Beadwork - Sodalite Rock Candy Necklace

As I was helping pack up Rypan Designs' booth at last weekend's bead fair. I asked Maria for two of the blue Rock Candy kits. It is a basic stringing kit for a bracelet with small Sodalite donuts, other semi precious stone, and silver spacers. I have made one of the bracelets before.

I created this necklace using the two kits. I added some pillow shaped bali silver spacers and Swarovski crystals. It looks great with the bracelet.

Beadwork - Sea Aneome Box 1

I was able to get the beads that I needed to finish the first of the boxes in this series at the bead fair this weekend. I had only a few rows of the hem and then the last rows of the lid to do. I did the few hem rows and started the last lid rows to finish, but noticed that I had not done the row before the hem correctly. I had to undo the four hem rows and the incorrect row. I then redid everything following the pattern. Here is the finished box.

The inspiration for it was a picture of a beauty pink tipped surf anemone in Margie Deeb's Beaders Color Palette book. Here is a similar picture.

My next box will have green as the most dominate colour.

Beadwork - Dark Sapphire Ric Rac Bracelet

At yesterday's Toronto Bead Society Bead Fair I took a class with Cindy Vroom for a beaded ric rac bracelet. Her original bracelet had it done in two colours with 4 mm crystals. I decided that I wanted to do it with just one colour. I had some of the new Swarovski Dark Sapphire 4 mm crystals. I matched it with a deep blue seed beads. This bracelet it done using chevron stitch, which is a trianglar stitch. Here is the finished bracelet.

Beadwork - Fishy Box

Here is a box that I started earlier this year. I put it aside to work on other projects. I decided to finish it last week.

This is an elongated hexagon box. The start is a bit different that the other boxes. Each time I had to start a new thread I had to ensure that I was still going around in the same direction, otherwise I would have had some very odd looking fish.

Inspiration - Sea Anemone

This image of a pink tipped surf anemone is similar to the one in the Beader's Color Palette by Margie Deeb. It was used by Robin Atkins to create a beautiful bracelet.

I have taken the noted delica colour and started to create box with them. I have chosen to make the fuschias the dominate colours for my first box. I am planning to do a second box with the green as the dominate colour and a third with the pale yellow as the dominate colour.

Beadwork - Ellyloo box

I have finished yet another of the bead boxes. The colours for this one were inspired by a set of lampwork beads I purchased from Elly Peters.

Here is the finished box.

I really liked how the finished box looks. At various points I almost stopped and thought about taking it apart. But I continued on, knowing that it would likely look good when it was finished.

Beadwork - Inspiration

I have started another box. With other boxes I have often found that choosing the right finial was the challenge of the piece. This time I have taken the inspiration for the colours from a set of lampwork beads that I purchased to use as the feet and the finial. The lampwork beads are by Elly Peters.

I have other boxes planned based on colour palettes for Margie Deeb's book The Beader's Color Palette. It is a great inspirational book. Each palette list delica colour numbers.