RAW Heart

Mummy's proper on one with creating new patterns!  After the stars and seeing the Sweet Hearts that Sabine Lippert made, Mummy decided that she could shift the techniques that she learnt on using the sizes of the beads to for the shapes onto cubic RAW.

Off she set, with a simple desire to make a heart.  Rather than using sizes, she decided to continue with the way she was going on the stars and used numbers of beads instead and this is what she came up with:

Isn't it the loveliest and most deceptively simple looking thing you've ever seen?!  On the side like this you can see the inner CRAW construction and the fact that she went with matte bronze along the inner side of the heart and shiny bronze along the outer edge, a perfect complement to the silver lined emerald.

The heart was simply hung on a silver chain using a jump ring through one of the units.

Pretty work Mummy

Mummy's Crazy Psychadelic Pyramids On Acid!

You may remember my Pyramids Cuff from a while back, the pattern I gave to Kate McKinnon and was chosen to go into Contemporary Geometric Beadwork vol.1? Well, Mummy decided that she wanted to have a go at this pattern and gave it her very special spin!

First of all she tried making a pyramid that faded from dark pink at the tip to pale pink at the base but had to stop because it looked so much like a boob that I couldn't stop snorting and giggling!  Yes I am a grown up!  Clearly some colour ways just aren't good for pyramids!

Instead, she decided to have a nose through my delica stash and her eyes very quickly alighted on my duracoat galvanised delicas. The witch!  She loves bright colours and the duracoats made her squeal with delight.  Luckily she decided that the underneath of the pyramid should be a plain colour so as not to wear off the colours underneath.  She chose a simple smokey grey delica for that.

The colours must have reminded her of growing up in the 70s because she decided to set herself quite a challenging pattern of turquoise and orange spiraling out of a pink base.  Quite possibly the maddest thing I've ever seen but I blooming love it!  The crazy pattern with the crazy colours just work and can't help but make you feel as though it's a bright summer's day and the sun is shining and all is groovy with the world!

As you can see, she chose some bright Swarovski rounds in turquoise to join up the pyramids, with an orange delica between the two.  Her pyramids are a lot smaller than mine and a lot busier so she wanted to leave a bit more of a gap between them and I think it really works!

And finally she decided that a square base for the clasp would work a lot better than the triangle that I made. 

I love it!  Crazy and happy and all round mental.  FANTASTIC!

Major Excitement!

Today I had the most amazing email from Jean Power!  Her Geometric Beadwork book has all been finalised and sent to the printers (see her blog post with sneak peek here)!  How very exciting! 

However, the most exciting part of the email she sent me was the sneak peek of the page the pentagon beaded beads were on:

The ones I beaded are the middle grouping of the beaded beads.  And yes, she did give permission for me to blog these images so don't worry!  Those little beaded beads are brilliant for using leftover beads and I can imagine a fabulous bracelet with snake chain and adding one or two and building up over time when you only have a few beads to use up and won't be buying the colour again or just want to get rid of some beads in order to buy more!

Even more wonderful, Jean also included Mummy's Triangles Necklace based on the Heroine Necklace (my version here) and it looks exquisite!!!

Mummy's necklace and earrings are the grey at the top of the page - how gorgeous is that?! In the high resolution pictures, the detail is astounding - each bead is visible and they look amazingly clear.  I will be blogging about this necklace when it comes back from Jean so that you can see how Mummy has taken a real statement piece and toned it down for everyday wear without losing the glamour - she's a bit good is my Mummy!  We'll get it back with the books we pre-ordered in a few weeks as it would be silly for her to send separately when we know we're getting the books very soon.  Watch this space...

I'm just so chuffed!  This has topped off an enormously good week for me: Depeche Mode tickets, mortgage sorted for my new house AND a little bit of our beading in a book by my favourite bead artist!  Seriously, how could this possibly get any better?!

Circle Starburst

I'll be moving house soon so I thought I'd have a bit of a sort through of all my patterns and my beading stash.  I'm off work at the moment with an ear infection (not so much fun when you're deaf!) so now is the perfect time to have a root through and see what I've got.

A long time ago I bought the pattern for the Circle Starburst by the amazing Cindy Holsclaw.  I bought some 6mm Swarovski pendants to make it and then promptly forgot all about it, filing the pattern and stashing the crystals! 

I thought I'd pick up a needle and thread and start making it.  The pattern is pretty simple and if you've made a beaded bead using the Bead Infinitum's Infinity Weave then you're on to a winner!  However, if you're not used to following 3D patterns presented on a 2D plane then get something a lot simpler!  This isn't really a pattern for a beginner.

Here is the beaded bead with wide open spaces.  Quite honestly, I wish I'd had a black support bead because I think this looks lovely!

