Beadwork - Midnight Pearls

Aren't these Swarovski pearls beautiful. They are 6mm midnight blue pearls. I could not decide what to do with them.

I decided to go simple. I have strung 150 with a size 15 seed bead between each so that it looks like they are knotted. I used very fine Soft Touch by SoftFlex. It is so fine and flexible that you can knot it. I tied the ends together to create one long, continuous necklace.

It can be worn in a variety of different ways.

As long single strand tied in a knot.

Or as a double strand.

Beadwork - Inspiration

I am rereading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (it was just issued in ebook format). On the bus this morning I read the passage where Bilbo sees Smaug for the very first time. He describes him as "a vast red-golden dragon".

I am inspired to make a third dragon box using reds and golds on a black, grey or stone coloured background.

My first dragon box was using colours similar to the ones used in the Julia Pretl's book. My second was inspired by Saphira, the dragon in Eragon by Christopher Paolini.

I will look at my delicas tonight to chose the colours. I know that I have a 24 kt gold plated delica that I can use.

Beadwork - Pink Sparkle

It is First Communion time here in Toronto. I was asked to create a gift for a young girl's first communion. Using the 1 drape gothic pattern from Rypan Designs and some light rose Swarovski crystals I created this.

To make a matching bracelet and earring set I did some simple stringing.

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.