time2cre8 ... from my Bead Hoard

I know a lot of beaders, and therefore I know that a lot of us share the same habits when it comes to beads...  we hoard.  It doesn't start out as our intention (at least I don't think it does), but as we see all those beautiful little bits of glass, metal, and clay, we just can't resist them.  All we can think about is how pretty they are and all the lovely things we could make to use that beady goodness.

But then time comes into play.  There's never enough of that, it seems, so we pack those pretty beads away carefully to be used another day.  And then we see more pretty beads.  And we have to have them.  But we don't have time to use them.  And they're packed away.  And the cycle continues...

For someone like me, who's been happily beading away for about nine years now, the bead hoarding begins to reach astronomical proportions.  I resist the urge to buy new beads, no matter HOW pretty they are (we won't even talk about the gorgeous lampwork hearts I bought yesterday... ahem).  I make resolutions for myself to use beads from my "stash" rather than buying new beads, and sometimes I'll actually go to my stash and grab some beads after spending a couple of hours ogling beads online.  Sometimes.

So why all this talk of bead hoarding?  I'm throwing down a challenge to my fellow beaders -- go dive into your bead hoard, your own personal stash, and pick out some beads you've had stored away for a future project.  Choose some you've had for a long time, some that haven't seen the light of day in years.  Then make something with them and show it off!  Post pictures to your blog or your Facebook page, and tell everyone how good it feels to use some of your bead hoard.  Maybe we can all find and support each other if we tag our creations with #beadhoard.

Here's a little something to inspire you -- I just finished this bead crochet rope, which I've named  Tutku, a Turkish name that means "passion."  The rope is crocheted from cream colored pearl finish Czech seed beads that look like spun honey, and the focal beads I used for the ends of the lariat (the beads that inspired the Turkish name) are polymer clay beads made by DDee Wilder.  I've had the polymer clay beads for four or five years now, so long that I even forgot I had them until I went through my bead hoard.  I think they deserve to see the light of day, don't you?  :-)

time2cre8 ... going UnderCover

No, I'm not becoming a spy...  I've just gotten carried away creating more of my UnderCover series of bead crochet necklaces.

I made the first of these pieces early in the year, and since then I've made six or seven more.  They've been in a bunch of different colors, and a few in different lengths, but all with the thing that gives them their name:  the magnetic clasp is hidden underneath two peyote tubes that wind up looking like a pendant when the closure is worn in the front.

For some reason, I had the urge to make more of these in the past couple of weeks.  It started with that dark steel colored one; and then I saw those copper lined hex beads and thought they'd make a pretty necklace; then came the multicolor one, which is also made with metallic lined beads (this is the first I've done using more than one color); and finally, what could be prettier than matte metallic silver?

Do you do this?  Get on a roll making one thing and just keep creating variations?  I think it's fun to see just how different pieces can look when they're made in different colors.  And Miyuki helps us with this, giving us hundreds and hundreds of Delicas from which to choose!  :-) 

time2cre8 ... a piece of Pi

When inspiration strikes, do you follow?

I don't always, but sometimes an idea takes hold and won't let go.  Last night we were watching a movie, Life of Pi.  I hadn't read or seen much about it, other than noticing that it received some attention at the Oscars, so we didn't know what to expect.  I wound up really liking the movie, but something in the back of my mind kept saying... "What if you did something with pi?"

Actually, I already had one idea about combining Pi with beads, a couple of years ago.  The result of that idea is this Piece of Pi bracelet I made using square stitch.

Knowing that there's no real "pattern" to the number sequence in Pi, it still made me wonder what would happen if I strung beads using Pi as the stringing sequence and then crocheted them.  Hmmm.

And so it began.  My first thought was to create a bead crochet rope using black and white beads, just alternating the colors for each number.  I'd even thought out using a bead of a different color for the decimal.  And that all worked -- until I hit the first zero in the sequence.  Naturally, I chose red to represent the zeros; and I was off and counting.  Thanks to the interwebs, it was no problem finding sites about the numerical sequence in Pi, so I printed off the numbers from a site that has Pi to 10,000 digits.

