Summer Beading

It is the first day fall here in Weston. So I am going to take a look a back at some of the beading I did this summer. Some I have blogged about and some I have not.

Summer started with those three great classes with Jean Power, zinnias, frames and stars. Following the class I finished the zinnia and not just one star but 4.

Finished Zinnia

Finished Stars

In July I was part of the Bead Hoarder's Blog Hop. Using some of the beautiful beads I had been saving I made four different sets of jewellry. Here is my favourite, using beads by Jennifer Tough that I have had stashed in a little metal Swarovski box.

Bead Hoarder's Set

I took a great class at beadfx with Pamela Kearns. The shooting star pendant is from the book Crystal Play by Anna Elizabeth Draeger. In class I did one with jet & red coral Swarovski crystals and silver seed beads. 

First Shooting Star Pendant

I did a secod one later in the summer with green seed beads, green and yellow Swarovski crystals. It is not quite the look I was hoping for. I likely remake it with some brown seed beads to look like a wooden trellis for the flower-like cluster of crystals.

In August I posted about the piece I created with the polymer clay component by Alenka of Pepita Handmade. It was a fun challenge that push me to make something very different then usual!

Pepita Handmade necklace

The last challenge of the summer was the Cabochon Challenge. I loved this reversal pendant project from the August issue of Bead & Button by Amy Kohn made with Lunasoft cabs. I have been wearing the Red/Grey pendant and love being able to flip the piece during the day.

After blogging about Peyote stitch on the Rypan Designs' blog I decided to make a few projects from Diane Fitzgerald's Shaped Beadwork book. I love the Celtic Trefoil design. It was interesting to see this go from a long loose knot of 99 delicas to a beautiful Celtic Knot Trefoil pendant.

To finish my first one I used short lengths of chain and small Swarovski crystals.

The second one has just silver chain.

My third is accented with mauve Swarovski Pearls.

 I also started to play with the pointed ovals from Diane's book. I was looking to use them to create a flower brooch. I was inspired by this photo I found online a number of years ago.

 Here is one of the pointed ovals in progress.

Five ovals worked together in to a flower. I just need to figure a way to hold it together as a wearable brooch.

 
Here is the necklace that I made with the beads that my friend Maria got for me at Bead & Button show. The beautiful owl pendant is accent with ceramic, copper and wooden beads.

Owl necklace

 Back in July I purchased some amazing ceramic beads from Kathi Mohlman of Earth n Elements Pottery. The urchin beads I wanted to put them with the Sea Urchin beaded bead from Marcia DeCoster's Beaded Opulence book. I added some fire-polished beads and pearls.

Sea Urchin Necklace

I finished a few other projects for fall challenge reveals. Stay tuned to see some other fun projects.

Jean Power class update

Wow, it has been two weeks since I spent the weekend taking classes with British bead artist Jean Power.

I have actually finished two of the projects that I started during the classes.

Friday's class was the Zinnia Flower class. Once I started working on it at home I finished up the petals at the front of the flower.

For the back layer of petals I switch the placement of the colours. The blue is main colour of the petals with an edge of silver.

Here is the back of the flower. With the band across the back you can wear it in many ways. I think this will look great pinned to my grey winter coat. Or I may make the beaded chain which was include in our instructions.

On Sunday we started our geometric stars. I would have gotten further along in class if I had not run into problems with my counting.

I completed the last two sides and zipped them together to the other three.

I am looking to do a series of these stars with just changes in the placement of the colours as I did with my sea anemone boxes.  I am using the same colours for the stars.

Happy Beading!

Hexagonal Triangle Vase

I finally finished all the irises for my Paper Art entry in the Designer Style Challenge. The next challenge was to arrange them into stems of two or three flowers and a final arrangement within the Hexagonal Triangle Vase. Once I got it the way I liked, I had to create a photo studio to ensure that I had great photos to submit for the Challenge.

Here are the pictures that I entered.

Complete project

Vase

Flower detail

Flat pack origami

For the Paper Arts design of the Designer Style Challenge I am going to do some origami flowers and a vase.

I have made some in the past, including the table centers for a friend's wedding a number of years ago.

For the design I wanted an unusual vase design. Looking thru origami books I came across a book called Unit polyhedoron origami by Tomoko Fuse. It shows how to combine folded shapes to make 3-D objects.

Using triangles, hexagons and connectors I was able to make this.


Here is another view.


I made it with origami paper I already had, so this is not the final colour. I like the general shape of the base, but I am going to modify the height to make it more like a bowl.

Using paper I was able to get at the Paper Place, I am now playing with the colour and texture for the final piece. Smooth shiny silver accented with purple or a crumpled and textured silver accented with purple. Prototypes are in progress.

Spring tease

A spring teaser arrived for me at work last week. My sister sent this amazing basket of mini daffodils from her flower shop, Astra Florists. The snow and the cold seem to disappear when you have these funky little flowers on your desk.

They are being enjoyed by the staff and public at the library. I really love the sparkly ladybugs that guard them.

Thanks Sandra, Les, Mackenzie and Elizabeth!!

Calla Lily Earrings Revisited

Last fall I made a bouquet of Calla Lily Earrings using lucite beads from Juicy Bead Ladies. They were at Bead Oasis last weekend and this time I got both white and red lily beads.

 Red Calla Lily Earrings

Classic White Calla Lily Earrings

The earrings are on cards prepared with a punch that is designed especially to make earring cards. From Easy Earring Cards, this punch is so much easier than trying to line up holes made with a large needle.  

Growing Bougainvillea

Here is my first of a small bunch of bougainvillea for a necklace designed by Kerrie Slade. This piece is in the April issue of Bead and Button. It is worked in my least favourite stitch, brick stitch. Once I got going it was not difficult to do, but I may not make as many of the flowers as suggested in the design.

Beadwork - Calla Lily Earrings

These earrings are inspired by a bracelet in a recent beading magazine. I was able to get the lucite calla lily beads from Juicy Bead Ladies at Bead Oasis last month.

I used two sizes of Swarovski crystals to create the pistil in the center of the flower and a couple green crystals for the stem. This makes them look like the classic white calla lily.

Bead Challenge - Blue Foxglove trio

I have finally been able to finish this stunning necklace. I started back in April and I spent this morning putting everything together. This piece is designed by Kerrie Slade and was published in the April 2008 issue of Bead and Button magazine. It is stitched using one of my favourite beadweaving stitches, ndebele or herringbone. I have used three shades of blue for the flowers.

Here are some detail images.