Fiery Warrior

Where to begin… seems like…. feels like… I'm being pulled 1002 ways… don’t know why!!!! I stopped smoking almost 5 months ago…. and I somehow feel like I’ve lost my mind and replaced it with 10 kg!!!!  shocking!!! but I digress… again… which is why I can’t seem to get anything done lately… my mind is just everywhere!!!…  did I tell you I just turned 45!!!!!!!! 45??????? almost as shocking as the extra 10 kilos I put on since I stopped smoking!!!! so before I change the subject… again… here is what I manage to finish and photograph… these are the pieces where I tried to combine my newfound metalwork skills with my less new beadwork skills :-)

 

Fiery Warrior – OOAK Necklace

 

 

Fiery Warrior – OOAK Leather Cuff

 

  
The photos really don’t do these pieces justice…. but after 3 previous failed attempts due to massive sand storms which blocked out the sun for about a week (on and off)… this is the best I could do….

 

I sawed and textured the copper myself…. I’m soooo proud!!! :-)

 

If you want to read more about materials used and see more photos, click on the titles or pictures….

 

Ok… if I can keep my head straight for the next few days I should be able to work on the photos of my new metal pieces and then I’ll hopefully post them here ASAP!!!

 

In the meantime… let me know what you think of this metalwork/beadwork combo… happy beading!!! :-)

Metalwork and Diamond & Pearls Ribbed Bracelet

Lately…. I want to spend less and less time on the computer (hence my sporadic blogging) and more and more time in my studio… I’ve become addicted to metalwork!!! and LOVE spending the day in my studio sawing, soldering and filing!!! who would have thought?!?!?

I showed you my first pieces in my last post… but I’m happy to see improvement since then! :-)

Here is one of my favourites I made that I’m keeping for myself and LOVE to death!!!!

I’m so proud of this piece and wear it almost every day!!! :-)

So I started making loads of pendants… some didn’t come out so well but went to good use anyway… some have found new homes… and some are waiting to be photographed….

Here are some that aren’t quite right… the bezel was too high for the stone… I now worked out the right sizes :-)

These didn’t go to waste, I wear the left one and my friend the right one :-)

  

This is a piece that went to my lovely neighbour Ella who looks after my doggies when I go away overnight :-)

I really love how these pendants are turning out… I love filing them into shape… and love how the sharp metal turns into soft curves… I’m really enjoying this medium… a big step away from beadwork but I have actually made two pieces incorporating both metal sheet and beadwork… unfortunately my camera’s batteries died just as I was about to take the photos this morning… so will have to take them tomorrow… and post them at a later time :-)  I’m really happy with how these turned out so make sure you come back and check them out in a few days….

I’ve done very little beadwork this year… partly because I felt uninspired and partly because my metalwork is occupying most of my time…. but I did make this bracelet a few months ago… I just forgot to post it :-)

Diamond & Pearl – Ribbed Bracelet

 

This bracelet is bead-woven into a rib texture.  Made with over 350 Swarovski pearls, the bracelet was designed around a gorgeous gold-plated clasp that I got from The Beadsmith and the bracelet ended up in one of their adverts!!!!

Hopefully, I’ll take more photos tomorrow and then show you some more pieces… till then… happy beading! :-)

Silence….

A long time… a long time indeed… since I last posted… what can I say… I’ve been in a really funny mood… winter? life? I don’t know… I just didn’t feel like talking… or writing… I can’t say I was depressed… I just needed to have silence in my life.

Very little beading happened during this quiet time… I couldn’t find myself…. so I occupied my mind (and my creative craving) by redoing my son’s bedroom… painted it, bought some new furniture… (a desk, a cupboard, some cool wall stickers)… updated it and reorganized it to fit his age…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m really proud of myself because I managed to do everything on a really tight budget!!! The paint was about 300 NIS (c. $80), I found the cupboard on sale for 400 NIS (c. $108), the desk, also on sale for 200 NIS (c. $54), of course I had to build them, which I did all by myself!!! :-) The rest of the furniture I already had, I just reorganized it and gave away a ton of toys that he had grown out of… bought some wall stickers, that he chose himself …  and voila’ :-) I’m so glad he finally has a proper cupboard to keep all his clothes in and places for most of his toys… plus, most importantly, a desk!!!! to do his homework on, draw, do whatever he wants (instead of on my dining room table) :-) I wanted to paint the old wooden furniture white, but Ethan didn’t want me to… so I left it…

My lovely (and talented) cousin Bettina made him this gorgeous ceramic Mezuza cover for his new room and even made me 2 more for my bedroom and my workroom. Aren’t they gorgeous!!!

So once the room was done you would think I would get some beading done, right? well… no! still waiting for my muse to return from her extended hiatus!!!! So…. I started doing some origami… and started checking out things one could do with origami… came across this amazing artist (who happens to be in Israel too) Ilan Garibi…. you have to check out his amazing origami lamps!!!!