After about an hour of counting and stringing, I have approximately 18' of beads on my thread.  This is Pi to 1000 digits.

As I was stringing the beads for this rope, I started thinking about other ways I could do the stringing...  I could assign a specific color to each number and string beads of all different colors.  Or, I could assign different shades of the same color (say, all shades of blue) and string a monochromatic Pi.  Just imagine the difference between stringing one bead to represent each color and stringing multiple colored beads to represent each number (for example, 3 red, 1 blue, 4 green, etc.).

I was so anxious to see how this would look that I couldn't wait to start crocheting.  I chose to use six beads around (and if you know bead crochet at all, you realize that changing the number of beads around would drastically change the look of the rope), and as the rope developed I started to see bits of what look like patterns.  Not really patterns, but it definitely looks different than a rope that's strung in truly random order.  To me, it kind of looks like birch bark.

Those strings you see at the ends of the rope aren't part of the design...  I'm just trying to figure out how I want to finish this off.  Using an invisible join, one of my favorite ways to finish bead crochet ropes, seems wrong somehow -- that would mean that the 1000th digit of pi is connected to the first digit.  Nope, can't do that.  And I don't want to hide the ends of the rope under bead caps because then all the digits wouldn't be visible.  I'm still thinking about it (any suggestions?).

***

I'm not the only one who decided to combine beads with Pi.  A friend of mine, Lidia, recently finished work on a loomed bracelet whose colors are mapped to the numbers in Pi.  One really interesting coincidence in our both coming up with Pi ideas?  We share the same birthday, February 28, so we're both PIsces.  Funny, right?  :-)

She's graciously given permission for me to post a picture of her bracelet here so you can see it.  Yes, she even says it looks a bit like bead soup; but when she wears it she knows that it's really a representation of pi and not soup at all.

Lidia's bracelet was woven on a loom (as opposed to what I do most often, off-loom weaving using peyote stitch).  She said it actually took longer for her to map out the graph than it did to do the actual looming!  I can see why...

So what now?  I think there will definitely be another version or two of pi for me.  I'm not sure when, but the idea's still churning around in my head, and I have another copy of the digits printed so I'll be all set.  Maybe this time I'll make a rope using Delicas.

Beads of Clay Design Challenge

As a Design Partner with the Beads of Clay Professional Artists Team, I recently received an awesome package in the mail, filled with handmade beads and fiber wire made by several members of the Beads of Clay team.

The goodies are from Yarn Sweet Yarn, Jeraluna Designs, Kristi Bowman Design, Starry Road Studio, Marla's Mud, and Beads, Birds and Bones.

Once I had all these delicious looking supplies in hand, I went to review the requirements for the challenge -- and I panicked!  The initial directive was that we were to use ALL of the components to create just two pieces:  a necklace or bracelet, and a pair of earrings.  I don't typically sketch my designs ahead of time, but instead I tend to design in my head and as I go.  After I've spent time pondering a particular design, I usually have a good idea of how I want to assemble it and how it's going to look.  But this one was a complete puzzler!


The fiber wire is gorgeous and intriguing, but I knew that once I had figured out what I wanted to do with it I wouldn't really have an opportunity to change my mind.  It's very flexible, and the colors are beautiful, and I figured I was going to have to cut it into pieces to do something with it.  Since I'm not a magician, there would be no way for me to undo those cuts... The other challenge for me is one of my favorite components in the batch -- the long twisted tube by Marla James.  Its scale is so much different than the rest of the beads that I just couldn't figure out how I was going to fit it into one design and have the result be cohesive.

So I arranged.  And rearranged.  And thought.  And rearranged some more.  Thought some more.  Looked through my beads to see what I could use with these components.  All the while, I was following along with the discussions among the other designers, all of whom seemed to be having the same dilemma with being able to use all of the components to make just two pieces.  I had just about settled on making a freeform cuff, but with all of these components it would wind up being a HUGE cuff.

