Soutache Fever

I’ve been infected!!! Yes, I also have caught the soutache embroidery bug!!!

After years of not knowing what to do with the soutache braid that laid unused in one of my many boxes containing bits and pieces that I may, or may not use one day… I finally broke down and bought a soutache tutorial! :-)

First of all, let me start by saying that I probably would never have even thought of trying this technique had it not been for my dear friend Miriam Shimon who not only inspired me with her stunning soutache work but also encouraged me and shared some of her secrets with me.  If you are not familiar with her work, please visit her shop, you will not be disappointed!!!  

Here is one of my favourite souache pieces that Miriam designed:

So armed with inspiration and all her support and encouragement I bought a beautifully explained tutorial by Jodi Horgan, who also makes superb soutache work:

and as I’m unable to follow instructions (in terms of design, not technique) this is what I made from the tutorial… my first soutache pendant:

It’s not perfect…. but I love it and it’s the perfect winter pendant for me and I’ve been wearing it non-stop! :-)

As I said… I caught the bug… so I started making more pieces… these are my first (well made) earrings:



Can’t wait to make some more pieces!!!! so stay tuned!

Indian Summer

It’s November… not that you could tell by looking at the weather we are having here… the temperature has dropped slightly… about 3-5 degrees… it’s so unbelievably hot still!!! but at least the nights are cooler than they were in the summer… and thankfully it isn’t as humid!!! 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT complaining… I love the summer, and am not too crazy about the winter… but it would be nice if the temperature would drop a little bit… I don’t know, down to maybe 20-22 degrees.

The thought of Autumn but the reality of what we actually have makes me think of Indian summers and inspired me to create this necklace and matching cuff.

Indian Summer OOAK Necklace

What I’m most proud of in this piece is the beaded caps and closure.  I love wearing leather necklaces but don’t really like how they are usually finished, so I tried to improve on the finish by creating beaded end caps, I think they smarten up the whole look and I’m really pleased how they turned out!

Indian Summer OOAK Cuff







I really love how this cuff turned out! I love using the metallic silver leather!!! and I love the edging, it came out so pretty and the cuff looks amazing on!!!

More silver leather cuffs to follow as soon as I get around to working on the photos!
Till then… happy beading!

Peacocks… my version :-)

It’s 4.23 am… and I’ve been up for over an hour!!!  I wouldn’t mind, as I usually wake up around 4 am every day…. check my e-mails, facebook, etc…. and I’m usually out the door by 6.15 am for my run with the dogs… but tonight I’m teaching and have no idea how I’ll be able to stay awake and sound coherent! :-) I hope I can mange a nap at some point during the day… so I thought… I’m up… I have a blog to post… so here I am! :-)

In the last post I mentioned I had loads more pieces to show you and here are some!

These pieces were inspired by the colours of peacock feathers (or at least the way I see them in my head) :-) The peacock colours are represented in my choice of the Swarovski crystals I used.

Peacock OOAK Necklace

 Peacock OOAK Asymmetrical Cuff

Peacock OOAK Earrings

Yesterday, as I waited for my son to finish his swimming training (2 hours), I had the bright idea to take all my almost finished pieces with me, and instead of going for a run or reading a book (which is what I usually do when I’m there), I managed to finish 4 pieces!!!! Hopefully today, weather permitting, I’ll be taking photos and hopefully should be posting them around the weekend… so stay tuned! :-)

Till then… have a great one!

I LOVE Turquoise! :-)

OK… so I absolutely LOVE turquoise…. and I usually purposely try to stay away from it, because otherwise all I would ever wear, use, think about is turquoise!!!  But every so often I indulge myself and allow the turquoise to take over my life! :-)

I mentioned in my last post that I made some jewellery for my cousin’s daughter’s Bat-Mitzvah…. and that with her permission (which I got) I would post the photos of the gorgeous Bat-Mitzvah girl wearing the jewellery I made for her…. so here she is my gorgeous cousin modelling OOAK Triz Designs :-)

 

Note, she’s wearing a turquoise dress! :-)

For the Bat-Mitzvah party I bought myself this gorgeous teal satin top… so of course I wanted to wear something to go with it… and the ideas started flowing!!!! here are some of the pieces I made to go with that top…

Around & Around – Bead Embroidered Necklace

 
Around & Around – Bead Embroidered Silver Leather Cuff

Around & Around – Bead Embroidered Earrings

There are more… but the pictures didn’t come out too great so I want to retake them… unfortunately two weeks ago, if tripped over, fell down, somehow landed on my chest…. either cracked a rib or bruised it really badly and hurt my left hand pretty badly too… so I spent the last two weeks feeling very sorry for myself :-( + I was in quite a bit of pain, so didn’t do more than I had to… walked the dogs, looked after my son, helped with homework, did the washing… you know daily chores… and any spare time I had I spent it laid out flat on my back trying no too move too much to try and give my ribs a chance to heal… and just as they started to hurt less… I get a bloody stinking cold!!!!! So I thought before it gets worse and I end up in bed again, I would quickly post this…. the other pieces will have to wait till next time…

Till then, enjoy your weekend and carry on beading! :-)

Barrettes!