This is the beaded bead from the triple crystal view:

 All finished, from the five crystal view:

Admittedly, I did simplify the pattern.  In the actual pattern the seed beads come up in small volcano type shapes in between the pendants but I felt that they hid the beautiful Swarovski crystal too much for my taste.  I took off all the volcanoes and adapted the pattern so that the pendants really stick out of the seed bead base.  It makes it look a lot more spiky and a bit more vicious, but that's what I like in jewellery anyways!

To hang it on the silver neck wire, I simply popped an eye pin through the beaded bead, trimmed and turned a loop.

Close up of the beaded bead on the neck wire:

In all, it's quite a nifty little beaded bead that could be used as a base for lots of different variations.  Make sure you have lots of finer needles to hand though - I got through three needles because you have to get into some quite tight spaces!  I think the price is a little steep for what you get - $36 which equates to roughly £22...   But it is pretty.

Hope you like it!

25th Wedding Anniversary

Last August was Mummy and Daddy's 25th wedding anniversary.  They threw a fabulous party in the ballroom at The Ramada Jarvis in Leicester and it was a truly lovely evening. 

To go with a fabulous deep red frock she had made, Mummy designed and made this necklace:

It was made using two drop peyote for the neck straps, peyote flowers and leaves and lovely ladder stitched curls.

Here you can see a close up of the flowers with the small beaded bead centres.

And here you can see the drape of the leaves and the fabulous little curls which dripped into her cleavage and looked rather indulgent!

The main bead colours matched her dress perfectly and with a wide and deep square neckline, the asymmetry really worked well.  She looked amazing and is proud of such an intricate and sentimentally important piece.

Fluorite Cab

For Christmas this year my darling bratlet bought me some cabochon for bezelling.  His favourite colour is green, so he bought me two green ones and then a fluorite one and a tiger's eye - I am a very lucky Mummy indeed!  They're all 40x30mm and really pretty.  So this week I decided to bezel the fluorite one.

As you can see, I also added some fluorite 8mm beads throughout the herringbone cord and used the 15s to frame them.

The clasp was a nightmare to do because I didn't want to just put a bead on the end, nor did I want a traditional toggle so instead I made up a beaded bead using three of the 8mm beads.

View from the top

Side view

All in all, it's very simple but I'm pleased because although the dark iris beads do darken the cab significantly, they also bring out the deep purple veins in the fluorite.

Beaded Beads

Lately I have been playing around with beaded beads.  I thought I'd have a little go and see what I could make that were self supporting but that would also allow you to see the structure of the bead as well.

 I started with the green bead at the back.  It's made with some cheap Indian glass rounds and lots and lots of thread to keep these heavy beads still!  Then I made another using Swarovski faceted rounds.  I'm not much of an orange fan but thought it looked quite cute.

 Then I tried again with some Swarovski pearls.  This one is my favourite by far, possibly because I love the colour!  I threaded this on some plain silver snake chain and turned it into a very simple necklace as a birthday present for one of the girls at work.

Then I moved on to Cindy Holsclaw's rather fabulous Disco Ball beaded bead and I absolutely loved it!

I had loads of leftover bicones in some pretty random colours so I thought I'd see how the Disco Ball beaded bead would translate to them and they really worked!  As you can see, I didn't add the lace overlay so I had to go through each bead quite a few times in order for them to stiffen up.

But then what to do with all these random beaded beads I had made?!

A cute little charm bracelet worked wonders as yet another gift.  Luckily she is a bit of a champion of colour so this was right up her alley!

The Beauty Of BeAdInfinitum

Once again my mind has gone to BeAdInfinitum and their amazing patterns.  My mum and I love making the beaded beads on their website and I thought I'd show a couple of our attempts here.

 This is a much simplified variation of Cindy Holsclaw's Circular Starburst

 Close up of the beaded bead.

A simple beaded bead using a variation on the Infinity Weave done in nothing but clear glass rounds and strung on a chiffon ribbon.  It's so simple and clean and shows what an excellent eye my mum has!

 This is a variation of the Ring Nebula that we both love to bead!

As you can see, the bead sizes have been altered significantly, subsequently altering the net bead count.  I know it's not Steampunk, but the colours remind me of the whole Steampunk movement.  

Finally we have the rather spectacular Balloon Box, which I absolutely love.  It's a bugger of a beaded bead to make though as the drop beads really want to go inside as you're making it, but my goodness it works well when they sit outside the box!

Wedding Jewellery

The summer just gone one of my staff got married and she asked me to make her wedding jewellery, as well as gifts for the bridesmaids.  We sat together and drew up some ideas and she had a good root through my finished pieces pile so she could get some ideas as well.  She had four bridesmaids, each wearing a different colour of the same dress apart from the head bridesmaid (which was her Gran!).

