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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Bead Embroidery: Polymer Clay Cab. Day 1

I posted last week a couple of polymer clay cabochons that I've made, having in my thoughts that I would do some bead embroidery.
Here is the "almost" finished result. I'm gonna work around the edges after I've cut it out, and then I'm also gonna figure out a chain and how I'm gonna attach it.

I really enjoyed this, and found it extremely fun. And with embroidery you can work pretty much how you want, and experiment with different types of stitches.
I ended up attaching a couple moonstone chips as an embellishment as well and I really, really like it.

I chose pretty much only to work with metal like colors for this one, since I didn't want to run away too far from the theme which the polymer clay cab already had.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Stretchy Montee Rings

I looked this morning at the bead channels I'm subscribed to on YouTube and noticed that Off the Beaded Path had put out a new video featuring a ring, embellished with some montees. I wanted to try this one out since I have stacked up on a couple of montees since this spring.
After I made my first ring, I felt that I just HAD to make a second one. The ring is really pretty, and it goes really, really fast to create and are a perfect gift, now when the holidays are slowly beginning to sneak up.
To go directly to the video, click here.

The supplies you need are a couple of montees; mainly size 3.2mm, but for my second one I used a 6.2mm. You'll also need 10 4mm pearls and about 10 11/0's and a few 8/0's. And some beading thread and a stretching cord. I found my Stretch Magic laying around in a box, lol.

The best thing I find about this ring is that it uses the stretch cord; means it will fit most sizes of fingers, and is therefore a really great gift if you don't know what size the person you're giving the ring to has.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Polymer Clay Cabs

So, yeah. Having my final dutch exams this week; finished the first four and still got the last one on Thursday.
I took myself some freedom to actually create some polymer clay cabochons this Sunday. The reason was that I've been having a couple of polymer clay colors laying around, I just haven't been in the mood since a little while. The other reason is that I haven't been able to find any cabs in any of the local craft stores - so I have to wait until I'm gonna make my next online purchase to fill my stash even more, Mwahahaha!

The process I went through before I began making my cabs, is that I first measured out some different sizes I wanted to make, on a paper. Yeh, I'm gonna get my hands on some molds in the future as well, lol - will make life a tad bit easier.






Yeh, the inspiration I kinda had when I made the following cab was pretty much a scarab. 
 For this cab, I wanted to experiment with the bronze powder I bought a while ago. Then I made a little texture print using some different stuff. Then I painted over the texture with the powder... shiny.


For the following little rectangle set, I ran out to the garden and tried finding a perfect leaf that I could work with. Then I put the leaf on the clay and used my roller to get the texture of the leaf. Then I used some silver powder to make it shiiiiny lol

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

8mm Beaded Bead

When I were surfing around on my favorite beading blogs earlier yesterday I came across a link leading to a Hungarian blog named Gyöngyikék; no idea what it means tho...
It features an article about beaded beads, and she made a really nice pattern on how to peyote stitch around an 8mm beads using 11/0's. I thought that since I have quite a few 8mm'ers laying around, and since I love making beaded beads, I just had to try this out.
I also have been trying to find a guide or something, which explain how to do beaded beads with 11/0's instead of 15/0's, so this was perrrrfect ^.^

In the article is also a graph, which you just can copy and paste in a graphic program (or print out), and then create your own pattern following the graph.

After I made my first one, I felt that it would fit as a really cute pair of earrings, so I made a second one, with the same design as the first one. And then I also made two other pairs.






I read on the blog were I found the link ( Bead For Brains: 365 -> link to the article here) to this Hungarian blog that, not only the blogger, but also a lot of readers had the problem where the last four beads wouldn't close snug properly.

I tried a solution, to see if I could avoid this problem myself; I peyote stitched each one of the circular halves separately, adding one row more for the other half. I then used a headpin (just to keep en eye where the hole in the 8mm bead was), then I put the center of the first half trough the pin, then added the 8mm, and finally the last half. Then I joined the halves together, pulling tightly through the joining - and cleverly avoided getting any ugly gaps.

 

Monday, October 17, 2011

October Moodboard

And again I just had to participate in this month's Moodboard which "Operation Tackle That Bead Stash!" is holding each month.
I really like the color scheme of this month as well, even if it really ain't any colors I would walk around in myself. Take a look for yourself, and click here to go directly to the post.

So, what I chose to do this time is a little ring, using circular brick stitch and peyote stitch for the ring base. I found these gorgeous aqua 9/0 seed beads laying around in a bag that I'd sorted out from a blue color bead mix that I bought last year or something, and finally I could actually use 'em for something. And since I really didn't have that maaaany laying around (like the color and it spoke to me) I decided on making a little ring.

I also used 11/0's and some 4mm glass beads, and one 8mm glass bead for the center.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Update and another Russian Spiral

I apologize for the lack of posting this month. I've gone and caught another cold again and I haven't really been in the mood of blogging lately, alto I got some time to bead on and off when I've had the time.

Last weekend I got another request about making a russian spiral necklace; a plain chain tho. Boo-ho, I wasn't allowed to experiment too much, well, not at all to be specific T.T
Anyway, it ended up kinda nice anyway, lol. I chose to work with a navy blue, since the costumer wanted it mainly... then I popped over to that store again to pick out a matching 9/0 to go with the 11/0 navy blue, and it ended up being a clear blue silver lined.



For the attachment I chose to work with some gold plated end caps with head pins and a matching lobster clasp.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Collar: Anubis & Book: Beaded Collars

Finally I manage to actually continue on this piece that I had begun since some while ago. I kinda saw it in front of me, and had already imagine how I wanted it, but didn't really know how to quite finish it off after I made the base that would go snug around the neck.
After I read the book Beaded Collars by Julia S. Pretl I managed to figure out how I could increase the collar so it would fall down from the neck onto the shoulders without having kinks - A perfect pass form in other words!
For anyone that is interested in learning some very basic techniques about beaded collars, I highly recommend reading this book. It gives a lot of tips on designs and also on the mathematical system on how to make beaded collars.

I used simple ladders stitch for my piece and some netting for the center part of the collar. I made the toggle clasp using peyote stitch.
The beads I used were 11/0 seed beads in purple matte iris, 40-50 gram 7mm twisted bugles in purple iris, two 4mm purple glass beads for the toggle clasp and some 11/0 galvanized gold seed beads.
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