Now I have to tell you that I failed in the challenge to use all of the components.  I just couldn't find a way to make them all work in a single piece.  I suppose if I'd ventured into the land of wire wrapping, chains, or leather cording, I could have figured out a way to join them all together.  The biggest challenge to me, since I don't "string" beads or work with wire very much, was to use these components with some style of beadweaving.  I do have leather cording, wire, yarn, and all sorts of other supplies (what can I say -- I've never met a supply I didn't like), but I really wanted to do something that involved beadweaving, since that's my favorite type of work.

The piece I made is a necklace that I'm calling Bloom.  It's a bead crochet rope that incorporates the beautiful colors of the challenge components and a few of the pieces (I'm still considering a freeform cuff of some type to use the remainder of the pieces).

I'm thoroughly impressed by my fellow designers, all of whom managed to meet the challenge of using all of their components.  Please visit their blogs to check out their beautiful creations:

Cilla Watkins - www.tellyourgirlfriends.com
Kari Asbury - http://hippiechickdesign.blogspot.com 
Shannon Chomanczuk - http://formysweetdaughter.blogspot.co.uk/
Lesley Watt - http://thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Now I'm off to do some shopping...  not for beads (for a change), but for deck railing.  :-)

Dulcinea... Bead Soup Sweetness

This post is going to appear a little out of order.  You see, I decided a few months ago to participate in the 6th Bead Soup Blog Party, hosted by Lori Anderson.  I probably should have known better, but I always think I can do more, in less time, than I actually can (sometimes my Superwoman cape gets twisted around).  But there I was, signed up to participate, and then I started to panic a little that I wouldn't be able to complete anything with my "soup."

I did finish something, though -- not something elaborate, by any means, but it does meet the requirements of using the focal and the clasp I received in my soup from Penney Klaproth (more about the soup later).  Because I wound up waiting until the last possible minute to work on my piece, there's only one...  this sweet little necklace that I named Dulcinea.

I mentioned before that I was required to use the focal and the clasp (and you'll see later that there were LOTS of other beads, including a huge bag of seed beads and bugle beads that weren't even part of the soup!), but as soon as I saw the clasp I knew that it was going to wind up being part of the focal -- this little swirly copper loop is just too pretty to sit at the back of someone's neck.  So I chose to use it to suspend the little stone donut.  The necklace itself is an ndebele rope I made using beads from my own stash:  pretty bright copper lined seed beads that coordinate perfectly with the copper pieces Penney sent me.

 

Want to see the "soup" I received?  Here it is!  It has a great collection of metal and natural beads that will eventually be used in some project.  In fact, I have them sitting on my bead board now, while I ponder what I can do with them.  I'm particularly intrigued by the little glass plugs, the ones nearest the hand in the photo below.  Their colors are wonderful, and I'm thinking I might actually try something with wire...

 

 

Now I have some blog hopping to do...  And I'd like to invite you to hop along with me.  You can visit http://www.prettythingsblog.com/2012/08/6th-bead-soup-blog-party-2nd-reveal.html for a list of all the Reveal #2 participants.  Don't forget to visit my swap partner's blog, Faerie Acres!

Holiday Progressive Sale

It's time for a holiday sale!

Other than the discounts I've offered through the Bead Art Originals blog and discounts offered to repeat customers, I really haven't had any sales in quite a while. So it's time. :-)

I thought I'd try something a little different... a Progressive Sale. This is the best sale I've ever offered, so if you've been ogling something in my shop, this is your chance to save some money!

Here's how it works:

• Purchase one item from my Etsy shop and receive a 10% discount.
• Purchase two items from my Etsy shop and receive a 20% discount.
• Purchase three or more items from my Etsy shop and receive a 30% discount on your entire order!

*** PLEASE NOTE the following important information ***

Patterns are excluded from this special sale.

In order to receive the discount, you MUST include "Progressive Sale" in the Message to Seller when you check out.

The applicable discount will be refunded to you via PayPal.

May not be combined with any other sale or coupon code.

This sale will run from now (Monday, December 12) through the end of the year!

*** Merry Christmas! ***

Silencing the Muse

At what point do I admit that I cannot possibly create all the things that I envision? I guess I should consider myself lucky that I rarely run out of ideas. I rarely have anything even resembling creative block. In fact, it's usually just the opposite. My Muse is constantly talking to me, showering me with ideas for everything imaginable. And, believe it or not, there are times I just want to tell my Muse to "HUSH!"

