Choker: Dead Princess

Managed to get the choker that I began making since I finished up the cuff I made in the beginning of the week.






I used the same RAW stitch and beads to make the base, and then I made a little fringe using some drop beads in two different sizes.






 I also decided on making a tutorial on how I made this piece. Haven't made a tutorial before so we'll see, lol.

Bracelet: Dead Princess

I sat yesterday evening and played around with RAW stitch and some 7mm spiral bugle beads that I received as a gift last week from my mother-in-law.
I decided on making a little beaded cuff with the bugles and with some black 11/0 seed beads. I wanted at least another color in it, so figured that I actually for once would combine my absolute two favorite colors (together); red and black. I had some 9/0 seed beads in red lined silver hanging around since a while and hadn't figure out what to do with 'em... Until now!

I decided to combine 'em in a pattern following the bugles in the square and voila!

Then I snatches some cute butterfly and flower beads that I had laying around in the assorted red bead mix that I've been having since... A while anyway.

I embellished the cuff with a couple of those here and there in the center of the cuff. And then I added three 6mm fire polished glass beads in red, for the closing.

The cuff sits really nice and tightly around the wrist and I managed to get exactly what I desired with making this piece. And I've also planned on making a choker using the same technique and design.

Necklace: Thorn

I spent about the last 3-4 days working on a necklace with an opera length since I've been wanting to do one for a while, using beadweaving. I made one before, but using wire and chain, so I thought I would get a little bit of variation making this one.

I used simple spiral stitch to make it, which I haven't used for quite some time, since I made a bracelet. To be honest the spiral stitch isn't really one of my favorite stitches to work with. Why? Cause you always have to keep the thread tight as you work your way through it, specially if you're like me and using nymo. I know that FireLine should keep it a bit more tense.

I actually made this spiral a bit more different then the ordinary tho. Instead of threading on the core beads at the same time as the outer beads I decided to string them on at the start, to also get the desired length as I wanted, and then I worked out the spiral.
I used 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads, and I also added some size 11/0 Thoho triangle beads to give it, should I say, A LOT of contrast?! Actually I like it that way, and it looks really nice in gunmetal, and the surface of the beads are so shiny it reflects the light in all directions.

The fun thing I find about the opera length of necklaces is that you can wrap it around your wrist and change it into a bracelet. The one I made be wrapped five times around the wrist, and it looks really cool only on there :)

August Moodboard

Whoo hoo!

I finished up the piece I wanted to make for this month's moodboard challenge by Operation Tackle That Bead Stash!. Finally I manage to finish it up early since my piece for July was a bit slow. I never managed to get time for finish it up; most of my time goes to the kittens at the moment.

Anyway. I really, really, REALLY liked the color scheme that she picked for August; green, purple and turquoise. I find the combination really original, and I actually had a couple of seed beads and some pearl laying around that would fit very nicely together.

I wanted to take my peyote sculpturing a bit further then to only making squares and triangles, so I had a look in the book Shaped Beadwork, written by Diane Fitzgerald, to get some tips and inspiration. One shaped I really wanted to try out was the tear drop shape, and so I created these two earrings, and then later a slightly bigger pendant in the same style.
I already decided before I finished the shapes that I wanted to use the 6mm glass pearls as an embellishment in the middle of the tear drop, and so I did =P

I added another 6mm pearl inside each one of the earrings to make 'em "bump" up and keep the 3D-like-shape. I added some soft plastic paper inside of the pendant to achieve the same effect.

Netted Beads and Beaded Bead

Had a lil' fun last night when I received my latest order of beads in the mail yesterday, a little gift I got from my mom.

In the weekend I've also worked on a little bracelet with 6mm and 4mm pearl, which I netted some 15/0 seed beads around.
Yesterday I wanted to do some more netting as well. I've been working on a bead-netted bracelet for about a week (lazy), using the technique they show in Creative Beading Vol. 5, from the Bead and Button Magazine. I wanted to experiment a bit with the stitch, and I've seen a lot for other beaders out there using different sizes of beads to make beaded beads or pendants. And since I had such a nice selection of round and fire polished beads from a topaz colored mix that I bought, I thought, hey lets use those!
And yah, it ended up kinda cute, heh =P

I also bought a couple of 12mm round wooden beads, simply cause I've been interested in making some beaded beads since a little while ago, and they do end up looking so cute (mostly).
For making the one I made I only used 15/0 seed beads in four different colors (alas, my stack of 15/0's are still very, very skinny compared to my collection of 11/0's).
Anyway, I worked my rows of circular peyote around the bead, increasing and finally decreasing. Was rather fun, and I might even try to work this out with 11/0's depends on when I get time to figure out how many seed beads I need per row compared to the 15/0's.