Art Jewelry Elements: July Component of the Month

Woot!  I finished it! :)  And I had so much fun with it!

Okay, so earlier this month, on the Art Jewelry Elements blog, I saw the fabulous July Design component, Jennifer Cameron's Nightmare Insomnia beads.  This bead is so many levels of fabulousness, I just cannot tell you.  :)  I could not wait to play with this one, so I hopped right on the opportunity to get one and participate in the hop!

Okay, so this is the bead Jennifer sent me:

You can't see it terribly well here, but in addition to the gorgeous swirly colors in here,  there's an awesome zebra stripe. 

I pondered this bead for a few weeks, until I finally decided that I wanted to play with seed beads.  I finally settled on a cellini spiral (my first ever!) using instructions from the fabulous Inspirational Beading blog. Here's some pics of the cellini in progress:

seed beads all over! 

So, I had originally thought to do a cellini spiral bangle, with the nightmare bead in the center focal.  But really, I gotta tell you, I wasn't real sure how to do that, as I've never woven a bangle before (I'm pondering that next) and I wasn't sure if the entire thing might not be too chunky.  After all, the cellini certainly has some oomph to it, and the bead is a lovely size, as well. 

Eventually, I settled on a necklace, and decided to weave a basic spiral rope for either side of the cellini.   I attached those ropes to the cellini section with a very haphazard and organic series of beaded "strings." Not sure if it was "proper," but it worked:

You can sort see the stringies here... 

Then, I had to figure out a way to attach the bead to the necklace.  I really want it to be over-the-top (well, more than it was already...) and I thought it'd be fun to give it a bit of fringe.  So, I wove a seed-bead-bail-system-thingy through the bead to secure an actual woven bail to one end and some danglies to the other.  Then, I decided a woven bail would too much, so I just used 3 strands of seed beads to go around the cellini.  So, here's the finished "thingie":

:)

And here's the Whole Shebang! 

Pretty! 

I love collages, don't you? 

You can find the rest of the Nightmare bead designs here: 

Beti Horvath: Stringing Fool

Gretchen Nation: Art Food Lodging

Karen Totten: Starry Road Studio

Kathleen Douglas: Washoe Kat's

Keirsten Giles: The Cerebral Dilettante

Kristen Stevens: My Bead Journey

Lola: Bead Lola Bead

Lori Anderson: Pretty Things

Nancy Pederson: Something Heartfelt by Nancy

Pam DeBoer: Purple Notes from the Studio

Rana Wilson: Rana Lea Designs

Shannon Chomanczuk: For My Sweet Daughter

It worked!!!! Finally!

Alright, so I had this idea a while ago about my painted bracelets.  See, as awesome as the focals are, sometimes the bracelet is JUST as awesome!  And sometimes, you just wanna change things up...

So, I thought there just HAD to be a way to rig the focal to come off the bracelet when you want it to...

Here's take 1:

The problem with this was that the focal was far too loose--it flopped all over the place, and was INCREDIBLY annoying....

Here's Take 2:

Fewer beads in all, and without the buttons.  Far more streamlined, and with a sparkly bicone or two! LOL!   

And here's the whole thing:

See what I mean?  Yes, the focal is awesome, but I LOVE the bracelet on it's own, too!!!

So there you have it! It finally worked!  I love it when a plan comes together!

(oh, and Picasa is kinda cool--I gots collages!!!! LOL!!)

Thanks!

Beading Stitches: Spiral Rope

Okay, so I've been bead weaving for about a year, a year and a half, now, and I have to say, some stitches are pretty easy, while others are fiendishly difficult.  But my favorite, as I've said before, has GOT to be the spiral rope.  It's a very easy basic stitch, but is so, so, SOOOOOO versatile!  The basic stitch is a 4-4 loop, and you add one bead to the core for each new stitch.

There's a pretty good video tutorial of this stitch here by Andrea from Beadaholique

So, now that you've seen a basic tutorial, I just wanted to show how you can step this stitch up.  I have several different pieces, all bits of jewelry I've made, using this stitch, and embellishing it in different ways:

The basic weave, using the 4-4 ratio, but just changing up the colors as I went on...

A complete spiral set! 

4-4 spiral attached to a hand-painted piece...

A teaser pic!  using a 4-7 ratio.  Gave it that nicely lacy look! 

using bicones--a 4-5 ratio.  because of the size of the bicones,  though, it doesn't end up quite as lacy as the above...  kinda cool and chunky!

a 4-4 weave, with evenly spaced embellishment rounds...  I actually began this bracelet in the middle, by accident (that's the other nice thing about the spiral--it's very forgiving in length issues, and you can work in either direction from your beginning stitch...)

My latest piece!  a 4-7 focal with the three teardrops, moving to a 4-5 ratio for the length of the necklace...

with turquoise rounds alternating with solid sand-colored seeds.  The Beachcomber! Oddly chunky and delicate all at the same time... 

Just a pretty, simple bracelet with the center focal.  One of my favorites! 

There you have it!  All the same stitch, and yes, some obvious similarities, but such different and gorgeous pieces (if I do say so myself...)

Thanks for reading!

End of Term Mania

Well, the end is nigh. the end of the session, that is.  And as usual, I can't get motivated.  So instead, I started working on a beading project!  Cuz, you know, I don't have ENOUGH work, let's make more! I mentioned in my last post that I had finished the piece for the Art with Heart contest, but the piece I ultimately created wasn't AT ALL what I had originally planned.  Normally, I'm okay with that.  But this time, the idea of the original design just will not leave my head! The original plan was to have the cab-and-filigree focal hanging from a beaded arrow-shaped bib-type necklace thingy... I can see it in my head, I promise. And it was awesome!  But as I worked on that piece, as will often happen, I just kept changing my mind and redesigning. So I ended up with the crazy cuff-type bracelet instead (speaking of that piece, I still need to name it.  I suck at names...)

So, this idea is stuck in my head, and I'm trying to realize it in actual beads.  I've started with a square stitch, done in sections to make it good and tight.  It's about 4 inches long, and every few rows, I'm decreasing it by a few beads.  The kinda fun part about this one, though, for me, is that I'm literally using every color seed bead in size 11 that I have.  All of them.  Even the black.  Initially, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but the more I play with it, the cooler it looks. Now, to consider the focal.  I have a vague idea that I'd like to play with the skulls (I have a lot of skull beads.  I love them... apparently, it's kinda my thing...), but I really want to do all the shades of pink with my little wooden skulls.  Another project I can see in my mind, and let me tell ya, it looks cool.  But what to do with this one?  Since I'm totally not sure, and I have a feeling this will be an ongoing, evolving project, I'll just have to keep pondering. In the meantime, I have a request for a lanyard I need to ponder, and several sets of essays and whatnot to grade over the next week.  Oh, and lets not forget getting ready for summer session! oi....

RLW