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Monday, March 30, 2015

Spring Beading with Elizabeth

On Saturday my niece, Elizabeth, and I spent the day together. Our first project was an idea that I found on Pinterest. Jelly Bean bracelets would be a great snack to have for the movie later with her mom, Sandra.

I made a change to the instructions by doubling the elastic thread. This ensured that the needle did not come unthreaded. This was a fun, yummy but sticky project. Elizabeth enjoyed taste testing all of the jelly beans as we worked.

Elizabeth's Rainbow Bracelet

Sandra's Fall with a splash of Root Beer Bracelet

Elizabeth's Fall Medley Bracelet

Jo-Ann's Valentine Bracelet

The complete collection

Elizabeth did have difficulty piercing some of the jelly beans (white seemed the hardest).

After making these very sticky bracelets we decided to work with something more traditional. Using some of the blue crystals leftover from last year's bead soup challenge and coordinating crystals from my stash she made a Ladder stitch bracelet.

Lemon Blueberry Bracelet

After lunch I made matching earrings for her.

Lemon Blueberry Earrings

After Sandra finished work she picked us up and we went to see Cinderella and have dinner. The movie was great.

Happy Beading!


Saturday, February 7, 2015

Checkerboard Blog Hop

It is reveal day for the latest blog hop hosted by Lisa Lodge. This one is inspired by the colours of a checkerboard; red, white and black.

I signed up for this challenge back last fall. Thanks goodness that I had a list of upcoming challenges post by beading table or I might have forgotten to get this done.


I have being playing alot of checker games lately. The student that I tutor as part of the Toronto Public Library's Leading to Reading program loves to play it on my iPad. We always play a game or two to end our session each week. During the week I play against the computer just for fun. We always play black versus white. But I love that Lisa included red in our kits.

Cultured seaglass and fire-polished crystals

I tried to mimic the alternating pattern of a checkerboard in my designs.

For my necklace I created small links of black & red beads and white & red beads. These were alternated with the large, thin black and white seaglass beads. I attached the seaglass sea dollar pendant with a series of jumprings.

Finished neckace

For the bracelet I went back to the basic black and white pattern. This time I used the large, flat free form shaped seaglass.


Finished bracelet

Thanks for stopping by and take sometime to hop around to the other blogs to see what my fellow artisans have greated with thier kits.

Our hostess:  Lisa Lodge, A Grateful Artist
Jo-Ann Woolverton, It's a Beadiful Creation
Carolyn Lawson, Carolyn's Creations
Toltec  Jewels, Jewel School Friends
Heather Richter, Desert Jewelry Designs
Candida Elkins Castleberry, Spun Sugar Beadworks
Kathleen Breeding, 99 Bottles of Beads on the Wall
Mischelle Fanucchi, Micheladas Musings
Kari Asbury, Hippie Chick Design
Susan Anderson, La Main Tresor
Kathy Lindemer, Bay Moon Design
Ann Schroeder, Bead Love
Kim Dworak, Cianci Blue
Margaret Pelech, Margaret Pelech's Blog
Lisa Prewitt Knappenberger, LiRaysa Designs
Annette Rivers, Mama Owls Mess
Carol Briody, A Beads Life
Miranda Ackerley, MirandAck
Karin Grosset Grange (France), Ginkgo et Coquelicot
Katrina Scuderi Taylor, I Wanna Go Out

Happy Beading!

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Pod Vessel

I started 2015 off with instructions from Julia Pretl for her vessels. She is working towards a new book with all of her vessel patterns. It was great to do another non-jewelry beadwork project.

Julia's original Pod Vessel
The vessel uses seedbeads instead of the delicas used for her boxes. I looked thru my stash of seed beads and selected metallic silver and navy blue.

I took the time read the basic instructions for making a four-legged vessel. It was helpful to understand how to read the pattern for the Pod design.

One of the four legs

Four legs ready to be joined up

Starting the body

Getting ready to add the tethers

Finished vessel

Another view
I am looking forward to making a second vessel as part of the Toronto Bead Society Bag of Beads challenge.

Thanks again Julia for another great project.

Happy Beading!