Blazing Flowers

Fire & Flowers is this month's EtsyBeadweavers' challenge and to be honest, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to miss this challenge.... I had so much going on this past month, that the last hing on my mind was the challenge... I did every-so-often think about it, but had absolutely no inspiration whatsoever!!!.... and then yesterday morning I did a search on etsy under ebwc to see what the group had come up with for this challenge. I was so inspired by what I saw that I quickly got out all my fiery colours and started beadweaving... 36 hours later, this is the result... I love the smouldering quality of the flowers created by the ascending and descending orange, red and purple beads....

Blazing Flowers

Voting Starts on the 7th April and only lasts 5 days, so don't put it off!!! :-) Go vote! http://www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/

Flatwork

Ok.... I just haven't found the time to post this... mainly working but also beading... so I decided to stop beading (temporarily of course) and write about the new book by Nicole Campanella of Beadwright that is about to come out and is already flying off... well not off the shelves, as it hasn't even reached there yet!!! ... but the pre-orders are flying in!!!

"Flatwork" is a beading project book with a gallery of flatwork created by artists from all over the world... and yes.... Nicole was kind enough to include some of my pieces in her book!!!! Isn't it amazing?!?! :-D I'm so exited.... I cannot wait for the book to come out!!! it's definitely one for my forever-growing beading library!!! For more details on the book and the author, go to:

http://www.nicolecampanella.com/

Thank you so much Nicole for including my work in your book!!!! :-) I really can't wait to see it and to try out all your wonderful techniques.... this book is G-d sent to me and just at the right time as I'm getting more and more into bead embroidery and am itching to learn so much more!!!!

Go order your copy, before it's too late :-)

Spring Bride Set

I finally finished the choker to match one of the bracelets in yesterday's post Bracelet Mania... and I have to say that it looks really simple but it actually took me quite a long time to weave it, especially as I went back through it more than once to give it some structure and obviously so the whole thing won't fall apart ;-)

Here is the choker Spring Bride Necklace

and I must thank Carol Dean of Sand Fibers as I took the adjustable closure from one of her wonderful pieces Brilliant Bronze Choker with Pearls. Go check it out! Thank you Carol Dean!:-)






Here is the set... am thinking of earrings too... but am not sure how to incorporate the cubes... and I really want to! :-)

I think the obsession for this week is white Japanese cubes and coloured pearls.... what can I say... spring is here... flowers in bloom... birds are chirping.... the weather is beautifull... and I'm sick of winter colours! :-)


Spring Bride Necklace

Spring Bride Bracelet

Bracelet Mania

I can't stop beading.... not even long enough to read the latest edition of Beadwork magazine that arrived yesterday :-) and it seems that my obsession for the week is beading bracelets... and white!!! which is even stranger for me than pink.... but I'm loving it!!! I really must be going soft in my old age, I'm becoming girlie :-)

so here are 3 that I made earlier :-)

These 2 below are the basically the same bracelet, the left one (Pearls and Bricks ) differes from the right one (Happy Bride ) in colour and size of seed beads, also the left one has alternating rows of Swarovsky crystals and pearls, the right one only pearls.



This next one (Spring Bride) is so much fun... I made one for myself :-) and I'm also in the process of finishing off a complimentary choker... hopefully I will be able to post it in a few days... I love all three pictures and couldn't decide which one to post, and as I'm so proud of all of them, decided to post all :-)



Come back in a few days to see the choker :-)

Pink Flower

Here it is... finished at last!!!! :-)

Thank you to all of you who left me comments... I have taken the majority's advise, as I agree with you, and did not add the fringe... I just don't think it needs it... actually I don't think a fringe would add to this piece at all... so here is my Pink Flower... I like it!!! :-) let me know what you think :-)

Pink Flower (in the making)

I can't believe how long it has been since I last wrote!!!! shocking!!!

I won't bore you with all the details as to why I just couldn't... as far as I'm concerned you can blame it all on the builder of my flat (Ariel Soltzi Ltd.) who did not hold up his end of our legal contract and even when ordered to pay me by the courts... hasn't!!! so I live in a flat that has had more leaks than years, a lot more leaks!!! and he carries on building as though nothing happened and he has no legal nor moral responsibility!!!! As I don't want to be sued (ha ha ha) I will refrain myself from calling him every single name under the sun!!!! :-) please use your imagination :-)

So another leak fixed (and no thanks to the builder!) and finally I've been able to both post my progress and actually progress with it!!! it is almost finished, but in the mean time, as promised, here is the piece in progress...

Well it all started out with me finally getting round to clearing up my beading desk... I won't show you how bad it was before... but as you can see it's not even perfectly clean after :-) I'm just running out of space where to put all my beads and beading!!! :-) and as you'll see below... it didn't last long!!!! I want an additional table/room :-)

So basically I start off with pulling out all the beads I own that go with the mood I'm in at that moment.... and my mood lately has been pink! :-) I'm so not a girly-pink type of person... but lately pink is what inspires me....

and I do have to point out that the weather here has been soooo hot!!! yesterday was 37 degrees Centigrade in the shade!!!!! and all around are flowers in bloom... so maybe that's why I've gone a bit soft :-)

I bought these gorgeous vintage opaque pink glass teardrops from a fellow EtsyBeadweaver, JadeDogBeads and I had to use them!!! after all they are pink!!! :-)

so I started playing around with a geometrical design onto beadbacking... and started working around the teardrops, slowly building up the design till I got to this...

I used a flat Mother-of-Pearl bead for the centre and beaded around it and the teardrops with matte pink and matte burnt ivory type of colour... hard to explain but like a very rich cream mixed with toffee... Czech seed beads

so the centrepiece for the necklace is finished... sort of... cut excess beadbacking... glue to suede, cut around suede and sew the backing to the suede using brick stitch with the contrasting small beads...

and as I hate wasting material I decided to make a couple of elements from the left over bead backing... also to give the necklace a different element... not just because I hate waste :-)

Now all there is left to do is put the elements together :-)

Come back in the next few days to see how it all turned out... actually... could do with your help... leave me a comment letting me know whether you think I should fringe the flower or not.... I'm still completely undecided... would love to hear your opinions :-)