More Purple Inspiration

I'm hard at work finishing the cuff, but I wanted to share a few photos of the irises that are blooming near our house. They are an wonderful shade of purple with hints of blue. I love the little yellow hairs that grow from the center of the petals and the purple veins that meet them.

Iris is a genus of between 200-300 species of flowering plants. Iris comes from the greek work for rainbow. I believe this type maybe a bearded iris, but I'm not sure. Never the less, they are lovely.

Pursing Purple

These lovely flowers are blooming all over our property. I have no idea what they are, but I love them. We also have these incredible purple irises that just opened the other day. The thing is that I feel like I am surrounded by purple flowers right now. It makes sense that my newest project would use purple as the primary color.

After the road trip and spending Memorial Day weekend planting the vegetable garden, I finally got to do some beading. 

As I mentioned in a previous post my next project was going to be a cuff.  I decided to use an oval purple cat's eye cabochon as the centerpiece. I've used 4 sizes of seed beads, bugle beads, pearls, pewter beads, and glass beads to embellish the cuff. The cuff is primarily shades of purple with hints of silver, gray, and reds. Whenever I use a lot of different beads, the end result always reminds me of a crazy quilt.  

P.S. If you know what the flowers (picture above) are, please let me know. Thanks.

A package in the mail

I absolutely love when a package arrives in the mail. This lovely package arrived the other day, but unfortunately I've been away and I didn't get a chance to open it up until now. 

So many possibilities. Maybe you'll see some of these on the new cuff I've started.

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!

This picture was taken at Fort Ticonderoga, New York. At the request of our son, we added this to our road trip agenda. 

After leaving Vermont, we headed south. After a little driving and a ferry boat ride, we arrived at Fort Ticonderoga. It just happened to be opening day at the fort. Fortunately, since it was a Thursday, it was pretty quiet. 

The fort has a long history that spans both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. The fort was originally built by the French between 1755 and 1759 and was called Fort Carillon. In May of 1775, the fort was captured by Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, and the Green Mountain Boys. This was the first American victory of the Revolutionary War. 

Please take a moment on this Memorial Day to remember American's fallen soldiers. It is these brave men and women who gave their lives fighting for our freedom for over 200 years.

Road Trip

I've been out of the loop for a few days because our family took a quick road trip. My husband had a business meeting in Vermont and we all tagged along. It was absolutely beautiful and we jam packed a lot into three days. 

One of the places we stopped was Shelburne Farms which is right outside of Burlington, Vermont. Shelburne Farms was an estate owned by William Seward and Lila Vanderbilt and was a model agricultural estate established in 1886. It is now an education nonprofit that continues as a working farm with Brown Swiss Cows. They transform the cows milk into an incredible cheddar cheese. The estate home, which sits on Lake Champlain, was transformed into an Inn. The historic farm barn houses a children's farm yard that is filled with chickens, sheep, calves, goats, and pigs. It is a wonderful place to visit for children and adults. 

Right now the lilacs are in bloom all over Shelburne Farms and Vermont. Every time the wind blew, the air was filled with their sweet scent. 

Inspiration for new beading projects was every where on this trip. All the wonderful colors of nature were abundant. I think this picture will help guide me on the new cuff I'll be starting this week. 

A blank canvas

So it is time to start something new. I've been busy with custom orders for earrings and pendants. It is time to start a cuff. Time to pull out all the cabochons, pearls, seed beads, glass beads ... basically the whole stash. 

So here it is. A blank canvas. Anything is possible. 

Any suggestions?

Angelina Earrings

Do you remember those gorgeous earring that Angelina Jolie wore to the 2009 Oscars? Her stylist hit a home run that night. Beautiful black strapless dress with show stopping jewelry. In addition to these incredible earrings, she also wore a matching ring. Who knows maybe a ring will be next? 

Here's my interpretation of the earrings.

The top part of the earring is made from Swarovski rivolis. The bottom section is made from green agate teardrops. These are definitely red carpet, show stopping earrings. 

By the way, I dropped off the pendant to my friend today and she loved it. I just happened to be her birthday so that made it even better. Happy Birthday Lynn! 

Finished

The project I showed you last week is finished. I found a little time on Sunday to complete the pendant. I used four different colors of seed beads on the top and bottom sections. The top is enhanced with gold glass pearls. The bottom was embellished with cranberry colored pearls. I backed the pendant with black ultrasuede and attached it to black leather cord. I'm pleased with how it turned out. I hope that my friend is happy too. 

What do you think?

Creating New Memories

I'm hoping to get a little beading done this weekend, however, I have a much more pressing project to complete. My 8 year old daughter is becoming a Junior Girl Scout next week. I'm lucky enough to be one of leaders for her troop. I've been with this group of girls since they were in Kindergarten. I can't believe how much they have grown. It really does go quickly. We've done so many things together - craft projects, camping, field trips, picnics, and cooking. So many memories are part of each badge and patch on those Brownie vests.

So... this weekend I'll be sewing patches on Junior sashes and thinking about the new memories that we will make. 

Do you think they will mind if I add a few beads?

Progress and a Pens Game

Last night was a great night for hockey and beading. The Pens and Capitals played game 7 last night. While the Pens played, I beaded. It was a good combination. The Pens had to win last night's game in order to move on to the next round. I admit I was a little nervous so it was good to work at the same time. Fortunately, the Pens won and I made some progress. It was a good night.

Start of a New Project

Last week I met with a friend to begin a custom piece. The end product will be a pendant. She picked these beautiful fossilized coral beads and a gold coin pearl. 

I found these fossilized coral beads at the Bead Mercantile Show that was in Pittsburgh in March. They are really unique. I love the detail in the beads and each one is different. The one she picked is especially pretty. It reminds me of a flower. 

Starry Night Ring

I created this ring to match the "Night of Stars" neckpiece. When I bought the Swarovski rivolis for the neckpiece I wasn't sure how many I would actually use in the final piece. I had an extra rivoli leftover and decided that a ring was a perfect addition. That's how the "Starry Night Ring" was born.

I recently found these ring blanks on Etsy. The shops is ChristianHaylie. I really like these ring blanks because they have a large pad to attach beadwork and they are adjustable. 

My First Post and a Favor

And so it begins. I've been thinking about starting a blog for a long time. I just recently finished the neckpiece pictured here for the Etsy Beadweavers May Challenge and decided that this provided the perfect opportunity to get started. 

The Etsy BeadWeavers is a group of beaders who market their creations on Etsy.com. The Beadweavers' creations are different from many of the traditional beaded items, in that they are woven from hundreds or thousands of tiny beads to create intricate designs and pictures. These weavings take the form of both art and jewelry. Each piece takes many hours to 

complete, with some larger pieces taking weeks or even months.

Each month the team hosts a theme challenge for its members. The May Challenge was "Hollywood Red Carpet Creations". The neckpiece pictured here was my entry to the challenge. It is called the "Night of Stars".  

Here's the favor part. Please visit the EtsyBeadWeavers' blog between May 9th through May 15th to see all the incredible entries in this challenge and VOTE for your favorite! http:www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com