A little "big" ring

I know I'm myself one of those that love wearing rings, and of course I love making them. Nothing says as much about a person as a ring created in your own style in your own opinion.
Some of the very first beading projects I started out making were beaded rings. I haven't really been doing any beaded rings including bead embroidery to be frank, until now.
Why? Cause a ring is always personal and sometimes to make rings also to a consumer you need to know their ring sizes, and that I've noticed varies a lot from person to person.

Last month I decided to purchase some adjustable ring bases cause I wanted to go crazy with those "scrap" cabochons I have laying around, that I have absolutely no idea what else to make of.

So yesterday I looked through some of the resin cabs I've made and I noticed a bronze colored one which I've made using some bronze colored PearlEx powder. It was very hard to capture the real beauty of the effect that the PearlEx powder gave the resin, but the pigment really "swirls" around (not actually moving, heh) with sparkles.
I played with the cabochon on my ring-finger and thought it would look really cool as a ring even with it's giant size (approx. 2.5cm - 1"). I decided I would use some earthy tones and execute it in a simple way to make a bohemian styled piece. I've never really done anything in that style before so it was a bit like stepping out of my comfort zone at the same time even if the design is pretty simple.

I found creating these rings so fun I've actually already put some cabochons I want to use like this to the side, and some I've already glued on to some beading foundation and then I can start beading on them whenever I get in the mood to take a little break off of those bigger pieces I'm still working on.

Have you tried your hands yet on making beaded rings? If so did you enjoy it?

Bead Embroidery Ring II

Yesterday I was a bit bored and I wanted to get a little variation with what I was doing so I decided to take one of my 8mm hematite cabochons and glued it to some interfacing. After that I decided to play around a little bit with beads, using the hematite cab as focal for a little ring.
Nothing too complex really, I bezelled the cab using circular netting; since I've been giving netting a try when it comes to bezelling cabs in bead embroidery, I just sometimes can't stop so when I have a number of beads that is dividable by three I just can't help myself but to use netting, hihi.

The ring is pretty basic. The little edging, which I think gives it that little extra is created with different edging techniques combined in a way that completes the shape of it.
To attach the completed work onto the ring base I just used some E6000 - the ring is adjustable as well.

Something I know I have a problem with when I create rings is to determine the size... I mean we all don't have the same ring sizes, so yep... Even if I do love to wear rings myself I don't tend to create them that often, only cause of this. Think I should invest in some more adjustable ring bases to get rid of some of the cabochons I have in my collection that I just know I won't be using for anything major.

Wire-Wrapped Ring in Copper

So I've been playing around with the latest batch of copper wire I bought last week, experimenting and trying some smaller projects from a book I also bought on that subject.
I noticed that I still had some larger (approx. 8-9mm) faux turquoise beads which I've had in my stash for ages, without knowing what I should do with 'em.

Well, I figured that I could use them to create a wire-wrapped ring with free-form. In other words; "Make the base and then see how the rest of the design could end up", since I don't sketch that often, heh.
Personally, I like the end result of it, for being my very first, own designed ring when it comes to wire-wrapping, lol.

I basically only used two different gauges to create this ring; 20 and 28. To get the right size of the ring, of course I used a ring mandrel. Also, what I did to make the ring band solid and compact, after I wire-wrapped the base with the 28 gauge wire, and finished it as I wanted, I again put it onto the ring mandrel and used a hard-rubber hammer and hammered the ring-band very intensively, all around. When you learn wire-wrapping you also get the knowledge that the more you work your wire, the harder it gets, so yeah, my band is very, very hard :).
 The rest of the design is pretty much free-form. What I did with one end of the wire is that I created a hollow leaf shape, which I then hammered flat and then polished. The swirls are just an experiment; I was so happy when my new round-nose pliers arrived that I put it to some action, lol, and that is the result :P

Set: Cassiopeia

Yeh, I actually liked the palette and the theme I created for my previous post; the Cassiopeia cuff and ring and I decided to create a matching necklace for it. Nothing too complicated, but nothing too simple either, so I decided to create only a pendant that would hang from a delicate gold chain.

I used almost the same beads as I used on the other two creations for this set; the gemstone is the same, just with a different shape. 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads by Toho (gold ones here are also in a permanent finish), 11/0 seed beads and 3mm bugles by Miyuki, 2x 12mm Swarovski rivolis in two different green shades (the same as for the cuff), 2x freshwater pearls and one 4mm glass pearl by Gütermann. The only thing I didn't incorporate, which was in the previous two design was the 3mm Swarovski bicones.

For the finish of the pendant I was first planning on creating a fringe for it, but after observing the piece when I had cut it out from the Lacy's I though that a fringe might make it way too much for the piece itself to handle. Who knows? That is just how I felt at that point and that is still the was I feel today as well.
The bail I just decided to keep simple; ladder stitch, without any embellishing at all. I didn't want to take too much attention away from the pendant itself.

