Slow Progress

Well I've left you all hanging again!  I've been so busy with house projects lately that I've had almost no time for beading.  Here are a few of the things I've done.  Some of them are a little older but I hadn't posted them here yet.  First up are some fun beaded beads:

They were pretty easy to make up and can be done in a large variety of colors!  Then I threw together some earrings:

I love the structure these have!  Next, I threw together quite a few different bracelets.  I was trying to branch out and try new colors:

You can see how well that turned out.  I gravitate towards black and silver for almost everything.  It makes for a great go-to because I know I've always got those colors on hand and because the finished product can usually go with whatever I'm wearing.  Then I tried my first project out of Sabine Lippert's book Beaded Fantasies:

Then I got my pattern for Mikki Ferrugiaro's Dark Shadow pendant:

Aren't they fun?  The bracelet flows so nicely when it's worn and then pendant is just too cool to not want to make a zillion of them. You can find Mikki's stuff here.  Finally, I decided to just play with beads yesterday and found an old button that is rather large.  I figured it would make a cool pendant, so here it is:

Wedding project!

I've been working on a custom order for one of my hubby's cousins, she's getting married and asked me to make the bridal party some jewelry!  So stoked!  The bridesmaids and the flower girls are all in my hopefully capable hands!  Here are some previews, bridesmaids are finished up, just need the sign-off from the bride herself, then onto the flower girls

The purple came out darker than expected in the picture, but it's much lighter in person and has already been matched to the outfits.

I'm off to the cities to visit with my mom for mother's day this weekend, and I'll be taking her and her bestie to see Dark Shadows on Friday along with some plant shopping both Friday and Saturday.  Until then, friends.

Unintentional Hiatus

I promise I haven't forgotten you!  I feel like I've been gone for ages from the blog world.  I've been stuck in reality working on house projects lately, painting the basement, fixing up the gardens, mudding doorways, and of course all the usual stuff like laundry and dishes.

  I was out of town this past weekend for a short getaway with the hubby and some friends to Minneapolis/St. Paul, we went to a Reptile Expo, which is super interesting, there was everything from snakes, to lizards, to alligators, to cockroaches, to toads.  It was quite the experience, we came home with a new addition to our scaley family in the form of a baby kingsnake.  Super calm, she's been a doll so far.  After the expo, we were off to the State Capitol for a tour and then on to the Mall of America.  Then we headed back and my best friend from high school came up to visit and we did a few tourist things up here in the Fargo area.  We hit up the Fargo Air Museum and the Hjemkomst Heritage Center.  All in all, it was a pretty darn good weekend.

  I know I've left you all hanging as far as pictures are concerned, so I will try to throw in a few today from my trip since I haven't had much time for beadwork lately.  But now that I'm home, hopefully that will change at least a little.

The new snake (+Hubby)

Everyone (but me - someone had to take the picture!) on the steps of the State Capitol:

Hubby & Best friend with Woody at Legoland:

Obligatory posing like the statue pictures:

And that will have to do until I have some time to make some new beady things!

What a busy week

I've been getting ready for a craft show this weekend in Minot, ND over the past couple weeks.  Making sure I've got all of my displays and tables and parts for setup, not to mention trying to gauge how much inventory will be needed.  I promise to update you all with pictures of new projects and of the craft show once I'm home next week though.  Unfortunately I still have some errands to run and packing to do so I can't stay here for too long and thus, you're stuck with a shorter than usual post with *gasp* no pictures!  But not to worry, there will be plenty of pictures next week.  Until then, my friends!

Worth the Work

I have been holding off a bit on writing a new blog post until Marcia had a chance to get all the pieces by mail and take some photos.  I am privileged enough to have my very own blog post written about me over on her blog.  To me, this feels like making it big time.  Marcia has been one of my beading idols for quite awhile now and I use her book Beaded Opulence almost like a bible.  She's quite the bead world rock star, so for me to enter her scope in any way, is amazing.  I will post new pieces soon, for now, go read her blog!

Light at the end of the tunnel!

Without further ado, the last few projects in Marcia's book: Beaded Opulence

Amphora was great fun to make, I love how it took shape as the layers were added, and it has so many color possibilities!  Even though I didn't have the chain the directions called for, I think I made it work out okay:

 Then I worked on Deco and let me tell you, I used up quite a few beads on the rope portion for this one. However, I've gotten so many compliments on it already, I can't really complain:

Quetzal I will admit I had a great time with, as you can tell since I made a bunch!  So many possibilities, and so easy to customize to the right size, I even made a miniature version so the base wasn't as big!

And lastly, Serena, which I left for last not only because it IS the last project in the book, but because it didn't immediately jump out at me as a project I just HAD to make.  Once I did this one though, I can tell you I'll definitely make a couple more, seeing it built from the bottom up made me really fall in love with it!

I will be sending Marcia all of these pieces so she can see them in person (she promised to send them back as quick as she can!) and so she can take some better photos of them, since I can only do so much with what I have.  This journey was so much fun, and I highly recommend this book, especially if you're learning RAW (right angle weave) as it shows a lot of different ways to utilize it.  Thanks so much to Marcia, for her suggestions and care packages while I completed my projects!

Almost there

To the end of the book that is.  I've got all of the pieces finished now, but still have to take some decent pictures of a few of them.

The piece we continue the journey with, and the reason for the hiatus and lack of crystals, Fanfare.  This bracelet is simply dripping with crystals and there is no way to avoid being blinded while working on it, so here it is:

I also had to order crystals for most of the book in order to finish it, simply because I don't keep too many on hand, but it was well worth it to order a whole bunch.  Plus, it's FUN to shop for shiny sparkles.  Entwined Circles was the next project on the chopping block and I had all kinds of fun with this one, since the colors I chose made it so incredibly bright:

Then we had Shadow Wave which I have to thank Marcia for since she was so generous and sent me a triangular rivoli in order to work on it!  I just love the little shot of pink around the triangle to give it that little pop of color:

Terracita, being the next project, I tried to challenge myself a bit and work with colors I wouldn't usually use.  I found myself attracted to earthy yet still shiny brown/tan tones.  The whole piece ends up looking very rich in person (I'm not sure it translates very well in a photo) being slight variations of all the same basic color:

To finish out the chapter, also because that's all the pictures I have for now, Whitby earrings.  Again, Marcia was very generous and sent me the teardrops for these pieces!  I'll admit, I feel a little spoiled!  I played with color a bit in these but I think they turned out pretty well, fun to wear that's for sure!

And that's all I've got for now, I'll take pictures of the remaining few projects today or tomorrow and I'll update you with finishing the book very soon (I promise!)  Then, all of these lovely pieces will be sent to the wonderful woman herself.  Yes, I'll be sending all of these projects to Marcia DeCoster, since she asked to see them all in person!  As a side note, I can't wait for the Bead & Button Show this year as I'll be able to take a class from Marcia again and see many wonderful beads!