Beading Babes Reveal 5

Today is the reveal for the Beading Babes Project 5.  This time around Karyn chose two designs by the fantastic designer, Helena Tang-Lim.  Helena designs beautiful jewerly which you can see, and purchase patterns and kits for, on her website.  The first project was Echoes of Nefertiti from the June issue of Bead and Button.  When Helena heard that the Beading Babes were working on that project she offered the members her Four Leaf Clover Cuff at a discount if the bracelet was completed.  It's a beautiful pattern and it was a very generous offer from Helena. 

I made the cuff first and found that it was an easy pattern that worked up quickly.  I used the beads the pattern called for because I wanted a light summery cuff.  I have some ideas for a second one using other beads.  But here is my version of the bracelet.

I love the way the colors turned out and it looks great with summery whites.  The green seeds have a slight blue tone that you can't see well in the picture but that look great with the blue beads.  I don't use pearls very often and I don't use the color blue very much, so this was a fun departure for me. 

The second project, Echoes of  Nefertiti, started with search for the 14mm disk beads.  Once I found some I wanted to use I was able to pull from my stash to make the necklace. 

I love this necklace!  I used matte black Tila's and drops along with gold iris seed beads.  It's very dramatic and yet fun to wear.  The matte black seed beads with the gold iris made up into a stunning twisted herringbone and I decided to used the herringbone for the toggle bar because I liked it so much.  I reenforced it with a piece of wire to give it stability and strength.  I love these disk beads, there is so much color in them, which is why I chose the iris beads to bring out some of the colors.

The toggle on this necklace is a wonderful component in itself!  I love the toggle and I think it has a lot of potential on its own as a pendant or bracelet. I love the way Helena designed it to have a loop for attaching it to the necklace worked into the toggle design. 





These two projects were so much fun to work on.  I hope you'll check out all the Beading Babes blogs to see what everyone has done.  Karyn will have a list posted on her blog so you can find everyone.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Beading Babes~Part Two

Today is the reveal for the second installment of the Beading Babes challenge created by Karyn of Releases by Rufydoof.  We could have created two different patterns, but I chose to do just the one.  I had some other obligations that I had to complete, so I decided I would do the Sleek in Silver necklace that was in a recent issue of Beadwork.  I'm so happy that I chose that pattern.  I had really liked it when I first saw it and I was happy that it was one of the two designs agreed upon.  It's a very easy and quick design to make and it uses the gorgeous Tila beads!  Here is my version of the necklace:

Unfortunately, the picture is very dark and I couldn't get a better shot of the majority of the necklace.  I really need to learn to use Photoshop Elements after the holidays!  At any rate, I used a wonderful cranberry iris Tila, along with bronze 11 seed beads and cranberry red size 8  hex beads. The pattern used size 8 seed beads, but the hex beads were a good color match to the Tilas and I love the way the hex beads catch the light.  In place of the briolettes used in the original design I used these wonderful two toned spotted daggers that I found at a bead show.  The colors in the daggers was perfect with the other bead colors.

This close-up definitely shows the color better than the larger photograph.  And, you can really see the daggers which are so wonderfully random.  Some of them are cranberry on one side and ivory on the other, some are split down the middle, as you can see, and some have a less symetrical division of the colors.  I love daggers and these have to be some of my all time favorites.  I think they really add to the overall effect of this necklace.

I love the way this necklace turned out and the colors are great for the season.  I know I'll be wearing it to a yearly dinner we attend with good friends. 

Thanks again to Karyn for organizing this challenge.  It's great fun and it gives me the opportunity to bead some projects I really like. 

Enjoy your day.  I'll be spending the rest of my day getting ready for the holidays to really begin! 





Finally...

I've finally finished my Artbead Blog Partner project for the Spring!   Yes, you read that correctly, the Spring!  The last few months have been so busy for my family.  We've had a wonderful time, and the memories we have created will be always with us.  But, I didn't have a lot of time to bead, or do much of anything else.  Well, it seems that now those lazy, crazy days of summer have set in and I'm finding myself with time to bead, sew and garden.  So, now I can present my interpretation of the theme for this go-round of the Blogger Program, "What's Old is New Again". 

Yep, two projects.  After all, it took me so long to get the time to work on the project that I thought I should have something to show for it!  Actually, my original design changed after I ordered my beads and I found I had a lot left over, so I thought I would make a bracelet and a necklace! 

As I said, the theme this time was "What's Old is New Again". We were asked to use something vintage, or vintage looking, with new beads and crystals.  I had been wanting to use a vintage lucite belt buckle my friend Kathy had given me and also some vintage German buttons I'd had in my stash for a while.  I was planning to use the buckle as the focal and, originally, going to have fringe coming off of it, but when I started working the design became very Art Deco in feel.  The peyote stitched bands attached to each other with Delicas gave a very geometric look to the buckle. A large amount of fringe, my original idea, didn't seem to fit the look I was getting.  That was fine with me because I love Art Deco and the buckle's design had elements of the geometric details often found in Art Deco pieces.  But, that meant that I wanted an end product that had the clean lines of Art Deco fashion.  I had chosen some of the newer Swarovski pendants to play off the idea of old versus new.  So, I decided to hang the larger one, the 28mm Aquiline Pendant, from the bottom of the buckle and use the 20mm Avant-Garde pendant as a togggle closure.  I liked that idea a lot, so I proceeded to design the strap to hold it all together.  As I said, I ordered some newer beads to play up the theme.  The new Tila beads are fun to work with, and they are some of the newest beads available.  So, I use them with seed beads and some fire polished 4mm beads to create a strap.  I loved the finished necklace.  But, I had lots of beads left over and I didn't want to not use them.  So, I decided to make a freeform bracelet with the leftovers and the German buttons I ended up not using in the necklace.  I used my last Swarovski pendant, an 18mm Aquiline Pendant, for a closure and just let the beads and buttons go where they wanted.  I had the added thematic result of freeform, a relatively new beadweaving technique, with vintage buttons incorporated. 

I'm really pleased with the results, even though it took me so long to get here.  I thank Duchess from Artbeads for being so understanding.  

Here are some details:



We're supposed to name our pieces and so I named the bracelet "...and all that jazz"  because freeform reminds me of jazz!  And, the necklace ended up seeming rather stately to me, so I named it "Manderly" because as I put the finishing touches on it, the novel "Rebecca" came into my mind. 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.  My statements about these products are an honest assesment and I receive no compensation from Artbeads for my endorsement. 



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.