EBW Spring Swap 2013

This year I partecipated again in the Spring Swap organized by the Etsy Beadweavers Team.
The person I made a little gift for was different from the one I received it from, so you interact with 2 people from the team. You never know when the package is going to arrive because you don't know when it's sent, so it's a big surprise!
This time I made a bracelet for Andrea Ortiz of Blue Star Arts.

   

I read from the questionnaire we all had to fill in that she practises yoga and likes blue and green.
So I wanted to make something with an Om. I was inspired by my Japanese tradition bracelet and was thinking of following the same pattern, but just one strand of beaded beads. That didn't look nice though.
I started making these tubular thingies not knowing exactly how to use them. I was inspired by Csilla Csirmaz bracelet but didn't want anything that crowded.
I decided knotting with waxed thread was the solution; of course my size 15 seed beads didn't think so. It was impossible to make it through the CRAW tube of the Om piece.

Final option was metal. You know how much I'm clamsy with it. I had some silver chain which made me think about the final solution....

Much better than waxed thread.
I used a magnetic toggle so it's more practical and easy to remove when she goes to her yoga lessons!

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On to my benefactor who is Cajsa Lisa Anderson of ajBead.
She made a gorgeous pendant inspired by her father's japanese garden (I knotted a simple grey cord to wear it)

She visited it this winter and decided to capture that moment when snow covers everything, but still you know flowers will come back very soon. You can see the inspiration here.
I was really touched by her story and look at how amazing her father's pieces of art are!
I love both the pendant and the source of inspiration. Looks like destiny that I wrote I'm crazy about Japan and her father had this special hobby. Thank you so much for sharing this with me!

Hope you enjoyed both stories, please hop to the Etsy Beadweavers Team blog to see what the other members made for their partners!

BSBP 4th item: The Indian Flower necklace

If you are still hopping on the BSBP second reveal, here is the link . I'm showing my BSBP pieces one by one all over the week, here is the 4th one.

This necklace has been an ever changing project until the very last minute. This beautiful clasp is not so simple to use, and those freshwater pearls were great to match it, but other than this I didn't know what to do with them.

I was making a multistring bracelet, when I found 2 beautiful ceramic green flowers in my stash. They have the same size and shape of the clasp, so I decided to make some sort of big leaves with these flowers in the centre.

I wanted to put the toggle between them, so it would have been on the frontal part.
But the leaves were too big and I didn't like the first one, the second I liked more but wasn't sure about the shape...
I was confused, until I decided to make 2 small leaves and use the clasp as focal. Something simple.

But then I cut the big leaf making it a big flower shape, and decided to use THAT as focal.

I like this color combo with green and fuchsia/purple, which is by the way the color combo I offered my partner.
Finally I needed something to put in between the pearls, which have a semi-spherical shape. I added some green crystal to mix together the 2 main colors and voilà:

I'm still looking at those leaves, can't realize I actually made them. I won my fear of bead embroidery pretty fast!

Heal the world

Finally I started beading again after a long break!
This month's EBW challenge was so interesting I couldn't avoid to partecipate!
The theme was "Heal the world" and, being a Michael Jackson huge fan, I really wanted to make something. There was a lot of choice...

Since this is something we deal everyday with, I chose the recycling/reusing theme.
What if we indulged ourselves with, let's say, a coke only if we take the pledge to re-use the bottle for another purpose? What if, in our everyday life, we tried to produce less garbage not only by buying loose stuff (food, water, cleaning liquids) but also by reusing everything we can several times?

Sounds stupid but I don't see many people doing it.
So I used a simple item, can tabs, to make this:



Can tabs are washable and versatile, there are thousands of ways to use them!



Thay also give a silver-y sparkle to the finished piece.

Do you know how many things you can make with tabs? Just look on youtube for tutorials and you'll be amazed! And take a look at this gorgeous website!

I also amde a pair of red earrings Bollywood inspired



That's all for today!
Can't wait to see all the entries for the challenge!