Video Slideshow and Free-form Bracelet

First off, I would like to wish everyone a happy 2014! :D

Second, I put together another video slideshow of the pieces I made following the period from this summer to the end of 2013.



I've also been in the mood for quite some time to create a free-form bracelet with bead embroidery, I've just been lazy. Meaning I have figure out the basic size so it would actually fit around a wrist.

Since it's a new year and due to the facts that I had completed all the creations I wanted done I ended up taking one of my templates I have for creating bracelets that goes over a metal cuff. What I basically did was putting the template around my own wrist and eyeball how many extra centimeters I would be needing to add so it would look good and fit perfect together with a slide clasp.

I mainly measured out the center of the template and choose a focal I wanted to work with, in this case an Abalone cabochon. Then I fiddled through the glass eye cabochons I'd made myself some weeks ago. Yeah, I decided that to me, it's more affordable to buy clear glass cabs and then create my own eyes in PS since I have the skills for doing that + I have a really freaking awesome photo-printer, lol.
For the pictures, I also got to use my brand new photo-tent that my sweet bf bought me last month. I don't have a table really where I can put it in my little studio, so I put it together for the moment at one of the living room tables, where it won't stay, obviously :p

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.

Netted Bracelet

Yesterday I decided to play a bit with beaded netting. I wanted to create a simpler bracelet using this technique.
It's not really that hard, the most of the work actually is to do some mathematics, depending on whgat sort of netting you want. I stuck to the most basic one; three beads. Which meant that I had to pick up an amount of beads that are divisional by 4. The most simple way to be honest is just to pick up 4 beads at a time until you have the desired length you want, plus about 2.5cm (1"), and then add additional 3 beads again before you go back through the beads strung and begin on the netting.

Since fall is approaching I decided to work with red beads. The bracelet is in a transparent red color with an iris finish to 'em.
When the bracelet was done, before I'd attached the clasp I felt that it was a little bit too simple. I know, "less is more" as they say. But I got this feeling when I looked at it that is really needed something a little extra. So earlier today, I sat down and began to play around with circular netting, until I got this little rose like flower that I really like. And then it was just to measure where the center of the bracelet was, and then attach it :)

A bunch of little bracelets

Okey, I'm aware that I haven't been the most active person, blogging these couple of weeks. My excuse is that I've actually been playing some computer games together with my boyfriend and I had a lot of fun. I'm still playing now on and off when I feel for it, heh :P

Besides that, of course I've been beading as well. I got a request about making a couple of tennis styled bracelet from a friend in Sweden and I've been sitting and playing around with different color combinations now and then to create this bunch.

I think I posted over a year ago, in my previous blog, these tennis bracelets in black/yellow and red/black with Swarovski bicones when I was still really inexperienced in beading. Going back and doing the same thing I did then feels kinda... weird? Also fun. Simply because I can compare how my skills actually have been evolving over a year.
To create this bunch I used different kind of 11/0 seed beads; Matsuno, Miyuki and Toho, whatever colors I thought fitting best together. I mixed one brand with another or the same. For one bracelet, I used 4mm Swarovski bicones. For the other bracelets I used 4mm firepolished Czech glass beads, 4mm glassy pearls by Gütermann.
I might actually make another one that isn't included in the picture. I feel that a blue bracelet actually is missing from the bunch. At the point when I completed the last one, I noticed that I don't have a  single blue 4mm bead at all! So I went out to the town to check out the summer sale to see if I could get my hands on any. And I found a tube in navy blue that I just love.

I'm also gonna point out already now that I'm not gonna be around starting 29th of August to 7th of September. I was so happy yesterday when we actually managed to get to traveling agency and book flight tickets to northern Sweden. I know it's a late time to take a vacation, but it's been almost 3 years since I've been home so it's totally worth it! :)

Simple Delica Bracelet

First I have to make a confession...
I have always been a bit skeptical about buying delicas or any cylinder beads at all, since I found them rather expensive from place to place. The second reason to why I haven't bought any is also cause I have a hard time picking out what colors I want, since there are... I think over 600 different ones.

So on Thursday I decided to put my stubbornness to the side and buy a couple of different colors. I bough about 10g of black opaque since I know that the main color I mostly work with is black. Then I also bought 5g of each a cream color, gray, crystal/coral lined and transparent coral.
I was actually surprised how many delicas there are per gram, compared to ordinary seed beads. And they are so... Perfect in shape and size, mostly all of them.

I wanted to try my hands on a peyote stitch pattern since I know a lot of people prefer to work delicas on peyote since they are even in size. I admit, working delicas with peyote makes the piece so much nicer then working with ordinary seed beads.
The pattern I chose to work with is from Bricol'Art, and can be found in their "Bead and Win" section on their website for free.

Bracelet: Victorian Twist

I've been having these gorgeous Tila beads in antique rose that kinda reminded me of Victorian Renaissance fashion. Might just be me, but that's how I ended up with the color scheme I picked for this little set.
 I have some transparent lilac lined light rose that just fitted perfectly together with the Tila beads. These two colors were kinda nice, but I wanted to add a little different twist to the color scheme to make it "pop". I decided to add hyacinth orange in with the other two colors.

