The Ice Queen Challenge

The Bead Mavens are having a challenge this month.  The inspiration for the designs was the Ice Queen.  I love the Ice Queen.  As  you probably have gathered by now, color is my thing!  I love color, but there is something about the icy, frosty appearance of the Ice Queen, and her many incarnations, that is so appealing to me.  The sparkle of all that white dusted with frost is so beautiful.  So, I decided to enter a necklace into the challenge.  The picture above is what I came up with.

I thought a wire knitted piece would be fun because I could make a bead soup of crystal, clear and white beads to knit.  The cascade in the middle is a variation on my wire knitted necklaces.  I've been looking for a way of changing them up a bit and a cascade of snowflakes and beads seemed perfect for the Ice Queen.



I was excited to have a reason to use Swavorski's snowflake and column beads.  I love the column beads and I thought they would work as  icicles in the cascade.  I also used some 8mm round crystals in clear and AB to fill in.  I knitted the necklace in two pieces and joined them together in the middle with the wire ends.  I then used jump rings to attach the snowflakes, columns and rounds to fine silver chain.  The chain was attached with jump rings to the necklace.  I was pleased with the overall effect, and the cascade worked just the way I wanted it to.  Today is the final day for entries, so I was happy to have finished it a few days ago.  I didn't know if it would be completed in time because of the holiday rush.  But, I made it! 

Visit the Bead Mavens site and check out the entries.  There are beautiful pieces of jewelry to be seen! 

I hope you've all  had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Ours was wonderful, spent with good friends and family.  Now on to Christmas and all the preparation for that joyous time!  Thanks for taking time to visit with me.  Enjoy your day!

Tila Beads

I don't know why, but those of us who find our bliss creating are always excited by, and have to have, the newest products on the market.  When you love, and create, in several different mediums, that could add considerably to the stash!  Whether it's the latest fabric for fabric art, or the newest, most wonderful yarn for knitting, or the greatest new ink for paper arts, there's always something that I just have to try.  Well, beads aren't any different!  The newest thing in the beading world are the Tila beads.  They are manufactured by Miyuki, who makes the Delica beads.  Tila beads are flat beads with two holes instead on one.  That makes them different, but it's the colors and finishes that really attracted me.  I'm a sucker for colors and finishes.  And, Tila beads  come in gorgeous colors.  I really had a hard time deciding which ones I wanted to take home with me when I found that Leslie of http://www.twistedsistahbeads.com/ had them.  So, I fell back on my old stand by, green.  Actually, they were Mettalic Malachite Green Iris!  That sounds so much better than saying I got the green ones! 

I let my beautiful beads sit on my table for a while, trying to decide what I wanted to do with them.  One day I was checking out Whimbeads.com and discovered that they have a  pattern in the classroom section of their website that uses the Tila beads.  There are some great patterns that are free and available for download on the site.  The newest pattern is for a RAW bracelet with fringe using the Tila beads.  I downloaded it and started trying to decide what colors to use with my wonderful beads.  I've been using a lot of gray lately, so I finally chose pewter 11's and 15's, black diamond crystal bicones,and for an accent color I chose peacock 15's and Pacific opal bicones.  I'm so very pleased with the results.

I've fallen in love with fringe made using the new beads!  I know I'll be using them for fringe again.  If you want to try something different these are the beads to try.  They aren't inexpensive, but I think they're worth the cost. 

Thank you for spending some time reading the blog today.  I hope you have a wonderful, and creative day.

Wire working class

I'm really a bead weaver.  But, I love wireworked jewelry and when I found out that Kristin Robinson was teaching her Ethereal Bangles online, I had to sign up for the class.  Luckily for me, I discovered the class on the day it started, which was the last day to sign up.  I loved these bangles when I saw them over the summer in Belle Armoire Jewelry.  So,  I was delighted that I could learn the ins and outs of creating them from the artist.  It's a great class, with Kristen posting from 1 to 3 videos every other day.  I've learned so much already. 

Here's a picture of the bangles with no embellishment.  They have been shaped and hammered.

Not real exciting from this less than ideal photo, but they really are wonderful looking when they're finished.

Hope you're enjoying fall wherever you happen to be.  Have a wonderfully creative day and thank you to all our Veterans who are serving, or have served our great country.  

Almost Halloween!

