A quick shout out to all beaders – the OTTBS May challenge has begun! I’ve chosen funky black, white and turquoise as the colour scheme and the prize is £15 to spend at www.Jencel.co.uk. So what are you waiting for? Head over to the Operation Tackle That Bead Stash blog for complete details on how to enter and get beading!
Tag Archives: challenge
Everything’s Just Peachy!
The June bead collection arrived from the Acorn Club yesterday and I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when I saw the colour…..peach! As we all have our favourite colours, most of us also have our least favourite colours. Well, no prizes for guessing which is one of mine!
I wouldn’t say that I hate peach exactly, I don’t think it’s possible for me to go as far as actually hating a colour but it’s definitely very low on my list, second only to salmon pink! On closer inspection I saw that most of the beads actually have an AB finish so they do have little flashes of other colours. Still, I realised that in order to use these beads to create something I’m going to be happy with, I’d have to mix them with other colours. So out came the colour wheel and my trusty colour mixing books. I’ve discovered that peach goes quite nicely with copper, raspberry and amber and also with blues and greens. So that’s two colour schemes to keep in mind for future use.
But today I wanted to do something simple so I went with the colour that’s on the opposite of the colour wheel, turquoise blue. I’m really happy with the finished hair clip which I’ve made with a frosted flower button and size 11 and 15 seed beads.
For some time I’ve been thinking of different ways to use felt balls and I came up with the idea of cutting them in half and using them as cabochons. This bead is one of my own, made from turquoise blue merino wool, embellished with Delicas and I’ve embroidered around it with seed beads. I absolutely love it and I’m wearing it as I type :) If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know that you’ll be seeing more of these in various colours! This is also my piece for the June Moodboard on Operation Tackle That Bead Stash where this month I’ve chosen blue and silver as the colour scheme.
I’ve been meaning to make another pair of these beautifully horrific skull earrings for ages! This time I left out the rose pattern and just went with the skulls for maximum goth-ness.
And finally here’s a ring I made using a pattern from Heather Collin. Sarah recently did a review of this pattern, don’t forget to visit the blog to see others that were made. I can’t wait to make another!
Saturn Bead tutorial and other goodies
Finally all my hard work has paid off and my new Saturn Bead tutorial is ready and available to buy in my Etsy shop! It’s a two-in-one tutorial which is based on my original Medium 14mm bead tutorial plus an outer embellishment to give this fabulous shape. If you’ve already bought the Medium tutorial then I’m offering this new tutorial for only £2 instead of the normal price of £5. Just send me a message on Etsy and I’ll set up a custom listing for you :)
Here are my latest makes. First is a circular brooch made with black and white seed beads. As you can see from most of my work, I do have a thing about circles, spirals and round things! This was incredibly relaxing to make but finding a name for it was a bit more taxing. My first thought was ‘Bullseye’ but that just made me think of “Bully’s Special Prize” and “Look at what you could have won”* so in the end I went with Cirque.
I made Myfanwy with the OTTBS challenge in mind, using the pink, cream and green colourway and olive thonging.
Auron is in warm shades of gold and topaz and finished off with sunflower gold thonging…
And Gwendolyn is in a gorgeous metallic blue and teal…
*For the benefit of non-UKers and very young people, Bullseye was a very popular darts/quiz gameshow on TV in the early 1980′s.
Big, Bigger, Biggest
You all know I love making beaded beads. I make them tiny, I make them big. And just when I think ”wow that’s the biggest bead I’ve ever made “, someone comes along and challenges me to make them even bigger! I was recently asked if I could come up with a tutorial to cover a 30mm bead and has luck would have it, I actually had some 30mm wooden beads sitting in the drawer so I got to work straight away. I’ve photographed them alongside one of my Colossal beads to show how much bigger these are…
The instructions for these beads are currently being tested and if everything goes ok I’ll be making it into a tutorial for sale soon.
Some time ago I hinted that I was in the middle of a rather large project. Hmm, I don’t think ‘large’ is quite the right word! The project was a commission from the lovely Hannah of Hannah Walker Jewellery who had seen my beaded beads and asked if I could cover some huge 50mm wooden beads that she had. Always up for a challenge I immediately said yes! I have to admit that I was a little nervous before I started, worried that I would make a complete mess of them, but in fact the beads all turned out extremely well. Here’s a photo that I took before posting them back to Hannah, again with one of my Colossal beads to show the difference in size.
Hannah turns these wonderful beads into fantastic statement necklaces which you can see here and here.