A few weeks ago I was asked to teach a bead-embroidered barrette workshop… so I got busy making a few barrettes to show the class different variations and of course to write the instructions… These instructions are now available as a tutorial here:

For a better look at the actual barrette, see the photo below:

Silver & Turquoise Bead Embroidered Beaded Hair Barrette

So I made a few of these, one to leave as a sample where I teach, one for my shop, one for myself :-) and then started making a few variations, here is one:

Blue Lagoon - Hair Barrette

You may have noticed that I'm back on the turquoise!!!  I’m not apologizing for it… I LOVE turquoise!!! It is by far my favourite colour… so I’m sure they’ll be more to come! :-)

On a personal note, my best friend went back to London… it was great having him around… and Ethan had a ball with him!!!

Here’s a couple of pictures taken of him & Ethan goofing around (hmmm good job he doesn’t check my blog too often cos I know he’s not going to be happy about the ones of him diving at the pool… honestly he can dive, I just had a really hard time catching him in the act… poor lighting as it was raining + using my mobile camera)

A few minutes before the rain…

  

A few minutes after the rain…

and although the temperature here is still pretty high… I guess him going back to London marked the end of the Summer for Ethan and I :-(

so now… back to work… and back to beading!!! :-)

Almost 3 Months!!!

I cannot believe it’s been almost 3 months since my last post!!! Shocking! Shameful!! Terrible!!!!  and for some of that time I have some excellent reasons (excuses)… I went to London in the summer, stayed with my baby sister and her family – had a great time… the highlight of my holiday (apart from spending time with my sis and my lovely nieces) was going to the Lollibop Festival where I was picked out of the crowd whilst watching the AMAZING performers Osadia… and this is how I looked afterwards :-) 

Photography by Size Barnes

Bare in mind that I had to ride the bus through London and go to Friday night dinner at my parents looking like this!!! :-) What an amazing experience!!! if you ever get the chance to see Osadia perform… go and see them!!!

Also, whilst in London my son and niece celebrated their birthdays… so I made cakes, of course! :-) Ethan wanted a ghost castle and my niece a beehive

and whilst there… and because I don’t have any nice pictures of my son and I together, my friend Dawn, who is a photographer, took some gorgeous pictures of us, here are two of my favourites:

Photography by Dawn Aitman

and then we did come back home, but Ethan was still off school… so I spent lots of time with him at the pool… summer holidays ended… school started again…

and I went back to teaching workshop…

So, through out it all, I found it hard to sit down and do some serious beading… but somehow managed to make (and finish) these two new piece:

Tropical Waters – Necklace

Tropical Waters – Cuff

 

I have a few more pieces on the go… and hopefully as soon as my friend Michael, who came to stay for two and a half weeks,  goes back to London (yes, yet another wonderful distraction)… I will bury my face into my beads and get some more pieces finished… till then… HUGE apologies for not having been around for so long… but sometimes life takes over and thankfully this time it was all good! :-)

Happy beading everyone!!!

My New Adventure!

It all started when I was looking for a ring for myself…. I had some idea in my mind of what I wanted… so I started looking on Etsy of course… and there were lots of gorgeous ring… but not exactly what I was looking for… and then I saw that Belinda Saville, who I knew for making really pretty beadwork, had started making metal (silver) jewellery… 

So I contacted her and asked her if she was interested in making me a custom made silver ring… she said yes! i was so excited because I really love her style!!! So we started e-mailing back and forth… she sent me photos of some of the stones she had and I fell in love with two!!! :-)  One of the stones was already in her possession, the other was on the way to her, so she started sketching some designs featuring this absolutely gorgeous labradorite….  and finally we agreed on one design that I fell in love with and couldn’t wait to see finished!!!  Belinda was an absolute pleasure to do business with!!! Apart from the fact that she is super-talented… she is one of the loveliest people I have “met” (through blogging)!!!

It wasn’t long till the ring was finished and not too long after that (seeing that I live in Israel and she’s in Australia) that the ring arrived!!! and oh my!!! the sketches, photos and not even my imagination could have prepared me for its beauty!!!! Absolutely gorgeous!!!!

 

And then came the second one!!! equally stunning!!!

I love… no, sorry… I LOVE both of them so much I wear them both every day, one on each hand!!! :-)

The whole experience was such a pleasure!!! and at the end of it I’m the proud owner of two stunning pieces of beautifully made jewellery that are so me!!!! :-)

So why am I telling you all this? apart from showing off my new rings and introducing you to a wonderful artist (in case you don’t know her already :-D)… well during the whole process I started talking to Belinda about making metal jewellery…. and she sort of gave me the courage to think that maybe I could try out this new (to me) medium… so I spent the last couple of months ordering tools to start me off… and oh my there are a lot of tools!!!  Bought loads of books on metal jewellery design… I painted my spare room… folded up the futon… I managed to get myself a professional jeweller's bench (second hand)…  and finally, yesterday I received the bulk of my tools from the US (birthday present from my dad, thank you daddy! :-D)… I spent all afternoon and half the night unpacking all my new toys and organizing them on my new desk….

