Pepita 1st Blogoversary

It is reveal day for this fun and challenging blog hop. Back in June Alenka over at Pepita handmade post about her 1st blogoversary. To celebrate she invited fellow bloggers to sign up for a creative challenge. She would send us one of her amazing handmade components and we would have until August 11 to make something with it.

amazing components sent to fellow beaders

I received this wonderful component.

Curved turquoise coloured component

After many days of just looking at it and thinking about design ideas. I was inspired by my mobile from a few years ago. It now sits on the book shelf next to my beading table. The combination of copper and turquoise is a favourite.

During a trip to beadfx I picked up some interesting turquoise and coppers beads, copper findings, wire and chain.

The before picture

As I started to play with these beads I found that I still needed a few more things. More chain, eyepins (instead of headpins) and a closure.

Here is my design idea sketch I did on my ipad.

This finished necklace is like nothing I have made before. It is 102 cm (40 in.) long and is an asymetrical design.

The after picture

After finishing the necklace the challenge has been to photograph it. The above photo shows the over all length and design, but not the detail. Arranged over and around this small hand carved wooden bowl you can see more details.

Artistically arranged

Close up of Pepita Component

This was a challenge that had me asking myself "what if" as I played with the makeup of each of the bead connections and their placement in the design. I also got to use my new 1-step looper tool (love it!)

Here are the participants:

Ginger Bishop

Susan Kennedy

Becky Pancake

Debbie(Kepi) Rasmussen

Evelyn Shelby

Dini Bruinsma

Monique Urquhart

Jo-Ann Woolverton

Penny May

Carolyn Lawson

Ana Cravidao

Dolores Raml

Cynthia Machata

Thanks once again to Alenka for the chance to celebrate with you.

Happy Blogoversary!!!

In the mail - books and beads

Yesterday I was able to pickup not one, but two packages that had arrived in the mail for me.

The first was Jean Power's My Favourite Delicas 2. I had ordered this a few weeks ago.

I now have 27 new tubes of delicas. Some are colours I have, but many are not. I am looking forward to creating with them.

I loved the bonus spiral bound notebook for "Important beading notes". Are there any other kind of beading notes?

I also got two books that I had ordered.

The first is Marcia DeCoster's new book Beads in motion. I am hoping to get the supplies together to make the Saturn rings necklace.

The other book, Don't pigeonhole me!, is by one of my favourite children's author/illustrator, Mo Willems.  It is a collection of the sketchbooks he made to share with family, friends and associates. You get to see the doodles that lead to some of his books.

 Happy Beading & Reading!!!