Design by Ofir Zucker and Albi Serfaty in collaboration Ilan Garibi.

Photo by Albi Serfaty.

Then after a bit of origami…. some crochet!!! :-) I started making a blanket for Ethan's new room… some angry bird hats… anything to avoid the frustration of sitting in front of my beads and having nothing to say…. my beads are silent….

Then, the other day, a friend came round to show me how to start on my metalwork… I’ve had the equipment for almost a year and all I made was a pair of earrings which I posted a while back:

I simply had this fear of the torch and the unknown… so my friend Penny came over and kindly spent the morning showing me how she makes her lovely hammered copper bangles – see below her lovely work and check out her etsy shop - PenelopeStern!!!

            

And here is what I made!!!!

Couldn’t have done it without Penny’s help!!!! I made one with her, then spent the next day making 2 more 1/2 round ones and 2 flat hammered ones! and I LOVE them!!! I’ve been wearing them ever since!!!! :-)

Armed with this new knowledge, and having got rid off some of the fear of using the torch, I thought I would use one of my books and try and make one of the projects, a ring… here is the result… not perfect but not bad for my first attempt and good enough for me to wear! :-)

 

It feels really good to be making again!!!! and I look forward to playing more with my torches… so stay tuned and see what I come up with! :-)

Rust can be beautiful!

Well… as always I find time slipping away and the next thing I know… weeks have flown by!!!  Ethan was off school for a couple of weeks… Succot holidays… my parents were here… for the holidays and for my cousin’s bat-mitzvah in Jerusalem, which was a lot of fun!!! I made the jewellery for the gorgeous bat-mitzvah girl! (if I get permission from my cousin I will post photos at a later stage)…

Whenever my parents are here they take my car (ok, their car seeing that they paid for it) I become even more of a hermit than I usually am and become almost house bound… well what can one do when stuck at home???… bead of course!!! and bead I did!!! :-)  Apart from the necklace and earrings I made for my cousin, I made 2 necklaces, 2 pairs of earrings and 3 cuffs… would have made 4 cuffs and 3 pairs of earrings had I not been busy with family festivities and had I not got my car back today :-)

Here is the first necklace:

Diamond Rust – OOAK Bead Embroidered Necklace

 
I’m so in LOVE with this necklace, the photos don’t do it justice!!! it’s a really long piece and it was hard to photograph it all without making it look really small (which it is not)…. I was inspired by the colours of rusting metals… I used a gorgeous MAKUstudio raku cab (the square top one) and lots and lots of gorgeous burgandy Swarovski crystal pearls… I really need to take this picture on a body to show it in it’s best light… will get round to it! :-)

For now got to go and work on the photos for all the other pieces… hopefully I will post them all during the week… so come back and check them out! :-)

Sinai Glitz

Anyone who knows me well knows that I LOVE turquoise and love ancient Egypt art & jewellery… a while back I bought two lovely turquoise vintage glass cabs depicting an ancient Egypt figure… so I had to use them… and this is what I made:

Sinai Glitz – OOAK Cuff

The colours remind me of the landscape in Sinai… turquoise skies, copper/red mountains, scorching hot sun (gold) and the cuff of course inspired me to create these earrings (which I absolutely adore!!!) 

Sinai Glitz – Earrings

I started working on the second cab… supposedly to make a matching necklace… but no ideas have come to fruition yet…. we’ll see… and a week ago I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow BAO member, Janice Abarbanel of Naftali who is visiting Israel and who makes the most beautiful polymer cabs and jewellery… we met in Tel Aviv  and we went bead shopping of course!!! I got some beautiful coral and turquoise beads as well as some gorgeous dark blue and copper Cryscholla cabochons (which I'm yet to decide if to use with my metalwork or with my beadwork)… I had so much fun!!! it was so lovely meeting Janice!!! and look what she gave me from her own jewellery line…

This pendant is soooo beautiful… my photo really doesn’t do it any justice… and it looks even better on!!! So very sweet of her!!!  My only regret is that I didn’t take pictures of our meeting… I forgot I have a camera on my mobile… Janice however did, and I hope it comes out, as I would love to have a memento of our meeting in Tel Aviv.  If you are not familiar with Janice's work, I would definitely recommend heading over to her website http://janiceabarbanel.com/ and her etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/Naftali (although at the moment her etsy shop will look empty as she’s on holiday and her shop is on vacation mode till 14th July).

Ok… now lets see what I can do with that second cab…

Till the next time :-)

What’s Been Going on + New Tutorial

Where do I begin???? I’ve been busy doing bits and pieces…  some custom orders… some classes…  some metal work… and a new tutorial!!!