For my first project I decided on making a bracelet, using the Tila beads as the main focus. I just simply used ladder stitch to make three different rows with the Tilas. I then joined them together by adding the hyacinth colored seed beads in between like a cross. To add something a little extra I also decided to add a hyacinth heart bead here and there in a pattern where I would normally add the hyacinth orange seed beads.
I used the transparent lilac lined light rose seedies for a picot fringe just to cover up that thread on-top of the Tilas.
And yes, of course I had to add that lilac/amethyst acrylic button for this one (I used one also for the purple weaver bracelet made out of twin beads) since it fit so nicely onto the open clasp I made. At first I was going to add a heart shaped clasp, but after trying that out I decided to just add the button. The metal (silver or gold) just took away the attention from the bracelet itself, so I felt that I had to kill that since the bracelet was the main focus of it (duh, lol).

Twin for Free

I received my free 10 gram of Twin Beads from Preciosa this week, and they were just stunning and so cute! lol.

When I saw this offering they made I just thought "hey! free beads, must be worth trying to sign up for this" heh. They offer this to everyone that likes their Facebook page and uses the application to get a personal code to get 10 gram of free twin beads :)

I have always been a bit curious about these beads, ever since I heard that they were launched, but I haven't really seen any of my suppliers carry it until a week ago; Perles & Co. in France added some to their online store this week and I can't wait to order up some beads again. And the most awesome thing is, is that they sell them per 20 gram instead of 10 :)

Anyway.
The color I received of my free beads are purple iris. I thought that was great, cause I have about 100g of purple iris matte beads in my stash, so I decided to work together with those.
I didn't do anything complicated, as 10 gram isn't that much to move around. I wanted to try out peyote stitch with these, or even herringbone but I ended up making a very simple right angle weave bracelet/cuff.
For the last part of the bracelet I added a final row with the 11/0's and some 4mm purple glass beads that I pulled tightly together, to give a ruffled effect to the top and the bottom of the bracelet/cuff to give a fabric feeling to it. For the closure I used an acrylic button that fitted perfectly with the rest of the bracelet/cuff :)

At this point I had actually used up pretty much all of my twin beads, only 15 remained, lol. I felt that I didn't really want to store them away some where since it's such a small amount to be bothered with in the future, so I began on a circular peyote stitch, so see what it could evolve into. After two rows, using 10 beads I added 5 of the same 4mm purple glass pearls I used for the bracelet, and then I used latter stitch to attach the last five twins on top of the 5 twins that already where in the circle. Then I went through the top holes of the new twins and joined them together in a circle and formed an odd beaded bead, lol.
I ended up using some very thin silver-plated chain that I had laying around. Then a head-pin and two of the same 4mm glass pearls again together with this beaded bead and I made a wrapped loop :P
A delicate little necklace is what came out of the very last twins, lol.

Bracelet: Bugle Blocks

For this bracelet I used a pattern that can be found in "Beading Across America".

The pattern is designed by June Huber and mainly consists of bugle beads in two different sizes and 15/0 seed beads.

I had to change the pattern a tad bit so it would get adapted to what I had laying around.
The pattern calls for 3mm and 8mm bugle beads. I didn't have any 8mm bugles (heck I don't even know where to get my hands on 8mm'ers), so I replaced them with 6mm bugles instead.
What you also need is 8/0 seed beads that goes inside the bigger bugle units. Since I changed the size of my longer bugles I had to replace the 8/0's with 9/0's else they  would be too big to sit nicely in place.

I chose to make my piece in black and red since for me it's more personal (my favorite colors are black and red when together). I've also been thinking about making a neck piece or something using this kind of technique since I really enjoyed doing this piece. It is also a way of using bugle beads which I don't do so very often - the fear of a cut off thread will always be there ever since it happened the first time, lol.

Bracelet: Tri-po

Finished another bracelet that I've been wanting to do for some time.
I've been wanting to use cube beads and use brick stitch, since I think those two are a great combination together.
So last week when my order of 20g of 4mm black opaque and 20g of 4mm red opaque AB cube beads arrived I decided on making this one.

Now, I were wondering a bit over the design on how to make it a bit more special, and then it hit me to make a set of different pyramid units and then stitch 'em together overlapping the space, so the bracelet still would follow a straight line.
I do remember that I've seen this particular design a bit here and there on the web, so, no it's not my original idea :)

For the clasp I decided on just adding a pair of 8mm black glass pearls on the top and the bottom of one side, and then on the opposite side a pair of loops where the glass pearls would fit into.

I must say that I like the retro sort of style this bracelet brings. And compared to using seed beads the cube beads really makes the bracelet stiff and also thick and also reminds of a cuff when wearing it.

September Moodboard

Yay, it's up again!

The Moodboard for September at Operation Tackle That Bead Stash! 

If you wanna go directly to the post just click here.

I was really excited when I saw the color scheme I had as a choice to chose and immediately I began thinking which ones of my colors I should use, and how.

After I'd played around with the ones I chose I suddenly decided on making a free-form bracelet for the first time...  Instead of the normal single bead peyote stitch I chose to work with two drop, simply cause I wanted to work with something else that I hadn't tried before as well.





 When I decided on the free-form I tossed in some more beads in different sizes and shapes; 8/0's, 9/0's, 15/0's, bugles, pearls etc. For an attachment I used a three-loop and a magnetic clasp.










The free form was actually a really fun experience and I'll definitely do that again in the near future! And also recommend anyone who haven't tried it yet to give it a shot, cause it's really, really fun.