It's even worse right now. You see, we're building a house (that's the very house you see in the photo). Now you'd think my Muse would be content to just send along ideas for the house itself -- flooring, siding, how to build the fireplace, cabinets, door styles, window styles, bathroom layouts, kitchen counters, backsplashes, tile, built-in bookshelves, deck plans, etc., etc., etc. But nooooooooooo. He/she/it somehow manages to distract me from those larger decisions and whispers in my ear about how I could use some of the discarded building materials.

Bent nails. Jewelry of some kind? Perhaps a votive holder? Maybe a wall hanging. Bird houses.

Bits of wood. Picture frames? Tiny furniture? Little creatures?

I'm not sure how to tell my Muse that I just flat out don't have the time to consider all those suggestions. I already have all these beautiful beads that are calling out to me all the time. All day. Every day. And polymer clay. A big bin of polymer clay which, thankfully, is still workable even after a couple of years of having been stored in the bin. Yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. Art supplies - pens, paper, cardstock, paint. You name it. The Muse never shuts up, so I've amassed a big collection of "stuff" to try to stop the whispering in my ear.

The sad thing is that, despite my knowing that I'll never have time to make all the things I've thought of, I'm still collecting stuff. There's a whole box of discarded, damaged, and downright cool construction materials sitting in the basement now. Just waiting to be turned into something cool.

I sure do love making stuff... like this. Serpentine Shimmer, a 6' long ndebele rope made with silver-lined metallic delicas.

More Bead Crochet

It's fun to try new things with bead crochet, and I've been doing just that. I have so many beautiful beads in my massive stash that I have no end of inspiration - just not so much time, particularly now that we're in the midst of building a house.

Today I thought I'd show you some of my most recent bead crochet pieces and tell you about the new adventure I'm taking with one of my bead crochet heroines, Judith Bertoglio-Giffin.

One recent piece is Sawtooth Salsa, crocheted from some of my all-time favorite beads - Czech glass seed bead with a picasso finish. These are so gorgeous in person, and the size 11/0 beads make a wonderful rope (in this case, the ends are joined to create a continuous loop that can be worn as a necklace or a bracelet).

In case you're wondering where you can find these beautiful beads, check out my friend Shannon's Etsy shop: beadsandbabble
Tell her I sent you (I don't get anything for that, but it's always nice to know how people found you online, don't you think?).

Although I don't use a lot of them in my work, for some reason I have a big container filled with faux pearls (just can't resist adding to my stash, I suppose). I guess I've always figured I'd find a place for them, and I have used some; but then the idea came to me to try crocheting a graduated necklace using an assortment of different sizes.

And so was born Luscious, made from a few hundred of those faux pearls in creamy off white, very pale peach, and a lovely shade of blue. This piece had a few challenges, as working with the different size beads and the sheer heft of the faux pearls kept causing the piece to unravel. I'm not one to give up easily, though, so I figured out a solution to the unraveling.

The beads in this piece range from relatively tiny, about 1/8", to some pretty substantial pearls that are more than 1/2" in diameter.

I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, and I don't think anyone would ever guess it's bead crochet. It sure doesn't look like the lariats and necklaces I've made before.

Having crocheted with my favorite Czech seed beads and then with pearls, I thought it was time to play around with some of my other favorite beads: Japanese delicas. These little cylinder beads are absolutely wonderful for peyote work, and they give a completely different look to a bead crochet piece.

I'll admit I was being a bit lazy when I strung these... rather than designing a pattern and using a bunch of different colors/finishes of the delicas, I decided to just add some 2mm jasper rounds, spaced about 3/8" apart along the entire length of the piece. And although I was a bit lazy, there was still some counting involved in stringing the more than 5600 beads this required!

This is called Sand and Stone, for the sandy color of the satiny pale gold delicas and the natural jasper stones that spiral around the rope's entire length.

And now it's time for another bead crochet adventure. When I saw Judith Bertoglio-Giffin's Urban Stripes String Along post on Facebook, I just had to join in the fun. Judith is providing the patterns for seven 6" long sections of bead crochet, so at the end of the adventure all the participants will wind up with a 42" long rope (presuming everyone's using the same size 8/0 beads Judith is using).