Fit For a Princess
This is my entry for the Etsy Beadweaver’s challenge, where the theme for February is ‘Royalty Throughout Time’. I’ve chosen Princess Diana as my inspiration, making my own bead embroidered version of her engagement ring which is now being worn by Prince William’s fiancée, Kate Middleton.
Much bigger and what I would call a cocktail ring, I’ve taken a gorgeous glittery blue goldstone cabochon and surrounded it with silver Japanese seed beads and Czech crystals. Available in the usual places, it’s on an adjustable silver plated ring so will fit any size finger. I enjoyed making this piece very much and I hope you like it too :)
Happy new year!
Oh my goddess, where have the last two weeks gone?? I’ve been bogged down with this stubborn chest infection and the days just seem to have drizzled by with me barely managing to get out of bed some days. Two courses of antibiotics and steroids later and I’m finally starting to get back to normal, although I still feel incredibly weak and tired. Not that I’ve been idle all this time, with my beads within easy reach I’ve kept myself busy making all these lovely goodies….
As you know, I love to combine materials and at the moment I’m having fun mixing fabric with beads. I had the idea for these Caravan Girl earrings just as I woke up one morning and couldn’t wait to have a go! In case you’re wondering, they’re named after a song by Goldfrapp which popped into my head while I was making them…
With the next pair, Anya, I stitched some tiny black Charlotte beads onto the fabric before I cut it out and added Czech faceted drops to the bottom…
These are my brand new 8mm Atom Beads, the smallest beaded beads I’ve ever made! This Atomic Ocean set is made from Japanese seed beads and I’ve used six different shades of blue…
These Masquerade earrings are made from some more Atom beads in three shades of red and I’ve combined them with Czech faceted beads and gold plated wire…
Three more button brooches, I just love making these as it’s so relaxing. And I enjoyed making Turn Over A New Leaf so much! I’m very happy to say that it’s found a lovely new home ;) The purple brooch is called Calluna (another name for Heather) and the cool blue brooch is called Winter Lake…
More button jewellery and this is Eve. I had so much trouble with this pendant! I bought the button a few weeks ago from my local craft shop, I thought it was so lovely and would be ideal for a pendant. But I soon discovered that navy is very hard to match up in beads, none of the blues I had would work with it! In the end I decided to go with all white and a tiny bit of denim for the accents. But I didn’t have enough white crystals so had to leave it half done until my order arrived. I do love the finished pendant though…
Harlequin is a bead embroidered ring in funky colours. The seed beads were left over from one of my beaded bead projects and I picked them up randomly, I think they work nicely with the black…
Most of the above can be found in my Etsy shop, apart from the pieces already sold.
I have lots of crafty things planned for January, health permitting of course…
• First of all, I’ve made a promise to myself to create something every day and list it, not just for January but for the whole year. Despite being poorly I’ve made it a whole week so far! I’m also going to do what I can to promote my work, not easy as I’m very shy in real life.
• The Gem ‘n’ Bead show at the Chepstow racecourse is coming up very soon and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to go this year. I don’t want to get too excited because I’ve planned to go for the past five years and something has always cropped up to keep me away but it will be great if I can make it :)
• We’ve made a few exciting changes to the Monday Moodboard over on Operation Tackle That Beadstash so if you’re a beader and are up for a challenge, then do pay us a visit. Sarah and I have some other plans for the blog in the months to come which I’m very excited about.
• I’ve joined the Crafty Book Club, which sounds like it’s going to be great fun. The idea is that you read the book that has been voted for and then create something inspired by it. The book we’re reading for January is Chocolat by Joanne Harris. I will freely admit that it’s not the kind of book that I would normally read (the last three books I read were Hannibal Rising, Misery and A History of British Serial Killing just to give you an idea of my preferred reading!) but I think it’s good to get out of your comfort zone and try something different now and again. And I’m looking forward to making something beady at the end of it.
• There’s also the Etsy Beadweaver’s challenge. I do enjoy these challenges, although I’ve missed the last couple due to one thing or another. The current challenge is Royalty Through Time so I’m sure there is going to be some glamorous pieces made by our talented members.
• The new Beader’s Online challenge has started and I’d really like to join in with this one. The theme is “January, February” and you can take inspiration from the birthstone colours or flowers for your piece. There’s a fabulous Miyuki kit up for grabs to one lucky winner!
Well I think that’s me all caught up! So happy new year to you all, I wish you all a world of health, love and happiness for 2011. I hope this is a good year for you :)