This is what I made for the bride to match her bouquet.  It's a slightly enlarged Ring Nebula made with Swarovski Indicolite faceted rounds and tiny size 15 beads.

I simply popped it on a silver chain with a silver heart clasp for her.

For the bridesmaids I made simple beaded beads with large Swarovski faceted rounds and the used different colours for the lace overlay.  My exceptional Mum came up with the pattern for this beaded bead and it is completely self-supporting.

Here you can really see the deep ruby overlay.

And this one in teal.

For the Gran maid of honour, she wanted me to make another of the Ring Nebulas as a brooch:

This time I used Light Amethyst Swarovski faceted rounds.

It was wonderful making wedding jewellery and I was so happy to be a small part of making her wedding day be what she wanted it to be.  All of the bridesmaids spoke to me afterwards and said how much they loved their jewellery and one of the girls commissioned me to make a few pieces for her.  Luckily she has quite bold taste so I really was able to let rip for her!

I made this asymmetric double spiral princess length rope with scores of firepolished beads and Swarovski crystals, as well as aventurine and amethyst chips for her.

In this view you can really see the spiral and how the colours peep out of the monochromatic bead soup soup.  It is definitely not a stitch for beginners!  It took quite a few stop and starts for me to get into the flow but once I got the rhythm of the stitch, it grew really fast .

This summer I have been asked by another of my colleagues to make her wedding jewellery.  I can't wait to see what she has in mind!  I'm hoping it'll be something really opulent and over the top! or maybe something refined but quite the statement like this:

This was another piece of wedding jewellery made by my Mum.  She is so delicate in her work and is everything I strive to be.  She is a huge inspiration to me and I hope one day I will be as good as she is.

Some Old Favourites

I'm not much of an overly decorative beader, although I am trying to really give it some pizzazz!  I seem to prefer really large statement pieces that use shape or colour as their main punch, rather than intricate and delicate embellishment.  However, I adore beadwork that is tightly packed with elegant and rhythmic embellishment, I just never seem to do any of it myself!

This is one of my favourite cabs that I've beaded.  On the first go I absolutely smothered the bezel with crystals and delica embellishment but found that the beauty of the huge quartz palmstone was getting lost in the maze of sparkles.  The stone is 7cm x 5cm and all it really needed was a plain delica bezel and a lazy herringbone rope to suspend it from.    It is extraordinarily simple in beading terms, but the sheer size of it gives it one hell of an impact!

Again, this necklace is really simple in beading terms - all it is is peyote circles linked together with the outside final two rows on each circle a lighter purple than the centre.  I like the necklace but I wish I'd done the first two inner rows a darker purple to give it more depth, rather than just relying on the repetition of the shapes...

And here we have another simple looped necklace.  This one is long (opera length) but wrapped round the bust twice.  The links are made in straightforward herringbone rope in black and gunmetal seed beads.  What gives it texture is that the black beads are size 15 and the gunmetal are size 11.  Also the links are smaller at the back of the neck and get bigger down the front - not hugely, but enough to give it a bit of interest.

This is another of my pieces that relies on impact rather than embellishment!  It started off as a bracelet but the beaded beads were so big that I had to turn it into a necklace!  I admit to going a little bit mad with colour on this one but it was a gift for one of the most colourful ladies in my life!  We were raised as sisters, even though she is actually my aunt and we have always been opposite sides of the same coin: I am dark, she is blonde; I am a tomboy where she is utterly girly.  We always joke that I always wear black because she wears all my colours for me!  She has a knack of being able to throw the most amazingly random colours together and link them with a third and have it work so I thought I'd make her something absolutely crazy in colour.  Needless to say, she absolutely loved it!

I am going to try and get into the habit of beading more intricate pieces, I really am!

More Time Machine

I decided that I really ought to make up a Time Machine with all the fancy swags and drop embellishments.  Here's the fruit of my labour:

And the view from the top:

Time Machine

I have spent most of the day beading the Time Machine pattern.

I decided to have a practice run with the cheaper beads and got them all out ready:

Then I got started!  This is with the end caps done (and a perfect time to break for a nice cup of tea)

Side view:

Then I got started on all the lace overlay, swags and embellishments:

It was a bit fiddly and it's okay...  Just a bit too fussy for my tastes I think.

I decided to have another go, but this time make some variations to the lace overlay and make it a little simpler:

(The pound coin is there for size reference)
Still not sure about it, I don't think I like the 4mm crystals round the centre...

That's better!  Much happier with this version.  I know it's not quite as impressive as the ones on the BeAdInfinitum Website but I think you can see the Swarovski crystals better and that makes me happy.  So happy in fact that I beaded another straight away!

Now I'm going to take my claw fingers and have a bath whilst I think about how I'm going to show them off to their best advantage on a necklace...