You can still sign up to play along, but you have to hurry. The deadline to sign up is tomorrow. Details are on the Bead Line Studios blog.

She's already posted the first part of the pattern, and I've done what may be the most difficult task: choosing the beads! Luckily I had just ordered some size 8/0 beads, and they're perfect for this project.

Now it's time to get started stringing the first part of the pattern... and I'm thinking of doing a variation on the design using some size 10/0 delicas, because I think they have kind of an urban feel.

Bead Crochet on the Road

I've often posted about taking bead crochet projects on the road. They're the perfect type of project for a road trip because all the beads are contained (presuming the beads have been strung on the spool of thread ahead of time). It makes it really easy to just pull out some of the thread and the crochet hook and do a little work while someone else is doing the driving.

Well, I've actually managed to finish the second iteration of Color at Play while doing REALLY short road trips -- it's only about 4 miles from our rental house to the house we're building, so the trip takes only about 10 minutes. But in numerous 10-minute trips, and with a bit of crocheting during the evenings when I'm too exhausted to do much of anything else, I have a colorful new bead crochet rope. :-)

Now if only I could figure out how to do peyote on the road...

Paul Gauguin Inspiration

It's been awhile since I created anything for the Bead Art Originals color challenge, but since I wound up with a little bit of free time this week (thanks to the rain and waiting for building materials suppliers and contractors), I managed to create a necklace whose colors were inspired by the Paul Gauguin Tahitian Landscape (1891).

My colors are a little muted compared to the vibrant shades in the landscape, but I was happy to find these little glass leaves whose shades almost perfectly match those in the painting.

The necklace, named Cascading Leaves, is an ndebele rope (aka tubular herringbone) made from Czech glass seed beads with a picasso finish. The seed beads are honey colored and coordinate beautifully with the leaves.

I'm not sure how much free time I'll have over the next few months, but you can bet that a LOT of it will be spent with my beads! :-)

Long Time, No Post - Back with Boots and Beads

May 18 was the date of my last post. Sheesh. I have an excuse, though... we're building a house, and since we're doing a significant amount of the work ourselves, it's been a very busy month. That, coupled with a trip to Kentucky to visit with family, hasn't left me a whole lot of time for beady endeavors. I've managed to finish some custom orders (which I love doing, because it's always fun for me to see how other peoples' colors work), made some pieces for a magazine (yay!), and have even worked on some new goodies that haven't been photographed yet.

But mostly it's been the house. Painting waterproofing compound on the foundation walls. Carrying loads of gravel to cover the foundation drain. Moving tools and supplies from here to there and back again. Shopping for building supplies. Some of it has been fun, but it's also exhausting because the temps have been in the 80s and 90s for most of the time we've been working. It makes for some very long days.

My work boots are doing their job, too. These have been with me through three other houses, so they've already done more than their share of protecting my feet and ankles (I'm a klutz and often trip over things). I did have to give them a new set of shoestrings, but I'd say they're doing pretty good for 15-year-old boots!

The rest of these pictures are some of the recent beady endeavors. Because I just have to share pictures of beady things, right? :-)

Silver Stripe in Zircon Blue Band
A shimmery, stylish bracelet made with gorgeous zircon blue triangle beads and galvanized silver delicas, topped off with a funky vintage button.

Color Burst
Made from opaque delicas in more than 15 different colors, this looks pretty random; but I made sure that no two beads of the same color wound up next to each other! :-)

Color at Play
A bead crochet rope that's fun all the way around. It's 66" long, joined with an invisible join, and crocheted from some of the brightest Czech glass beads you'll ever see!


Ashley
A fringe bracelet made with lots and lots of crystals and faux pearls. This piece was made for the Bead Mavens' Bead Soup Double Up swap, using beads I received from my swap partner.


Trevelyan
Another bead crochet rope, this one made with GORGEOUS Czech glass seed beads with a picasso finish. The name "Trevelyan" is Cornish for Homestead on the Hill, a name I chose because I crocheted a good portion of this piece on the trip to Kentucky to visit my Dad's homestead. I only wish I could have spent more time with my Dad after reuniting with him last summer.

