Spring Beading with Elizabeth

On Saturday my niece, Elizabeth, and I spent the day together. Our first project was an idea that I found on Pinterest. Jelly Bean bracelets would be a great snack to have for the movie later with her mom, Sandra.

I made a change to the instructions by doubling the elastic thread. This ensured that the needle did not come unthreaded. This was a fun, yummy but sticky project. Elizabeth enjoyed taste testing all of the jelly beans as we worked.

Elizabeth's Rainbow Bracelet

Sandra's Fall with a splash of Root Beer Bracelet

Elizabeth's Fall Medley Bracelet

Jo-Ann's Valentine Bracelet

The complete collection

Elizabeth did have difficulty piercing some of the jelly beans (white seemed the hardest).

After making these very sticky bracelets we decided to work with something more traditional. Using some of the blue crystals leftover from last year's bead soup challenge and coordinating crystals from my stash she made a Ladder stitch bracelet.

Lemon Blueberry Bracelet

After lunch I made matching earrings for her.

Lemon Blueberry Earrings

After Sandra finished work she picked us up and we went to see Cinderella and have dinner. The movie was great.

Happy Beading!

Super Duo Flowers

Earlier in the year my mom pinned on Pinterest a Youtube video for instructions to make beautiful sunflower earrings. It was a subtle hint to me that she would like a pair.

The only problem is that it was in Italian. I watched it a number of times but was not able to figure out how to get it to work.

Luckily the October 2104 issue of Bead & Button had a wonderful bracelet project called "Mums in bloom", designed by Susan Schwartzenberger. Kits are available here.

I decided to do it with all yellow flowers. To get the length I wanted I changed the connecting of the flowers.

Bracelet in progress

 The instructions use a snap as the closure but I changed it to a lovely flower shaped toggle.

 After finishing the bracelet I decided to make single flower earrings.

Now I will pack it all up and sent out to my mom. I hope that she will love it.

Happy Beading!

Winter's Sparkle Blog Hop Reveal

It has finally arrived, the reveal day for the Winter Sparkle Blog Hop. Back in September I signed up for another of Lisa Lodge's wonderful challenges. This is based on the colors and sparkle of a winter's night.

I got a wonderful palette of purple beads. I would love to show you a picture of the what I got in my kit but my camera and I are having issues. I take pictures but when I go to transfer them to my computer the images are not on the SD card.  It has been driving me crazy as it does not always happen.

I was inspired by the the mix of purple fire-polished rondelles. I had also just taken a class with Sue Charette-Hood at CreativFestival to learn how to do kumihimo with beads. In the class I made a bracelet with Magatamas. She taught us how to finish the braid without glue.

My first kumihimo with beads

So now I had a technique I wanted to use but still need to be inspire for a final project. So it was time to head over to Pinterest. There I found this beautiful necklace which combined seed beads and Unicorne Beads Handmade Teardrop.  It was designed by Diana Shiraishi and originally pubished in Bead Treads August 2011. 

Under the Sea

I decided to see how it would work with fire-polished rondelles, like those in the kit from Lisa. To work out the details of quantities and layout I made a necklace with some metallic blue rondelles and bronze lined blue seed beads.

Protype with metallic blue

Given the limited quantity of the purple rondelles in the kit I had to use more seed beads to complete the length that I wanted for the finished piece. I used a silver lined matte purple seed beads. Using copper findings was a nice compliment to the purple beads.

Once the braid was completed and I had finished using the technique learned from Sue, it was a little shorter that I had hoped. I decided to a little extra strung section with some of the larger rondelles in the kit.

Finished necklace

Detail of segment with rodelles

I have since worn this to work and have found a small design problem. The leaves of the end caps catch on my hair.

Take some time to hop around and see what everyone else has created with their kit from Lisa.

Our hostess:  Lisa Lodge, A Grateful Artist

Melissa Trudinger, Bead Recipes

Kathy Zeigler Lindemer, Bay Moon Design

Eleanor Burian Moore, The Charmed Life

Jo-Ann Woolverton, It's a Beadiful Creation

Chris Eisenberg, Wanderware

Carolyn Lawson, Carolyn's Creations

Toltec  Jewels, Jewel School Friends

Christie Searle Murrow, Charis Designs Jewelry

Heather Richter, Desert Jewelry Designs

Ev Shelby, Raindrop Creations

Dolores Raml, CraftyD's Creations

Kim Dworak, Cianci Blue

Cassi Renee Paslick, Beads: Rolling Downhill

Annette Rivers, Mama Owl's Mess

Tammie Tusher Everly, TTE Designs

Crystal Thain, Here Bead Dragons

Marybeth Rich, A Few Words from within the Pines

Norbel Marolla, She Flies Again Jewelry

Karen Burg, KEB Designs

Karin Grosset Grange, Ginkgo et Coquelicot

Jasvanti Patel, Jewels by Jasvanti

Thanks once again to Lisa for organizing this wonderful challenge.