First of all let me show you how my first pair of metal worked earrings turned out! :-)

 
Not bad, considering I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing!!! :-)  These earrings are made of copper, sawed, filed and textured (battered) with a hammer and then shaped with a wooden thingy majiggy (don’t you just love my technical jargon!) I think it’s called a dapping die set :-)

What I learnt from making these?  well… I’m not very good with the saw… I am very good at breaking the saw blades…. it’s going to take me a much longer time than I expected to make things… I guess my learning curve is pretty abysmal… I wish I could go to some classes :-)

Then… I got really excited because I found instruction for how to make those really cool leather wrap bracelets… I've wanted one for years!!! and now I have about 7!!! :-) I’ve been making one after another, some for me, some for friends, some as gifts for my son’s teachers for the end of the year…. some still have to be made… but in the meantime here are some of the ones I already made.

These are soooo much fun to make!!!! and I just can’t stop!!!! I even started making buttons for the closures out of copper…. with my newly found metalwork skills :-)

And finally I taught a workshop last week for my Rosette Earrings and now the tutorial is available in my etsy shop:

 

I think that’s it for now… I’m still working on finishing a bead-embroidered bag… I think I’m about 5 or 6 months into it!!! It will be finished soon… I hope! :-)

Wishing you all happy beading! :-)

Reflection & Resurrection

In the last few months I have not been the most productive… between an operation I had to have at the beginning of March, the 6 weeks convalescing that followed… and my dad being in hospital for the last month… well… lets just say my mind hasn’t been where it should be! :-)

I'm all healed up!!!… my dad is still in hospital but he’s doing much, much better… the hard part for me is being so far way from him… he’s in London… and I’m not :-( I did manage a quick trip to London for 4 days to visit him… and it was really hard leaving him there in hospital… but since I got back home his health has improved tremendously!!!

During my time convalescing, when I wasn’t allowed to drive, exercise, pick up stuff, do housework (which I really didn’t mind), basically was supposed to rest and heal… I found it quite hard to bead, as unfortunately beading does require a sitting position and  for the first month I wasn’t able to do so for more than 30 minutes at a time… this gave me lots of time to reflect on things… life… and everything else… and as soon as I could, I created these two pieces.

Reflection – OOAK Necklace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection was created around a gorgeous MAKUstudio OOAK copper raku ceramic cab.

Resurrection – OOAK Necklace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resurrection was created araound some gorgeous polymer clay beads that I purchased a really long time ago from Valerie Aharoni.

I can’t begin to tell you how gorgeous these pieces are in the flesh… I found photographing them really difficult and I’m afraid I wasn’t able to convey their real beauty… and they look so incredible on!!! I love both of them so much and find it really difficult to pick a favourite!!!

As for other things… well I’m almost finished making another beadembroidered bag… but I lost my box of needles, containing my leather beading needles and as the back of the bag is leather I can’t finish it till I get some more needles… which reminds me… must do that today!!! :-)

I’m also working on some earrings for a workshop I will be teaching in the near future… apart from that…. just trying to get my life back on track…. still haven’t done any major housework :-) maybe if I did I would find the missing box of needles!!! :-) Nahh… I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually!!! :-)

Till the next time…. happy beading! :-)

Arearea - Joyousness

I finally finished my new bead embroidered bag Arearea – Joyousness. I honestly never thought it would get finished!!! :-) but each and every single stitch and bead was put there with so much love and enthusiasm, because I absolutely LOVE this bag and LOVE how it turned out!!!!

I created this bag for the Bead Art Originals (BAO) Team’s December challenge. The challenge was to create a piece inspired by one of our favourite famous works of art; a famous painting, sculpture, photograph, etc...

The painting I chose is Paul Gauguin’s Arearea – Joyousness (1892)

This is one of my all-time favourite paintings and I have a postcard of it (that I purchase in some museum about 15-18 years ago) pinned to my note board next to my computer.

I love this painting for so many reasons, the composition, the exotic feel to it and the colours. Both the exoticism and the colours are what inspired me to create this bag.

The bag is made entirely by hand (hand stitched) in chocolate brown genuine suede, and is lined in bright purple Ultrasuede, beadembroidered around three gorgeous MAKUstudio One-of-a-Kind ceramic cabochons (1 heart and 2 discs), beautiful Swarovski crystals in Montana Sapphire, burn orange and Golden Shadow, Swarovski Crystal Copper elongated bicones and loads of multicoloured fresh-water pearls all beadembroidered with Japanese seed beads in light bronze, dark copper, Swarovski Montana Sapphire crystals and Czech copper bugles.

The strap is a gorgeous and sturdy beadwoven spiral rope encrusted with the Swarovski Montana Sapphire crystals and the multicoloured fresh-water pearls.

I have fallen heads over heel in love with this bag!!!! I must make a similar one for myself, as soon as I can find the time!!! :-)

Let me know what you think & wishing all who celebrate it a very happy Hanukkah!!!

