This coiled wire pendant is the last of my pieces featuring Sue Beads (at least until I buy some more!). This one was a lot of fun to work on and incorporates silver wire, beautiful dark blue lampwork beads, and AB crystal Swarovski components. Someday I will decide just how to string this pendant without detracting from its free form, shiny goodness.
As you can see, my wirework has come a long way. In fact, the final post in my beginner’s wirework experiments is coming up soon!
‘Til then, happy crafting!
Welcome to Part 2 of my first Showcase! (If you missed part 1, click Here to see it.) This Showcase continues to feature the lampwork of the wonderful Sue Beads, this time as the focal (and splashes of color) for an assymetrical cord and bead necklace.
She has done a great job with her key beads particularly and I really wanted to make something fun and comfortable and somewhat casual that would capture the impression I got from looking at it. I like what I’ve come up with but found a unique challenge in trying to making the double-stranded side hang properly.
This necklace is made with gray cotton cord from our shop; well, now it is. I had originally made it with black cord but found that I didn’t like the lack of contrast between the color of the key and the color of the cord so I redid it in gray and it looks a lot better. I still keep thinking it needs a little extra something but I am also stubbornly pleased with it as it is. What do you think?
Want to make your own super comfortable key necklace? Wander on over to Sue Beads or her shop on etsy and get started shopping but don’t forget to pick up some soft cotton cord before you go!
(For anyone who is curious, the book in the background is The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay, one of my favorite books when I was in high school, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Arthurian fantasy.)
All of the lampwork beads in this short series are made by Sue Beads. I have been reading her blog for some time now and admiring her work for as long and so, a little while ago, I finally cracked and bought some. This is the first of three posts showcasing what I have made with these beads.
We’ll start with my favorite!
These earrings are made with silver 22 gauge wire and feature gorgeous frosty mint green angled lampwork beads.
I love asymetrical jewelry but, for whatever strange reason, don’t usually make my pieces asymetrical. This was a nice departure from that and really felt like something that expressed my style while I was making them. Wire has quickly become one of my favorite media (its versatility is wonderful!).
Want your own gorgeous frosty lampwork beads for winter? Head on over to Sue Beads on etsy and get started shopping!
I set out to write this post the other day (after a few delays with my camera) only to realize that lighting conditions weren’t exactly optimal. However, I tried anyway and it turned out to be a great way to demonstrate how well a lightbox can work. See?
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While we grow as a company and as beaders, we try to understand where our patterns, ideas and our need to bead comes from. We wanted to gain more knowledge about beads – I mean, we are always learning new techniques, finding new types of beads and meeting new people, but we really don’t know how those techniques started, where they started, who started them and why. So here begins our journey into history of beads. I thought we should start with our own part of the world, beginning with early North American culture, and more specifically, the Canadian First Peoples.
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Fall is in the air. The leaves are changing color and an array of apples, pumpkins, gourds and tomato baskets flood the farmers markets. This season for us (as I am sure for many of you) means tons of candy, costumes, scary movies and parties! And to celebrate the beginning of the end (of the year!) we decided to make some kid friendly crafts.
So the first one (the most challenging one) was making bats and ghosts out of paper Mache. It was a challenge because the finished product takes a very long time to dry and a lot of patience. It took us about 4 days to finish 3 bats and 1 ghost (only 1 because we failed miserably with 4 other balloons). I don’t know if any of you have ever done any paper Mache crafts but it’s fun, easy (not so easy for a 3 and 5 year old) and you can create pretty much anything with a little creative thinking and imagination. So for this project we used:
- Balloons
- A mixture of warm water and flour (about 2 cups of water and 2/3cup of flour) to act as adhesive
- Newspaper, ripped into small pieces
- Acrylic paint, nothing too expensive since most of it will end up on the floor
- Paint brushes
- String
- Tissue paper
- Eyes (plastic) and glue
- Construction paper or painted cardboard.
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I haven’t posted in AGES. Well not ages really but long enough to feel guilty. I have been working hard on the last photography guide post (and the weather has not been cooperating one bit) and Suzanne just got a new puppy so she has been kept busy trying to housebreak it! Its super cute and I am sure she will share pictures once it sits still long enough to take one!
Happy crafting!
