BACK TO BEADING

I've been beading all weekend long and I have some great projects to share with you.

The bad news is that I loaned my camera to Shannon so she could take pictures of her Disney vacation, so I can't share the pictures today, but I promise to post them later this week!

I couldn't wait to post about what I have been up to.

First, I made some very easy earrings, with small spacer beads threaded onto a headpin and then a round red bead with small black veining and a cap bead to top it off.

Then I made such a cute flower bracelet. This took some time, but I LOVE the way it turned out. I had to thread small spacer beads onto a headpin, this creates the look of a pistol for the flower and then thread on the flower beads. I had to cut down the headpins and create a jump ring out of the top, then I put a small pink pearl bead between each flower for spacing. I think it turned out so cute. I had a couple of extra flower beads, so I made a real quick pair of matching earrings. I had a lot of trouble finding the flower beads. I could find flower beads fairly easily, but the opening would go through the top of the bead and I needed something to go all the way through the bead to create the pistel.

Next, I made another fun dangling bracelet. I had a bunch of neutral colored beads, so I decided to string them on some eyepins that I had left over. I then did the same as I did for the previous bracelet and strung them up with some clear beads as spacers.

Well, we had a good Christmas, I hope everyone else had as good a holiday as we did. I just can't believe it's already over. Time flies by like crazy!

I haven't been doing a lot of beading lately, I've been caught up in shopping for Christmas. Maybe I'll get more time for beading since the holidays are over.

I did make three bracelets last week. My sister-in-law gave me some beads that her and her sister and mom found, they belonged to her grandmother and she gave 4 strands of beads to use. One of the strands had some beads that her and her sister wanted me to restring for them. Her sister wanted a bracelet made out of the beads, so Emma asked me to string them for her so she could give them to her sister as part of her Christmas present. I had enough left over that I was able to make a bracelet for both of them and another for my other sister-in-law. Unfortunately, I was thinking ahead when I did this and didn't take pictures of them before I strung them, or before I gave them away. I thought they turned out well though.

I wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year and may all your dreams come true in 2007!

Hopefully I'll have more beading topics to talk about soon.

NIECES AND NECKLACES



Okay, so it's really only one necklace, but you get the point, I made some jewelry for my three beautiful neices. Here is a picture of Brittany with her new bracelet. She asked me to make her something pink. She picked out the larger beads, a light clear pink bead with pretty designs going through them. I set each of the large beads off with a small daisy spacer bead and put a variety of pink colored seed beads between the large beads. I really like this bracelet and I'm thinking of making one for myself. I have extra beads, so I make take another crack at this one.





Caleigh asked me for a necklace. Brittany also helped me pick out the beads for this project. She said Caleigh likes green and pink, so these are the beads we chose. They are very funky beads and we all really liked them. I set these beads off with silver nubby beads, a little larger since I was working with larger beads. I used a variety of colors with the green and pink seed beads to go between the larger beads. I'm a little bit afraid that the string I used for this is not strong enough. It's a stretchy string and it was bouncing quite a bit. But, my sister-in-law Emma helped me test it's strength by pulling on one end. We didn't get the strand to break, so maybe it will be okay.





Here is a picture of both projects side-by-side. I wish I could get better pictures of the colors. I'm going to have to work with my picture taking.






I also made a clip for my other niece Sarah. She wanted a blue barrette, so here it is. I found the pattern in Katie Hackers book Hip To Bead. I just love this book. I was excited to try a clip, so this was a lot of fun, I'm not sure I did a very good job, but I liked doing it, so I'll try again soon. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of Sarah wearing the clip, but I'm sure I'll get one sometime. Thanks to my sister-in-law Kim for taking the picture of the clip.

Now in some other news, I was really excited about watching the OU vs OSU game on Saturday, I'm just glad it turned out well, it was a little scary there for a while. My Dad called me up first thing Sunday morning to see if I could call the OU ticket office and get some tickets to the Big XII Championship game in Kansas City. I called for almost an hour before I finally go through and got 5 tickets. Both my brothers will be going, my dad and me and David. Luckily the package arrived today! We also got a parking pass, so hopefully we won't have trouble getting a good spot to park. I just hope everyone dresses warm, cause I'm afraid we're going to freeze our tushes off! But, I'm sure we'll have a good time!

FEEL THE FRUSTRATION...

Okay, so I suck at blogging. I know, it's been weeks since I've updated. I'll apologize upfront. Let me just say that I've had a busy couple of weeks and we'll leave it at that.

I did find time to work on my first beading project, a watch that has me very frustrated at the present time. Here's a picture of the unfinished project. I found this pattern in Katie Hacker's book Hip To Bead. She has a lot of really cool designs in this book and I can't wait to try some more. I breezed right through the pattern and thought I was doing really well. That is, until I got to the finishing point. First, I was using crimping beads that were too small and I was struggling with getting both wires fed back through the bead. I finally took my round nose pliers and worked with it for a long time. I got one of the wires fed through, but couldn't get the second one through. Of course, since I've been working with it so much, the wire is a tangled mess and completely wrinkled. I'm pretty sure I'll have to scrap the whole thing and start fresh.

So, I decided to make something easy. This necklace is my own design. I used green millefiori heart shaped beads,
a variety of green seed beads and small silver daisy spacer beads. This was very simple and quick (it only took me about five minutes start to finish). It also gave me the satisfaction of completion that I was desperately in need of.

Maybe now I'll go back and finish that watch...



P. S. The pictures don't really do the jewelry justice, it's really hard to take good pictures of the pieces. Maybe next time I'll find a couple of models to help out.

BLOGS & BEADS



Emma (my sister-in-law for those of you who don't know her) got me addicted to blogs. Here's a link to her knitting blog. After reading her blog and the blogs of all the people who comment about her blog and other random blogs I found surfing the blogosphere, I decided to try this little innovation out for myself.

Another thing happened to me during my extensive travels through blog land... I discovered beading... WOW! How cool to be able to make your own jewelry! After some research, I ran out last night and purchased some books to help me get started.


Then, I ran by the craft store today and picked up some fun stuff to play around with.

I'll post some pictures when I get something put together.