Cuff & Ring: Cassiopeia

Yesterday I managed to do the last finishing touches on my bead embroidery cuff that I posted a preview picture on, in my last Bead Table Wednesday post.

I stuck to the promise I made myself and actually kept on going in free-form style to create it. First I finished up one side, until that one was completely covered, then I moved on to the opposite side to cover that.
The cuff is 28mm wide.

Two weeks ago I received my copy of "Sensational Bead Embroidery" by Sherry Serafini, and I was thrilled! She has a lot of nice tips on how to add certain elements into bead embroidery. And one section that really interested me was how she incorporates rivolies. I decided to test this technique out myself and added two 12mm Swarovski rivolies to one side of this cuff. The trick is to attach the rivoli to a separate piece of beading foundation (Lacy's Stiff Stuff in this case), and cut a circular hole in it which the rivoli will fit in, without falling out. Then you simply sew that beading foundation onto the part where you want the rivoli to sit. Sherry explains it much better then me, plus there're nice illustrations in the book to help you understand.

Next to the two rivolies I also decided to add a bit of a "fun" touch to the cuff; I added some leaves I made with beadweaving, and it looks sorta cute to be honest, heh.

Today I decided, just for fun, to create a matching ring to go with the cuff, since I have exactly the same type of gemstone cabochon as the one I used for the cuff - I actually have to rest my case in my thoughts of those being Zoisite gemstones since I'm not really sure anymore!
The ring is adjustable, so to add.

Besides the materials I've already mentioned, I also used: 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads by Toho (the gold ones are in permanent finish), 11/0 seed beads by Miyuki, 3mm bugles by Miyuki, 4mm round glass pearls by Gütermann, 3mm Swarovski bicones and 2x freshwater pearls.

Ring: Cobalt Blue Whispers

Okey, for once I actually wanted to take my time and play around with some of my artistic wire I've been having around, collecting dust for a bit more then a year now.
So I decided to try my luck on wire wrapping a ring.

I ended up picking 20 and 24 gauge black-plated copper wire for this little project. I also decided that I wanted to incorporate some beads into the design to give it some sparkle. When I was done with fitting the ring shape itself around the ring mandrel, I twisted the access of the loose wire ends into a pair of spirals, which I then secured together with the 24gauge wire.
The beads I incorporated are a pair of Fire Polished Czech glass beads in 8mm and 4mm. The 8mm bead has an AB finish, which the 4mm doesn't.

Now... As I began wrapping the 24 gauge wire around the 20 gauge wire I noticed that the black color began popping off. I'm not really sure how to deal with this on a colored wire once it happens; I'm not really that advanced when it comes to wire wrapping, heh.
I decided to take some sandpaper and actually scrape of some colors here and there myself to give it some sort of vintage look, which in my own opinion worked out really nice for the design itself.

► Have you ever tried wire wrapping? If yes, what do you think of it? If no, why not? ◄

Ring: Crazy

So yeh, like the title says "Crazy" I decided to combine some crazy looking colors; crazy together, kinda... lol.
I actually made this cabochon with some left over polymer clay and just mushed them together into the cabochon mold I have and then peeled it out and did some final touching before baking it together with my earlier bunch of polymer clay cabs.

I was wondering what the heck I could possibly do with something that used these colors, and then it hit me. Lets make a bead embroidery ring just for fun! And yeh... So I did =P
I picked out some 11/0 dark transparent green silver lined seed beads and some 11/0 transparent pink silver lined seed beads, and some green iris 15/0 seed beads and began working.
When I finished the base, I began pondering about the ring base itself. And I ended up attaching an adjustable ring base just between the ultra suede and the stiff stuff, measuring where the ring would end up first, and drew a circle and cut the circle in the center from the with to the height, so it ended up with four open cake pieces.
 I stuffed the ring "head" through that hole and attached it with glue against the stiff stuff and then I glued the ultra suede in place, overlapping the ring base with the open cake slices to cover it up.

In the end I decided to add some diamond glaze onto the cabochon to make it shinier ^^;

Stretchy Montee Rings

I looked this morning at the bead channels I'm subscribed to on YouTube and noticed that Off the Beaded Path had put out a new video featuring a ring, embellished with some montees. I wanted to try this one out since I have stacked up on a couple of montees since this spring.
After I made my first ring, I felt that I just HAD to make a second one. The ring is really pretty, and it goes really, really fast to create and are a perfect gift, now when the holidays are slowly beginning to sneak up.
To go directly to the video, click here.

The supplies you need are a couple of montees; mainly size 3.2mm, but for my second one I used a 6.2mm. You'll also need 10 4mm pearls and about 10 11/0's and a few 8/0's. And some beading thread and a stretching cord. I found my Stretch Magic laying around in a box, lol.

The best thing I find about this ring is that it uses the stretch cord; means it will fit most sizes of fingers, and is therefore a really great gift if you don't know what size the person you're giving the ring to has.