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.

Necklace: In the Style of Romance

I've been in the mood for quite a while to put those twin beads I bought two months ago to some action, but of course I wanted to finish up my main project first. I found this tutorial about a necklace/bracelet I wanted to try on Preciosa Ornela's own website for free, so I decided to give it a shot since I really liked the design of it. The tutorial can be accessed directly here.


 It's mostly reading with not any graphs at all to be honest, but it's a very easy and understandable tutorial. It's a two needle technique which first is only about stringing on all the main beads on each side of the thread. The tutorial also tells how many beads you'll need for making a necklace (choker length) and a bracelet.

Besides the twin beads I also used 11/0 Czech seed beads. The tutorial however calls for 10/0 Czech seed beads, but I haven't even been able to find size 10/0 from Czech beads anywhere so I just switched 'em out for 11/0's.

For the attachment I decided to add a small piece of a chain together with a lobster clasp. I also decided to add a 4mm round Swarovski bead for weight.

Broach - Pink Bow

I've been seeing these simply adorable beaded bows around the web ever since I began blogging myself. I've been wondering how exactly they are created. They look like some sort of peyote stitch creations, no? Actually they are created from four brick stitch diamonds in two different sizes and then joined together.

You can have a look at the pattern yourself by clicking here. The website is in Russian, but it's pretty easy to understand and to figure out since the graphs are pretty clear.

I had no idea what to do with the finished bow once it was completed, I just wanted to make it, heh =P
Although, in the end I decided to glue it stuck to a broach back and make it into a broach. My very first one, lol. At least I bought some broach backs if I would end up making one in the future, even if I don't really use 'em myself.

I used 11/0 crystal lined pale rose (name of the color) seed beads to create it.
The broach is about 5cm (2 inces) in length.
I might even end up making more of these since I kinda fell in love with them, lol! Nah, I just find them darn cute :)

Bangles

I'm feeling a bit better now, and I managed to take my time to caress my shinies (lol) and figure out what I wanted to try next.

After reading the post from "Beads For Brains:365" blog about this cute little peyote bangle I really, I mean REALLY wanted to give it a shot. I've always had some sort of weakness towards bangles - ever since I were little.
The pattern is designed by Viki - FDEkszer and can be purchased from her Etzy store for a very reasonable price. She also have a lot of other patterns, so I highly recommend to take a look.
To be honest, I've always been a tad bit against buying patterns online but... I... Wanted it! After all; Rules are meant to be broken.
The pattern itself calls for 11/0 cylinder beads, for mine I used Matsuno seed beads instead since I haven't really been stacking up on Delicas at the moment... You'll also need about 40 3mm beads - again I changed mine to 4mm since I'm all out of 3mm'ers, but it works just as nice.

Finally I also got to use some of my crystal lined hot pink seed beads for something. The color is very bright and clear so I've been a bit scared of using it to just anything, but this I love. I also decided on using up some of those czech fire polished glass beads in capri blue that I bought a while ago. I love the capri blue color since it's so radiant, and I like the crystal lined hot pink, didn't know what to combine them with. I bought about 20 grams of crystal lined copper seed beads and hey, they look really good with the capri blue beads, it almost gives it an antique Egyptian look to it.

One of the most fun part with this project is that I got to practice my peyote stitching a lot more. I also learned how to the peyote stitch in a REALLY FAST way. You can read about it at the "Wild Sally Road" blog here. You HAVE to read it.