Bower bird brained

For a little while now I've been frustrated at the lack of space for me to come up with some creative ideas that I am finding interesting or satisfying. Now my physical space is always fairly cluttered and that doesn't generally bother me. I 'spose it's like my head crammed full of stuff and usually I like it that way. But recently my head has been over full and anyone who knows me would probably say that it is exactly like my house- FULL. Tim is quite a bower bird, actually he sees himself as a magpie but truly he is a bowerbird
bringing home all sorts of bits and pieces and scattering them about the place hoping to please me with their interestingness or prettiness. Chicky Babe has found an old "No Junk Mail" sign and posted it on the back door it now says "No Junk Mail Please!"
Anyway my head has been too full but I've been concentrating on trying to find some quiet in my head. I've been reading a couple of books about creativity. One is called The Confident Creative the other is 'The Artists Way' the second is a little 'new agey' but when you get past some of the excessive bits it has some great exercises to help 'unblock'.
So over the last couple of days I've started to play with some ideas for making jewellery combining my love of textiles and natural,recycled and found objects.

This one is hand stitched sari silk and recycled beads from old pearl necklaces.
Tim and I went walking along the beach yesterday looking for driftwood, pebbles and sea glass but unfortunately it is not really beach weather at the moment being summer or s(B)ummer. as Anki so rightly calls it. Beach weather to me is winter when the sea throws up so many beautiful bits of flotsam and jetsam.
Although I didn't find anything really interesting to work with I found a few bits and pieces to start playing with and practicing skills for when I do find something worthwhile and I got more exercise than I realized along the way!
 

Crochet pebbles as brooches or pendents- I'm just playing with the technique at the moment using the threads that I have on hand but I will experiment a little more with different threads and colours.

And then when I find some decent driftwood some of these...

This is very much a WIP! and a way of playing with ideas before they get lost in the clutter!