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?

Back in Belgium and did some Wire-Wrapping!

I'm back home in Belgium again, after having one of the most awesome vacations ever! Seriously though! :O

Sharing some photo's I took along the way :)

We set out on Wednesday 29th of August, and we spent the entire day at the airport... Pretty much, heh. Landed in Luleå, Kallax - airport at 22.10, to after picking up the luggage go to my mom and spend the night and approx. one more night there.

On Friday my grandmother and her husband came to pick us up to drive all the way to Kiruna. We spent the whole weekend there, walking and driving around, showing my other half some stuff that definitely can't be seen in Belgium. And also got to show him some old silly childhood places :P He also got to taste the famous moose-meat-soup (älgköttsoppa in Swedish) I've been going on about for ages, and came to his senses that it is divine, lol.

On Monday we ended up taking the bus to Luleå, to go and see my aunt and cousins. My bf told me that he's never, ever sat so long on a bus in his entire life (lol, almost 5hours drive with bus), and kept saying that if he did the same in Belgium, he would end up in a completely different country!
*chough*
Anyway! ^^
We spent almost the rest of the week, till Thursday evening at my aunt's place, being social until we went back to my mom's place. She was the only one that could take time off to drive us to the airport in the morning :)

That rock is a sacrificial site where some of the Sami have been sacrificing reindeer to their deities.

So yeah! Back home, and it actually feels nice to have personal space and my lil' studio again, lol. Although, I ended up getting a darn heavy cold from one of my cousins and it's kept me in bed pretty much the entire weekend, I'm just now starting to feel a lot better again.
Went nuts on Sunday and ordered a metal block along with a chasing hammer and a rubber hammer, some copper wire in different gauges and finishes, and some additional beads that "accidentally jumped" into the shopping basket, LOL.

One of the most amazing wonders nature has created. It's called "Lapporten".

The hammers and the metal block arrived before the additional wire I purchased, so I went on and played with some older silver-plated copper wire I've been having around for quite some time. I ended making a pair of hoop-earrings which I actually rather love, heh. I used 20 and 24 gauge wire to make them, and used some 3mm firepolished Czech glass beads along with some cubic zirconia tear drops for the center of the earrings.

A long waterfall in Abisko National Park.

My grandmother and her husband in the Church of Kiruna.

Simply Seeds {Peyote Star Earrrings}

Yeah, I've been on an earrings making spree this week whenever I've been feeling it. This time I made three pair of earrings from Beadwork Magazine, the June/July 2012 issue. I thought this design was so cute and yet so very simple. They are made with circular peyote stitch and the design is by Barbara Richard.

Also I'm going to add that this might be the very final post I make here on my blog before I go on vacation to Sweden. Me and my boyfriend are departing from Brussels next week, on Wednesday the 29th of August. We're going to be back the 7th of September, so there's most likely not going to be much posting, since I also decided not to take my laptop with me :)
My bf also got his hands on a camcorder last week, so I'm gonna have fun recording our trip and I might show some stuff, heh.
We're going to almost as far north you can get, and then we're going closer to the Norwegian border to look at the national park near Abisko together with my grandparents. My bf hasn't really seen the true nature of Sweden yet, the big woods and the high mountains as last time he was there we were at the north-eastern coast :)

If I don't post anything more this week, I'm wishing everyone a fabulous summer, even though it's almost over, I hope that everyone had a wonderful summer ♥

Bugle Core Earrings

Last week I bought a copy of Bead&Button Magazine, June 2012 issue 109 since I got recommended to get that magazine if I would want an easy tutorial about Bead Embroidery with Soutache braids.
While reading this wonderful magazine (I have to point out that this is the very first time I've gotten myself a copy of Bead&Button, cause of the simple reason that I haven't been able to find a way to purchase the magazine digitally.) I came across a really easy but also fabulous tutorials which incorporated 3mm bugle beads, 1.5mm cube beads, 11/0 cylinders, 15/0 seed beads and 4mm bicones, designed by Barbara Klann.
The techniques used are basically circular peyote and herringbone stitch.

Of course I had to try out this one, they looked so cute in the magazine and I got pretty eager in making my own interpretation of this design.
I decided to work with pretty dark color (can't blame me, that's me; me and dark colors, lol). The bugles I used are in a violet color and are by Miyuki. Now I didn't have any 1.5mm cubes but I had 1.8mm ones from Matsuno, so yeah... only one way to find out if those will work! They did work :3
For my dangle (the design by Barbara is a bit different) I used a cubic zircon tear-drop crystal in amethyst, and I also added a 4mm Swarovski bicone in the same jet color for the ones I used in the center of the piece.

My version of "Blue Star" bracelet.

Phew! It's been really, really warm over here for the past weeks. We've had over 40°C during this weekend, else it has ranged from 30-35°C, and inland like I live here in north-central Belgium, there is barely any wind, or no wind at all. So yeh, the weather hasn't really given much inspiration for many things, besides laying down and die, lol.
However, a couple of days ago I found this really cute and also free pattern which incorporates twin beads. I wanted to have a try just to take part of my mind away from this heat-wave.

The pattern can be found here. The pattern is pretty simple and uses twin beads and 11/0 seed beads and is worked in a circular peyote stitch.
For my version I went with some lighter pink shades, since I wanted to use up some of the very last bit of the twin beads in the pink pearly color that I have. Then I added some 11/0 seed beads by Miyuki in light rose pink and rose pink alabaster to kinda keep the shine.
To add something a little bit more personal, I made my own hook-clasp for this bracelet, and imo it looks kinda neat o lol.