Today is April 30th, the last day of April and the final day of A to Z blogging. We made it. Let's have a big, collective pat on the back. To all the new bloggers I have met on this trip, Thank you for the many hours of happy blog reading. I learned so much this month and had a good time doing it. Thanks. So I do indeed have a Z post, but 1st there is the matter of announcing the winner of the giveaway I blogged about on G day.  Through random.org, The winning # was 2, but I am having trouble saving the widget on my blog showing that. 
Anyhow,  Looks like the winner of the beading book is commenter # 2, who just happens to be JoJo.  Congrats and enjoy.

Today's letter is Z and I want to tell you about Zibbett.  Most people have heard of Etsy which is the Grand Daddy of buying and selling handmade on line, but not too many people have heard of Zibbet, which is a younger, up and coming version of Etsy. There are many reasons to buy handmade, one being that you are supporting the livelihood of a single crafter, who makes stuff with love and care instead of lining the pockets of some sweat shop owning corporation. Another excellent reason to buy handmade is the fact that you can get some truly unique one of a kind gifts by shopping handmade.

Two of our fellow A to Z bloggers not only write extremely interesting blogs, but they are the owners of truly awsome Zibbet shops full of their gorgeous handmade creations. Sandra is the blogger behind A Writer Weaves a Tale  http://sandrasfiberworks.blogspot.com/ , and her blog has made me laugh, has made me cry, but always leaves me thinking about being a better mother and a better daughter. She also owns a Zibbet shop which is chock full of beautiful handwoven items such as this lovely purple and lilac shoulder wrap.

Here is the link to Sandra's shop to see more http://www.zibbet.com/sfiberworks

Another A to Z blogger with an awesome blog and Zibbet Shop is Barbra from All About the Buttons.  She is one of those who can effortlessly blog about any subject and her posts are always refreshing and honest and can be found here. http://allaboutthebuttons.blogspot.com/ . Barbra's Zibbet Shop is an entire craft show in itself.  She is an avid crafter who can make just about anything. And make it well, too.  Some of my favorite items in her shop are the fabric covered tape measures and the upcycled CD clocks, such as this one which is baseball themed.

Here is the link to Barbra's shop to see more http://www.zibbet.com/AllAboutTheButtons

Finally, saving the shameless self promotion for last, and the very end of A to Z blogging, here is the link to my Zibbet shop. http://www.zibbet.com/abracadebra

OK, mission accomplished, my final post all about Zibbet for the final day of A to Z blogging.

TTYL and make it a good night,

Debbie

The Importance of being Yellow

So today for the letter Y, I decided to blog about yellow and how important the color yellow really is.
As an added bonus I am going to keep this post short and sweet while ultimately revealing the most valuable yellow thing ever built in the entire history of the whole world. (At least in my honest and humble opinion ;).

Yellow is used for the color of traffic signs in order to warn you of upcoming situations or obstacles in the flow of traffic.

As you can see this is an important use of the color yellow. But an even more important use of yellow  is that it is the color most often used to depict the Sun, which is needed to sustain all forms of life.

Vincent Van Gogh, Sower against the Sun, 1888

So of course the Sun is indeed important and it does look good in yellow, But moving on, it is now time to unveil the most important use of the color yellow, ever. Get ready for it..... This is important.

So as you can see by the pics, the most important use of the color yellow ever is the yellow brick road leading to Emerald City and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. How else would Dorothy ever have gotten home? Where else on earth would Lion get his courage, or Scarecrow his Brain or Tin Man his heart? And how would they have gotten there without the Yellow Brick Road?

TTYL and make it a good night,

Debbie

Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Hello  again Bloggy Buddies. So we are almost to the end of A to Z Blogging and so far you have learned that I am a blogger, I am a beader and I love anything to do with fashion. But I bet you didn't know that I am also a bit of an Astronomy Geek, did you? Well, I am and I spend a lot of time exploring NASA's website because I happen to be totally fascinated by all things celestial. But we are all a bit curious about our Universe and all that is unknown out there, aren't we?

Anyhow, today for "X" day, I decided to blog about NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. But don't worry, I won't bore you with a bunch of Rocket Science. Instead I want to show you some amazing pictures.  First though, I will tell you what the Chandra X-Ray Observatory is in as few words as possible, ok?

Chandra X-ray Observatory

Chandra is an x-ray telescope which was launched by the space shuttle Columbia in 1999 to further study the Universe via X-Ray Astronomy.  It would take an entire book to explain X-Ray Astronomy so lets just say it is the study of extremely hot and energetic light and is classified as major physics.  The Chandra X-Ray Telescope can obtain x-ray images of exotic environments to help understand the structure of the Universe. Its increased clarity helps scientists answer fundamental questions about the origin, evolution and destiny of the Universe. So that's enough Science for one day, not so bad right? Now on to the amazing pics.

