Various Completed Projects

So, yes, I'm aware of the facts that I haven't been blogging much since I came back from the vacation :)

However, I've still been doing some stuff that I'm going to share with you in this post. I completed a bead embroidery pendant, which I started off just before I went on vacation. And for those who follow me on facebook and twitter, I mentioned that I finally bought myself a metal block and a chasing and a rubber hammer. And yes, of course, I've been doodling around with some wire; copper as I find precious metals are very expensive, and even more expensive to practice on.
As I went on and playeed with wire wrapping once again, I remember even why I haven't done it much to begin with; my nail are very soft (really soft, like jelly "almost") and the wire really manage to give them quite a beating, heh.

Here's the bead embroidery pendant I mentioned earlier. For the bezel I used 11/0 delicas and 15/0 Miyuki seed beads. The cabochon with the skull I actually painted and varnished; it was just black and white from the beginning, but I wanted a bit of  a personal touch to it so I painted the skull red and added some golden highlights on it on various places. I used a 14mm Swarovski rivoli to enhance the look of the piece a little more. At the bottom part there's an 8mm black onyx gemstone cab which is surounded bu 11/0 delicas and 11/0 seed beads by Matsuno, along with blue goldstone chip beads. The fringe I wanted a bit simpler then the rest; for the bottom I simply used some 11/0 seed beads in black and red together with 9mm twisted bugles, 4mm Swarovski bicones and small magatamas. For the sides I embellished with some long magatamas, to get a bit of a "tribal" feel to the piece.

When I played around with wire, I wanted to make something rather simple and basic. So I found this small project in the book "Bead & Wire Art Jewelry" that I wanted to try out now when I actually had access to a bigger selection of wire gauge then I had when I first bought this book, last year.
This project required 20 and 18 gauge wires.

This is another wire project. I saw this tutorial on the YouTube channel of Beadaholique, and I just wanted to give it a try to practice some wire working.

 This is my own design. I wanted to make something a little bit more abstract, yet not too complicated. First off, I drew the design I wanted in my sketch book where I have most of the designs I've made that aren't free-form. First I measured how much wire I would need, and then I hammered the frame flat, and used the ball side of the chasing hammer to give it some texture. I then began to join the loose parts I wanted around the main frame with some random wire-wrapping techniques (yes, I know; it looks really amateurish - only one way to learn; practice, heh). For the web, I used turquoise chip beads and 11/0 Toho seed beads in a permanent finish. 

 Oh yes, I've also been playing around with some kumihimo!
I've been wanting to play around and incorporate beads into my kumihimo for some time now, and I got my hands out of the pockets and actually did this one. I used both long magatamas and the smaller ones, to embellish the rope a bit here and there. The reason to why I didn't do a complete surrounding of beads is that I didn't have enough of the magatamas in the colors I chose to work with. Still, I personally like it. Main thing, right? lol ^^

Do you also have a lot of balls in the air at the same time?