Birds in Beads: A New Art Medium! IKEA play set plastic beads...

My Grandma got a set of play set bead art for my niece-- who seemed much more content to spray water in the garden, and run around in the summer sunshine... So I tried my hand at a new medium: plastic bead art!

It was quite the process, the first round of which began in a series of two disasters, one of which was my Grandma's 20 year old elderly cat (who looks a bit more like a sock puppet, now) jumping on the frame and exploding the carefully-lain beads everywhere... And then my own mistake when trying to iron the beads to set, where I practically just dumped the beads everywhere, not realizing you iron the beads ON the frame, first...

Setbacks aside, however-- the process was really mind-clearing, and hearing the sounds of my niece playing, or talking to family while fishing the specific colored beads from the mixed jar (for what seemed like hours), was surprisingly relaxing.

Once I got over the anxiety that something would swoop down and fling the meticulously lain beads away, again...

Anyways, the designs turned out interesting! It was cool to turn familiar shapes and lines into 8-bit, which reminds me a bit of old school flyswatters with knitted/embroidered designs. These are far too fragile for fly-murder, though!

Blue jay with a sunset background, please excuse the foggy lens! My phone exploded and I tried to superglue it back together-- long story very short: don't try that, cheapo.

My favorite of muses: the great blue heron. 

Edit: I have no idea how to get image insert to work-- I swear it's showing in edit-mode... But here's the link to imgur: https://imgur.com/a/kCnBPf8