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?

First Kumihimo Attempt

I was so happy this morning when the mail arrived and I noticed that one of my orders I've made arrived. My second order from Bricol'Art. I'd ordered a Kumihimo disc and some C-LON Beading Cord in a couple of colors to start with.
I've been wanting to try out Kumihimo for quite some time now and finally I was able to! I have to say, that it is a real fun technique and also very relaxing. With the Kumihimo disc from "The BeadSmith" you also get the basic instructions so you can start.

I went to Youtube and checked around for some tutorials, and there's a lot of different schemes out there to follow, and the video tutorials for the basic 8 strand braided cord is very easy to follow, and you can grasp this technique pretty quickly.

For my very first Kumihimo braid I went with three different colors; mahogany, chinese coral, tangerine (name of the colors of the cord). I was really pleased after a couple of rows, when the braid began to take shape, so I kept on going until I had a length of 44cm in total. There I stopped, and began to remove my cords from the board.
To make sure it wouldn't ravel up again, I secured each end with some matte tape and then trimmed each end with the tape on so I could safely add some E6000 to the tips and then slide them into the exterminators.

As this was my first Kumihimo project, I wanted to keep it pretty simple. I found a ceramic doughnut that I bought about a year ago since I found it so pretty, even though I wasn't sure I would be able to use it. Guess I was wrong, heh =P
The only thing I did was to make a simple loop through the doughnut and then move both ends of the cord through the loop and tightened it and measured it so they would be even long. I also decided to add some E6000 at the loop, so the pendant would keep sitting in the same position, so it wouldn't have to be adjusted over and over again.

Closeup of the cord itself.