Custom Order

A friend of mine wanted a simple pendant that she could wear every day with just about everything. She picked a fossilized coral bead for the center. The one she picked is incredible. It is very detailed. It looks like tiny little flowers. We decided to keep the focus on the beautiful bead and surrounded it with various black seed beads. I alternated between shiny and matte to give the piece some added detail. The pendant hangs from a leather cord that has added beads on either side. The pendant is small, only about 1 1/2 inches wide. I delivered the piece to her this morning and she was very happy. So I'm happy too.

New Pierced Earrings

I finished these earrings the other night. I was working on them for the Thursday Sweet Treat theme "Whirling Colors in Mid Flight". Unfortunately, due to an extremely crazy week I never got them submitted in time. 

I've used the teardrop beads before, but this time I turned them upside down. This provided a whole new design direction. These are bead embroidered pierced earrings. The gray teardrop shell bead is surrounded by seed beads in cream, gold, and purple. The earrings are also embellished with purple jasper beads and Swarovski crystals. Shell fringe hangs from the bottom. The pierced earrings are backed in black ultrasuede. The posts are sterling silver plated.  

If you'd like to see what other people submitted for the "Whirling Colors in Mid Flight", you can check them out on the Thursday Sweet Treat blog.

A Tutorial and Giveaway

A couple of months ago, Natasha at Thursday Sweet Treat approached me about writing a tutorial to feature on her blog. I decided to take her up on her offer and I've been busy writing, taking photographs, and rewriting. Today that tutorial is making its debut on Thursday Sweet Treat. The tutorial teaches how to make a Bulls Eye Pendant like the one pictured above. 

Here's the best part if you go over to check out the tutorial and make a comment on her blog, you could win the pendant pictured above. So I hope you'll take a moment to go check it out. The giveaway begins today and runs through midnight June 29th. The winner will be announced on June 30th. 

If you decide to make a pendant, I'd love for you to share it with me. Happy beading!

Tiger Lilies

This past weekend the tiger lilies bloomed. They are everywhere. We have a line that surrounds our small garden near our house, but you can see them everywhere along the roads right now too. 

Orange and yellow are not at the top of my list of favorite colors, but I can't deny that these are beautiful flowers. I now feel challenged to try beading something using the same color combination as these lilies. I find yellow a really difficult color to work with in beading. I'm sure that is because it is not one of my favorite colors, but I also struggle to figure out how to complement it with other colors. I took a few moments over the weekend to study these flowers and I'm warming to the idea of yellow and orange. Maybe it is the deep red that separates the two. I have a few other projects in the works, but my head is now filled with a number of ideas. Oh, only to have more time to bead.

Is there a color that you find hard to incorporate? Have you been able to overcome it?

Pyrite Earrings

Here's the next pair of earrings. These earrings use a square pyrite bead and a pewter bead as the focal points. The beads are surrounded by matte gray and metallic blue seed beads. A beautiful metallic blue dagger bead hangs from the bottom with Czech glass beads on either side. The earrings hang from sterling silver ear wires and are backed in black ultrasuede.

It is a rainy weekend here so I hoping that I can get some more beading done. I'm also glad it's raining because I just don't feel like weeding the garden. I'd rather weed through my beads.

Purple Jasper Earrings

Somehow last weekend I found a lot of time to bead. I finished two pairs of earrings and two pendants. Now the hard part is getting everything photographed so that I can post them to my Etsy shop. Here's the first pair. 

These bead embroidered earrings use an amber Swarovski flat back crystal as the centerpiece. The Swarovski crystal is surrounded by size 15 seed beads in a dark cranberry and bronze square seed beads. A purple jasper bead is stitched above the crystal. A gold drop hands from below. The earrings are backed in eggplant color ultrasuede and hang from gold plated ear wires.

These earrings aren't very big and they are super lightweight. They're great wear everyday earrings. 

Skipping Stones Cuff

While on our recent road trip, we took a few moments to skip stones on Lake Champlain. My youngest daughter was so excited when she got a stone to skip two times over the water. We could have stood there forever skipping stone after stone. 

I created the Skipping Stones Cuff to capture that memory. The center stone is a lavrovite stone. The stone is a combination of black, gray, silver, and blue. Each of the stones I bought is slightly different. Some have black spots and others have blue streaks across them. Three dark blue Czech beads are randomly placed on each side. Surrounding each of these Czech beads are seed beads that mimic the ripples of the water. The base is a metal cuff and the underside is covered with navy ultrasuede.