Merry Christmas

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, enjoying the day, and the season with family and good friends. 

May all good things be yours.

Almost Christmas

I've not been here for a while.  The holidays crept up on me and I found myself behind in many things.  The blog was just one of them.  But, at one week out, I seem to have caught up and feel things are under control, or at least as much as they can be under control at this time of year!

I've not done much creating this year.  I had hoped to make some tags like I did last year.  Tim Holtz did his fabulous 12 Tags of Christmas again this year and that's always inspirational.  But, time wasn't on my side.  On the other hand, my daughter, Carrie, made some beautiful tags that we're using in our decorations!  I did find time in the evenings earlier in the month to make a bracelet that I got as a kit from Fusionbeads.com. 

It's a herringbone stitch design which comes in several colorways.  I loved the yellow green with berry accents for the holidays.  It was fun to stitch and it fit my small wrist with just minor adjustments.  Always a plus! 

This week I finally got to go to the Wednesday beading get together at my favorite bead shop, Bead Soup, at Savage Mill after several weeks of not getting to be there.  Kathy does such a great job and it's a lot of fun to get together on Wednesday to sit, bead and visit with friends.  I made this little pendant under Kathy's direction. 

I'm going to add a beaded necklace, probably using the spiral rope stitch.  But, I think it turned out well.  It looks frosty and wintery, perfect for this time of year.

I'll be back in a few days to show you a couple of new Christmas tree ornaments that I made earlier in the year.  I haven't made new ornaments in several years and I missed it. 

In the meantime, I hope your holiday preparations are going well and that you've found some time for yourself in all the hustle and bustle!





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.