Please visit the BAO team blog, http://www.beadartoriginals.blogspot.com between the 16th and 20th of December and vote for your favourite entry by leaving a comment on the blog post.

Volcanic Collection – 4 New Pieces!

It all started off with me receiving some absolutely stunning cabochons and buttons from MAKUstudio… and that was an accomplishment in itself!!! Every time a new cab was posted on her facebook fan page, I would click on the link and…. it would be already sold!!!! Am not surprised because her pieces are so yummy… anyway, so I managed to put an order in and received them about a week later… and got out the few I had bought from her a while ago…. and all I could think when looking at these gorgeous pieces was…. fire… earth… lava… volcano… ancient… tribal… primitive…. so I gathered my beads (another accomplishment as they are spread all over my flat) and started to bead my first piece which is designed for the Bead Art Originals “No Bones About It” September Challenge. We are supposed to design a piece inspired by the TV character Temperance Brennan from the series "Bones."

The character, Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist who works together with the FBI to solve murders. She is often seen wearing gorgeous tribal and ethnic jewellery and I love this series!!!! :-)

Her jewellery style and her profession inspired me to design this gorgeous primitive/tribal-influenced piece featuring two of MAKUstudio’s gorgeous cabochons (actually the top one is a button that I used as a cab).

Volcano Goddess – OOAK Necklace

Then as soon as I finished this, I got loads of ideas for making more pieces with MAKU’s raku ceramic cabs…. first came the cuff:

Volcanic Rock – OOAK Cuff

then another necklace…

Volcanic Rock – OOAK Necklace

(both the necklaces and the cuff above use all MAKUstudio raku ceramics)

and then of course the earrings…

Volcanic Rock – Earrings

and I wanted to make more… but I run out of dark copper beads and almost the black ones too!!! (more ordered and on their way!)

So I put this collection aside… and started a new one! Still have to work on the photos and decide on a name…. but I’ll tell you this, the colour combination for it is coral red, black, ivory and gold… and it is GORGEOUS!!!! and I made THREE necklaces and THREE bracelets!!! I’m in a total beading frenzy!!!! and…. just now as I was typing, the doorbell rang…. the postman is here with my order of copper and black beads!!!! The only problem is, I actually run out of Fireline… my dad, who is coming to Israel on Tuesday is bringing me loads…. so I guess no beading till then :-) and just as well as I have loads of work to do for my ‘real’ job! :-)

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead! :-)

Queen Boudicca – OOAK Cuff

Remember the Queen Boudicca Necklace I posted a few weeks ago? I wrote at the end how I wished I had another same-shaped cab from Lisa Peters Art so I could make myself a similar necklace? Well… shortly after I posted my blog, Carol Dean from SandFibers contacted me, telling me she had 2 similar cabs (also from Lisa Peters Art) and that she would send them to me the next day!!! How generous is that?!?!?

A week later I got them in the mail and eagerly started making myself the necklace (of course I forgot to take photos, but it’s similar to the original except for instead of hanging from a beadwoven necklace it hangs from a 3-strand leather choker, mainly because I was too lazy to beadweave a whole necklace just for me & because I was running out of black matte seed beads)… I love my new necklace!!!!!!!!!!!!! but Carol Dean sent me 2 cabs… hmmm what to do with the second one??? :-)

I started beading…. and the next thing I know… it developed into this cuff:

Queen Boudicca – OOAK Cuff

My only regret is that I can’t show you this piece in real life… it is so amazing…. powerful…. I just love it!!!

and as I have Carol Dean to thank for her generosity which led to my new necklace and this new cuff… I wanted to show some of SandFibers gorgeous beadwork that is for sale!

Click on the pictures to be taken to the listings for these cuffs and don’t forget to browse her shop for a huge selection of beadwork!!! SandFibers also offers lots of patterns for sale!!!

Thank you so much Carol Dean for those cabs, they really made my day and now I’m the proud owner of a incredibly gorgeous necklace! :-)

Queen Boudicca

“…So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility….”

From “Boadicea” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Boudicca (also known as Boadicea) was the warrior Queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe; a patriotic Briton, a heroine, a woman and a leader who stood her ground against foreign invasion.

This necklace was created for the next Bead Art Originals Colour Inspiration – Black, dark green & copper with Boudicca as inspiration for the beginning of September. The necklace was created around a fellow Bead Art Original member’s (Lisa Peters Art) cabochon.

Queen Boudicca – OOAK Necklace

I’m so in love with this necklace!!! and I’m so reluctant to part with it!!! it looks soooo good on me!!! and it’s just so me!!! I wish I had another same shape cab from Lisa Peters Art and I would make myself another one in a heartbeat… but alas, Lisa’s work is OOAK (I have to ask her if she has any similar cabs in the same shape)….