The Tarantula Nebula, 16,000 light years from earth contains thousands of young massive stars making it an excellent place to study the birth of stars.

These are the stars in the center of the Constellation Orion, 1,500 light years away.

This is a Supermassive Black Hole at the center of our galaxy, 26,000 light years away.

And that's the end of show and tell, because if I don't end this right here, I could go on forever! That's how fascinated I am with this subject.  Anyhow, I hope you liked the pics and didn't find the text too boring, but there you have it in a nutshell, Astronomy 101 brought to you by Abracadebra, the letter X, and The Chandra X-Ray Observatory. If you did find this post to be interesting, here is a link to Chandra on NASA's website.  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/index.html.

TTYL and make it a good day,

Debbie

What A Wonderful World

OK, today you get a lucky break from my usual A to Z rambling, thanks to my job.  Ten hours work yesterday, Twelve hours work today and Ten hours work tomorrow, means you get to watch this cool video I found on You Tube. And you are lucky, because otherwise I was going to blog about Willy Wonka and his inspirational but silly quotes ;)  I have always loved Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World and whoever did this video, did an excellent job with it. Enjoy.



TTYL and make it a good day,
Debbie

Valentino Red / Valentino Garavani Virtual Museum

Hey there fellow bloggers,  by now you may have figured out that I am a huge fan of fashion and fashion design? So of course I had decided that for the letter "V" I just had to blog about the King of Couture himself, Valentino.  But with five decades of amazing contributions to the fashion industry, where would I begin, where would I end? After much editing I have narrowed the post down to two subjects, Valentino Red and the Valentino Garavani Virtual Museum.

Valentino first started using the color red alot in the seventies after attending an opera and becoming enchanted with a red costumed diva. Soon after, his trademark shade of red was actually given a name, "Rosso Valentino" (Valentino Red). Here's what Valentino has to say about the color red:

"Red has guts... deep, strong, dramatic. A Geranium red, A Goya red... to be used like gold for furnishing a house...For clothes, it is strong, like black and white."  "Woman usually prefer to wear black at events because it is safe, however, if there is one woman wearing red, she will be the eye-catcher of the evening. Its as if the room is suddenly illuminated. Simply perfect for a grand entrance." 

Ann Hathaway, on the Red Carpet, in Valentino

In December, 2011, Valentino's long-time partner, Giancarlo Giammetti unveiled his brainchild, The Valentino Garavani Virtual Museum which houses all 5 decades of Valentino's work. This revolutionary virtual museum contains 5000 images of Valentino's dresses, photos and drawings, and 180 fashion show videos. I have downloaded it and it is a truly amazing retrospective of fashion from the 60's into the 2000's and there is even a "Masterclass" with Valentino, where he discusses how he created some of his most famous dresses.  If you are into fashion as much as I am, you NEED to download this virtual museum. I can not count the hours I have already spent in this amazing 3D museum just wandering around in amazement and awe.

Here is the link, if you want to dowload the museum: http://www.valentino-garavani-archives.org/

 

TTYL and make it a great day,

Debbie

Ugly Necklace Contest

Here's an amusing thought, what if you could win a prize for creating a truely ugly piece of jewelry? What if you could submit your worst work and take 1st place?  Wouldn't you love to turn your "Ugly" into a major shopping spree?

For the past decade, The Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts in Nashville, TN has been sponsoring the extremely successful and popular Ugly Necklace Contest, which is more of a design challenge than one may think.

An Ugly Necklace from Land of Odds Website

Here's What Land of Odds, another sponsor has to say about the contest. "It is difficult to design an ugly necklace. A designer's mind and eyes want to take them away from "ugly" towards good principles of jewelry design. While a good deal of perceptions about what is ugly is subjective, there is a strong underlying, objective grammar of good jewelry design which steers even the weakest designer away from "ugly". Because of this any jewelry designer who attempts to achieve "Ugly", has to have enough control and discipline to override, perhaps overcome, intuitive, internally integrated principles of good design. Thus the best jewelry designers will be those artists who can design the ugliest necklaces.  

Talk about reverse psychology. I am so getting this. It is too late to enter this year, but I am pretty sure that this is something I would love to do next year. It sounds like a lot of fun as well as being a different type of exercise in creativity. How about you would you do it? Would you create an ugly piece of jewelry or ugly artwork for prizes. Would you find it challenging? Or how about the writers following along for A to Z blogging? Would you consider writing a bad story an exercise in creativity? Would you do it for prizes?

Here is a link to the 2010 finalists page. http://www.landofodds.com/store/ugly8contest.htm . There is some amusing stuff here and as an extra challenge, they had to write a poem to go with the necklace.

TTYL and make it a good day,
Debbie