Now all there is left to do is find the courage to actually turn that torch on!!! :-)  Not an easy thing for me… first I’m petrified of fire and burning down my flat and the whole building (I bought myself a fire extinguisher, not that I know how to use it!)… second my fear is preventing me from thinking of any ideas!!! So I though, as I’m so clueless, I’m going to start working with copper and bronze (so much cheaper to make a mistake on than silver) and rather than jump in with my own designs I’m going to work through some of the projects from the books I bought… hopefully without burning the building down! :-)

I will be posting my progress… but in the meantime go and check out the beautiful work of Belinda Saville who started this mad adventure!!! :-)

Belinda’s blog: http://belindasaville.blogspot.com/
Belinda’s shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/belindasaville
Belinda’s FB page: http://www.facebook.com/BelindaSavilleHandcraftedJewellery

* Photos of Belinda’s rings by Belinda Saville, used with her permission

Glam Rock

I’ve been so quiet lately… but I have a great excuse… I was in hospital and had an operation a month ago… the recovery is six week… all is well and as I'm regaining my strength I started to bead again!!! :-)

During my time in hospital and for the first 2 weeks thereafter I read everything I could find on metal smith, soldering in particular and some hammering… yes, my next new craze!!!! I’ve decided to expand my jewellery making repertoire into including metals… I have no idea what I’m doing, but have ordered all the tools needed to get me started… they should be here in about 2-4 weeks!!! :-) I’m so excited… and nervous… a bit scared of the torch… but I’ll give it a go! :-)

So my mind has been occupied with metals… which would explain the new pieces I created… very bold, very geometric and very clean design…

Here are three new pieces I’ve been working on for the last few weeks… yes I’ve been working/beading at a snail’s pace! :-) but my pace is picking up as I continue to feel better with each passing day! :-)

Glam Rock Black Leather Cuff 

Glam Rock Necklace

 Glam Rock Silver Cuff

 

I’ve got another necklace… but just as i was finishing it… I notice a mistake, so had to chop off some of it to redo it… but it will have to wait… hopefully I’ll finish it off tomorrow… in the meantime… I’m happy to be “back”! :-)

Wishing everyone, happy beading!!! :-)

EtsyBeadWeavers Challenge – Time to vote!

The August EtsyBeadWeavers challenge is currently open for votes!

My entry is Golden Galaxy (entry # 25)

Please visit the EBW blog from now till the 15th August and vote for your favourite piece! http://etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/

Golden Galaxy – EBW August Entry

It’s been a while since I entered one of the EtsyBeadWeavers challenges, months in fact!… and that’s not like me, I usually try and enter each month but between being busy and uninspired, I failed to do so! Shameful!!! The last time I entered was in March with 1001 Nights for the Fairy Tale Challenge… so I really wanted to make sure that I made something for the “Silver & Gold” August Challenge… and this is what I made:

Golden Galaxy – OOAK Necklace

I wanted to create something that evoked the style and glamour of Hollywood, something that I could see being worn on the Red Carpet and at the same time could see myself wearing at an evening function or even at a day function, with a white summer dress, reminiscent of ancient Greek style of dress where the women wore white dresses with bright gold jewellery. Golden Galaxy was created with the images of the style of ancient Greece in my mind.

Voting will begin on the EtsyBeadWeavers blog on 9th August and will end on the 15th. Make sure you visit the blog during that time and vote for your favourite!!!

http://etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com

BAO Item of the Week

A super quick post today! My poor son has been sick with really high fever (41 Degrees Centigrade) since Friday (suspected swine flu – suspected because no one can actually say if it is or not!)… so I’ve been up for the last 2 nights with him and spent yesterday at the emergency clinic and today at the doctor… a couple more days and it should be all over… and they tell me that within the next 3-5 days I should know whether I caught it or not! something to look forward to!!! :-)

So my apologies for posting this late, but here are this week’s BAO Items of the Week:

My Item this week is:

Ridin’ the Wave – Bangle

Purchase and pay for this bangle between now and the 26th November and receive 15% OFF + FREE shipping to anywhere in the world!!

Visits the BAO blog and find out what specials offers are attached to this week’s items!

http://beadartoriginals.blogspot.com/

Wishing everyone a healthy week ahead!!! :-)

First there were three….

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was working on 3 of LisaPetersArt’s beautiful ceramic cabochons… well I was… and I did… and then madness took over me and I cut them up!!!

So after spending two whole days embellishing the piece, I decided that I really LOVED the colours, and the cabochons, but the three together was just too much… I’d already started making the necklace strap for it, when it hit me how much nicer one flower would look on the necklace…. so off with the head! I chopped it! took the lining off, re-lined it, and beaded it again!!!

And here is what came out of my momentary fit! much nicer, I think… let me know what your opinion is, should I or shouldn’t I have cut it up… :-)

Water Lilly

I’m really pleased with how this piece turned out… now I have these 2 left (below)… what to do with them??? hmmmm…. :-)