Koi inspiration and evolution

Wandering around the internet I came across Megan Mae Daily wonderful silk button flowers and obi belts.
 (http://www.meganmaedaily.com/p/obi-belts.html)
 (http://www.meganmaedaily.com/p/buttonflowers.html)

 I just adore them, they are so individual and just what I need... mine are in the mail!

Megan agreed to a partial trade with one of my beads and requested one of my fish beads...

in colours to go with her fantastic koi socks shown here: http://www.meganmaedaily.com/2012/11/koi-socks.html
 
I love when I get outside inspiration from such a creative source. It took me a couple of experiments to come up with a koi fish I was happy with, technically it isn't a bead because I ended up stretching out the body and making the tail closed in off the end of the mandrel.So I had to glue in a bail for him to hang from but I love the shape and how the curve makes it look like it's swimming, so much better than the fat barrel fish I made before!

I fell in love with this bright 'special' effetre orange too,

 I love how the colour intensifies more in some spots

and how it looks more opaque under indoor lights. I think the green is effetre olive, I just had a half rod of the colour I had in mind. It was so much fun to make and I got really excited with ideas and possibilities. I'm definitely going to be making more fish and using more of this orange.

Oh baby baby it's all about the moon

Oh Regina Spektor overwhelms me with how intensely beautiful her voice and music and smile and presence are!
I don't try and record sound when I go to shows because I want to be IN the moment, not trying to capture something which will never be as good as BEING THERE but I couldn't resist taking a couple of photos. There are a couple of clips on youtube too but nothing that compares to what we saw ('from the cheap seats' haha) the third row slightly to the left was the perfect spot, if we'd been on the right of the aisle I would have been disapointed to see mostly the back of her head or any closer I think mostly the side of the piano.

She spoke to me directly  too, (not as thrilling as when Jeff Tweedy did but still lovely) when three songs in she was having technical difficulties with seeing the keys and was waiting adorably embarressed and slightly awkward for it to be rectified I called out 'sing silly eye colour gen-er-al-a-zi-ations', (try saying it ten times fast lol) because it's one of  my favourites and acapella so I hoped she might bust it out, but she covered her mouth in the sweetest way and said 'oh god, do you think with all this jetlag I could get all that out!'.
Its so obvious to say that anything is better live but I was completely awestruck by all the power and strength in her singing. I thought I liked her newer songs a little less than the Begin to Hope days, but seeing the newer songs in person fully made me melt and fall in love with them all completely.
The start of All the rowboats has huge 'boof-boof' sound effects which I had thought were made by a drum machine or something like that, but no, it's just Regina's own mouth and voice amplified and unbelievably.

I just love her even more now and reconfirmed to myself just how important and worthwhile seeing a live show really is and just how wonderful and tingly and slightly tearful it makes me:)