Pair of Eyes

More fun with eyes! These were a pain to photograph. I take my photos on a north-east facing windowsill, a nice bit of bright daylight but out of full sunshine, which most of the time works well for me. But whatever I did I couldn’t stop the window from reflecting in the glass cabochons! And while I’m fault-picking, the camera has made the eyes themselves look very fuzzy when in real life they look lovely and clear. I’m guessing it’s something to do with the dome of the cabochon.

Ok, quit complaining girl and get on with it! I’m really pleased with how these turned out, especially The Seer, which I was really tempted to keep for myself. I’ve picked out the blues and purples of the eye and as a complete fluke the AB beads have a touch of the yellow/green that’s in the centre. I think this piece looks quite futuristic, helped by the metallic coated crystals.

For She Wolf again I’ve picked out the colours of the eye for the beads and crystals. Lovely topaz and olive greens with a touch of amber. Does anyone else think this looks a bit like a sunflower? Both of these are available in my Etsy shop and on my website.

Sleeping Goddess Giveaway

Would you like to be wearing one of my beautiful Sleeping Goddess pendants made especially for you in your favourite colour and costing zero pennies? Then it’s your lucky day as I’m offering just that in my giveaway! All you need to do to win one of these babies is visit my Etsy shop. Then come back and leave a comment on this post letting me know which item in my shop is your least favourite? Yep, you read that right, your least favourite. The giveaway is open to all residents of planet Earth and I’ll draw the winner at random on Monday 17th October after 6pm UK time ;)

See Ya!

I’ve been wanting to incorporate eyes into my work for such a long time but the prosthetic eyeballs that some beaders use are quite expensive, so I figured out a way to make my own using clear glass cabochons and printed irises. As you can ‘see’ it works extremely well! This was so much fun to make…I feel a whole new range of jewellery coming on… ; )

More Exciting News!

It’s been really hard to keep this under wraps! Back in January I met up with the lovely Celia who runs www.Jencel.co.uk. Not only was it lovely to finally meet her, but she also asked me if I would be interested in creating a design for a kit to sell in her shop. Would I?! Of course I said yes and immediately started thinking of designs that would be suitable. The only criteria was that I had to use ‘ingredients’ that Celia stocks in her shop. After a few false starts I returned to the idea that I’d had at the very beginning, and that was to design something that incorporated the lovely coloured shell hoops I’d bought from her at Chepstow’s Bead fair.

Now one of the things that we beadweavers strive for is to keep the thread as invisible as possible and to let the beads be the stars of the show. But I thought, why not let the thread have a little piece of the action too? So in this design, which is called Catherine Wheel, the thread is boldly displayed on the face of the shell hoop, giving a wonderful radial stripe effect. Seed beads sit along the edge and are topped with a corona of sparkling crystals.

Catherine Wheel is exclusive to www.jencel.co.uk and is available either as a tutorial or as a kit. The kits are in three different colourways…jade with metallic gold, purple with topaz, and silvery.

I’ve leave you with three of the necklaces that I made during the design process…

It’s no secret, I love skulls. In any shape or form. In fact I’ve collected quite a few skull pendants and I thought it was about time I actually did something with them! And as I love using different materials together, combining them with beadweaving seems the perfect answer.

Punk Rocks features a fantastic skull & crossbones pendant made from pewter suspended from a spiral rope necklace in black and purple.

I’ve also made this man-in-the-moon brooch using seed beads, fresh water pearls and one of my polymer clay face cabochons. This is the first time I’ve used real pearls and I’m really pleased with the subtle rainbow effect these potato pearls have given.

Both are available in my Etsy shop.

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.