I had so much fun creating this tag banner for Halloween.  I collect a lot of Halloween "stuff"!  I don't like gory or zombie, or horror.  But, the vintage and cute images I love.  I used a lot of what I had been collecting for a Halloween fabric book, which didn't get made, and some of Tim Holtz' products.  Next year the fabric book!

Some close ups:





Have a great day!



Halloween Treats



I  love giving my family and friends fun little treats for Halloween.  This year I found this great earring design at Fusionbeads.com.  They always have seasonal designs that I love to make for my daughter, myself and two of my closest friends.  As you can see, this year it's these adorable witches' hats.

They are made with Swarovski componets, Jet and Sun margarites, 1 Jet cosmic ring, and 1 Jet artemis beads.  I love the artemis bead.  It's a described as a spacer bead but I think this is a great application for it.

Since I love to make the presentation part of the gift, I decided to make  tags to hang them on.  I've had fun making Halloween tags this year, and after completing a Halloween tag garland, which I'll post later in the week, I still had some ideas left!  

Making the earrings and the tags was lots of fun, now I can't wait to deliver the treats.  I'll see one friend tomorrow for breakfast, so I'll take hers along with me.  My other friend will have to wait until next week.  But, they'll have them for Halloween, and it will be cool thinking of them wearing them at the Witching Hour!!

One last photo, my daughter's tag, purple and black, embossed with a stamp she loves because she's a Baltimore Ravens fan!



Thanks for stopping by.  Have a creative day.



Two Fall Necklaces...

and a pair of earrings!

As you all know by now, I love Fall.  I've made things to decorate the house for years.  I've also made jewelry over the years using the motifs and colors I love so much.  Two of my favorites are these necklaces. 

  I'm really a seed bead person.  But, I'm beginning to try my hand at wirework.  I like a lot of wire jewelry that's out there, and I've taken a few classes, which I've really enjoyed.  Both of these necklaces were a lot of fun to make.  The one on the left used some pieces from the My Elements line and a few recycled pieces from old jewelry.  I decided to try some wire working to make a clasp to match the black chain.  And, that was really fun!  I used 22 gauge black wire to make a loop and hook.  The second necklace made use of some of my collection of lucite leaves.  I love lucite beads, flowers and leaves.  I think Beadin' Path http://www.beadinpath.com/ has the best selection of lucite, and that's where these leaves came from.  I used copper chain, along with Swarovski column beads to add sparkle.  When I finished the necklace, I decided to use the remaining chain and crystal columns to make a pair of earrings. 

I'll leave you with some close ups.  Enjoy  your day and make art!





Autumn Treasures

There are so many treasures in Autumn.  It's my favorite time of year  for many reasons, not the least of which is the glorious color that surrounds us.  The trees turn the most fabulous reds, oranges, russets, golds and coppers.   While there aren't many colors I don't like, the fall colors are some of my favorites.  Even summer's left over flowers and foliage take on a luminous glow as the angle of the sun begins to change into it's winter mode.  Spectacular!

A few years ago I cross stitched this sampler.  I have no idea where I found the chart, but it expressed my feeling about Autumn.  It's a time to treasure because it's so fleeting and everyone is so busy.  Once I finished stitching it I didn't want another framed cross stitch sampler.  So, I decided to make a small art quilt out of it.  I foraged among all my fall fabrics and beads.  My stash of fabric and beads in fall colors resemble the abundance of fall.  After all, they are my favorite colors!

This is what I came up with.

I used two shades of Cherrywood sueded cottons for the background.  After sewing the pieces together I used WonderUnder to foil leaf shapes on the fabric.  Using WonderUnder is my favorite way to foil fabric.  I like to do it as a first step, so that when I sew over it the foil flakes off giving the piece a more distressed look.  I free motioned quilted around the leaves and then added a batik over it.  I  fringed the cross stitched sampler and stitched it down to the background.  I then added beads and lucite leaves (another favorite).  I found the piece of wire work that I had made in a class, and added that to the bottom of the sampler.  After assembling the quilt with the batik as a backing fabric, I edge stitched around the sampler and the batik.  I free motion stitched a leaf shape using a variety of threads, including some of the linen threads I had pulled from the sampler when I fringed the edges.  I beaded the leaf and attached it to the quilt. 

I hang the quilt from a small vintage looking hanger, but I'm going to put fabric loops on it and hang it from a small branch. 

Here are some of the details.

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I hope you're enjoying all the treasures the season has to offer.  Thanks for taking the time to stop by.