March Challenge Piece for OTTBS!

Yep, I realize that this post is about three days late, I apologize for that ^^ Been a bit occupied here, been having a terrible cold for more then a week and it's finally starting to clear out of the system :)

For the March Challenge at "Operation Tackle That Bead Stash!" the theme was to use at least three different pastel colors and that extra twist was to incorporate leaves in the piece.
When I saw the theme of the challenge I wasn't really too keen to participate in it as I normally don't feel that drawn to pastels, but for some reason, four days before the deadline I suddenly felt very, very inspired to create something using this theme. I found a kind of a limeish colored gemstone cabochon in my gemstone cab collection (I have no idea what gemstone it is, but a few months ago I found a picture that showed a very similar gemstone, and it was called lemon-quartz; again no idea if that is correct *shrug*), that looked great together with some of the pale lavendelish colored beads I had in a tube.
I began with gluing the cabochon onto some foundation, then I played around with the bezel which I created in netting. After that I began to play around with the shape, and see what sort of beads looked good and how I would place them onto the foundation to make it look just as I wanted.

When I finished, just to that point when you look at what you're creating and you have that little creative voice in your head telling you that "this is just perfect". That voice that tells you to stop, I've noticed that if you sometimes don't listen to it you can end up over-designing whatever you were working :P
At this point I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with this piece; A pendant? A brooch? In the end I decided on a pendant. I wanted to keep the chain as simple as possible so I just used the basic colors I picked out from the beginning and went with it. The chain is created with the simple Russian spiral stitch, and I used 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads for it, to make it so thin as possible.
Working a Russian spiral stitch with 15/0 and 11/0's, I think! Took the double amount of time it takes when I would work with 8/0 and 11/0's or with 9/0 and 11/0's.

OTTBS - July Challenge

After slacking off for about two or three months, I decided that I had to join this month's challenge at "Operation Tackle That Beads Stash!".

The theme for this month is to use brown, pink and cream colors into the creation. There's also an extra twist that you can chose to incorporate; flowers.

For my piece I chose to create a thinner bead embroidery cuff. I've been in the mood of using the 19mm thick brass cuffs that I bought since some months ago, and I thought this was perfect. The center piece is a 14mm cat's eye cabochon. The other beads I used are some 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads by Toho, 11/0 Delicas for the bezel of the cabochon, 15/0 seed beads by Miyuki, 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads by Matsuno, brown goldstone chip beads, 3mm bugles by Matsuno, some 8/0 seed beads that I got in a mix. I also chose to incorporate some 6mm Swarovski flowers to add that little extra twist.

Necklace: Perspective

Yesterday I pulled my act together and finished up my latest bead embroidery piece.
It ended up as a necklace, with the polymer clay cabochon I made about two weeks ago.
I was a bit worried when I finished up the part where I attached the chain to the pendant; I chose to make two separate chains and attach 'em directly to the pendant instead of making a bail, which I usually go for.
However, it ended up looking perfect, and it lays perfect onto the body when wearing it.
I decided to add a fringe to the bottom of each chain where they are attached to the pendant since it looked  a bit naked.
I attacked a toggle-clasp as closure in silver-plated silver.









This is my entry for January's moodboard on Operation Tackle That Bead Stash! :)

October Moodboard

And again I just had to participate in this month's Moodboard which "Operation Tackle That Bead Stash!" is holding each month.
I really like the color scheme of this month as well, even if it really ain't any colors I would walk around in myself. Take a look for yourself, and click here to go directly to the post.

So, what I chose to do this time is a little ring, using circular brick stitch and peyote stitch for the ring base. I found these gorgeous aqua 9/0 seed beads laying around in a bag that I'd sorted out from a blue color bead mix that I bought last year or something, and finally I could actually use 'em for something. And since I really didn't have that maaaany laying around (like the color and it spoke to me) I decided on making a little ring.

I also used 11/0's and some 4mm glass beads, and one 8mm glass bead for the center.

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.

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.