Bubble Flower Earrings

Last weekend I made it my mission to bust my stash of Miyuki drop beads. These are one of my favourite types of beads, but I rarely use them for anything other than spiral ropes bracelets. I decided that it was time to rectify that and came up with this pretty textured flower earring design. They are so tactile. The tutorial is fairly easy t o follow, though I probably wouldn't recommend for an absolute beginner to beadwork as the work is pretty dense toward the end so someone new to beading may have difficulty with weaving in the ends.



Happy Beading!

Sarahx

Sweet Spring.

This months moodboard challenge on Operation Tackle that Bead Stash is lovely soft pink, cream and green, perfect for spring. With the weather gloriously sunny & crisp here in South Wales, it wasn't to hard to be inspired!

I always seem to have a lime green fetish at this time of year, so I dug out these matte ab 11's and used a cream opaque to soften the look. I love netted bracelet bases, they are so versatile and supple. With this one I added a picot fringe which ruffles the edges of the bracelet very prettily and made a little pink flower with some swarovski crystals.

In keeping with the start of a new season, I have started a new craft! I have become obsessed with embroidery after finding the Feeling Stitchy blog on Friday. I will blog about my progress later this week.

Happy beading!

Sarahx

In the mood for Purple & Gold.

The January moodboard challenge on OTTBS was purple and gold. Wonderful, I thought, no problem, I have loads of purple and gold seed beads in different sizes. I know, I thought, I'll make lots of lovely peyote circles, using gold for the outside beads and different purples on the inside and then I'll sew them all up and make a lovely necklace. Simple.

Well, it may not have escaped your notice that the piece above is not in fact a circular peyote necklace but a bracelet using netting and right angle weave. I sewed up one of the circles in the wrong colour order and because of the way I constructed it I couldn't rip it out without frogging the whole necklace! Grr!

I sulked for a week but finally bucked myself up and made this bracelet using metallic size 4mm firepolish beads and size 11 gold seed beads.

A is for Autumn & Acorns.

Here in Wales the weather is decidedly autumnal, chilly mornings and evenings interspersed with bright sunshine in the day. I love September, we very often have have beautiful weather this month and I work in a building surrounded by trees which are a treat to look out of the window at.

I like to bead the seasons and have made flowers for spring and summer and icy crystal necklaces for the winter. However, apart from one choker with a Russian leaf centrepiece, I have never beaded autumn, until now that is. I was playing about with the technique that I use for my tulips and bell flowers and realised that I could make a pretty little bead cap. I then figured out that if I popped that bead cap on top of a bead that was a just too big for it, it made a perfect little acorn. Once I made one, I couldn't stop! Here are three of the necklaces that I have made so far. I have also made a little green and silver one but I haven't had a chance to photograph it yet.

Fire Drop Pendant - A Personal Favourite

My listing for the Folksy August A-Team is one of my favourite things that I have made recently. It is another flower in my 3d experiment with circular netting which has included a tulip, a harebell and a soon to be acorn! I made this one with the very beautiful fire opal crystals and the new (well to me anyway) miyuki duracoat galvanised seed beads.
You can see more pics here http://www.folksy.com/items/688345-Firedrop-Bell-flower-Pendant-Chain-Necklace?shop=yes

Yellow Tulip Necklace

I'm continuing to develop my crystal tulip design and really wanted to see what it looked like in a traditional tulip colour. I found these lovely yellow firepolished beads and the pearl in my stash and knew they would be perfect. It took me a while to decide what shade of green to use on the strap, in the end I decided to use silver lined green at the core to add depth and a transparent ab finish which picks up from the yellow in the tulip. I originally had a more elaborate necklace planned but eventually realised that a simple one would be best to showcase the flower. I even took a halfway decent photo!