Looks like that's going to be it for this morning... It's time to get back to work on the house. If you'd like to see pictures of the progress on the house project, check out my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/marylou.holvenstot

7200 Beads Later...

Yes, you read that correctly. Seven thousand two hundred beads later.

The design I created (see my previous post) is a 600-bead repeat. And for some reason I decided that the rope needed to be longer. I could have quit at three or four repeats. Or five. Or ten. But noooooooooo. I did TWELVE repeats.

I'm quite pleased with the rope, though. I've named it Copper Mine, since it has so many of those gorgeous silk finish dark copper beads.


Now it's time to do something else. My thumb is a little sore from all that bead crocheting. Maybe I need to make some kind of thumb guard for when I do this...

Whatcha Been Doin'?

If this blog is any indication, I haven't been doing anything at all. But that's just not true. I've been busy busy busy!!

Mostly I've been looking at kitchen cabinets, siding, doors, windows, bathroom cabinets, tile, flooring, roofing, and all the other things that are going to go into building our house. There are so many decisions that go into building a house that it's almost overwhelming. I'm glad we've done this before, because that definitely makes it easier. It's also made easier by the fact that my husband is a carpenter and knows how buildings are constructed; and I'm really good at visualization, so I can figure out what I want without being able to see it on paper. Even with those advantages, there are still LOTS of decisions to be made. Next week we start trekking to local building supply places to get bids.

In between figuring out all the house stuff, I've been beading. Of course. I even managed to publish a couple more peyote patterns last week.

Here are some of the beady things I've done, starting with two new peyote cuffs and two new designs:

Spring Leaves - Shimmery Chartreuse and Crystal Peyote Bracelet / Cuff

Diametric - Dark Bronze and Bright Yellow Gold Peyote Bracelet / Cuff

Then there's this piece, called Root Beer and Cotton Candy, which I made as a gift. I used bead crochet to make this rope, which is long enough to be worn as a necklace or as a bracelet. The beads are vintage cola-colored transparent beads with pale mauve lined beads to create the diamond shapes that are scattered the entire length of the piece. I thought it needed a little something else, so I added a long peyote tube made from the pink beads.


I didn't just make these pieces, but I finally managed to take some pictures and get them listed in my Etsy shop:

Sunshine - Bright Yellow and Pearly White Ruffled Bracelet

And this piece is called Nina (which means "fire" in Quechua, a Native American language). I thought it was a fitting name for this smoke fired pendant created by Kristie Roeder (aka artisanclay). Her square donut pendant is perfectly paired with the dark rust colored Czech glass beads that have a picasso finish (from Shannon, at beadsandbabble).


I also managed, in between answering questions about cabinets (how high, how wide, what will you put in that one, what's that called, should they be staggered or flat, what door style, what color - ARGH!), to publish patterns for two of my older peyote cuff designs.

Crazy Quilt

Desert Camo

And while all those things are actually FINISHED, I was also busy working on a bunch of new things... Some Totally Tubular pendants for a local gallery, a bead crochet necklace that will feature a GIANT bead by the uber-talented Lisa Peters (aka LisaPetersArt), and some other beady goodies of all sorts. Here's a sneak preview of the big bead piece. I love this giant bead, which is almost 2" long with a delicious deep royal blue glaze!


Now it's time to get back to playing with beads. I just know I'm going to have to answer more house questions this afternoon... :-)

Bead Crochet for Any Climate

I didn't intend to do it, but over the course of about a week I wound up creating two bead crochet ropes that are climate based.

Not really. I just happened to give these pieces names that would indicate they're from different climates.

The first one is called Bonaire Blues, and I gave this piece its name because of the name of the beads - Caribbean Blues. The beads are Czech glass with a picasso finish, and they're beautiful shades of blue with a hint of green, just like an ocean reef. I've actually been lucky enough to visit Bonaire (an island in the Netherlands Antilles, which is where Aruba is) and scuba dive there. Because it's close to the equator, it's very warm there, but it's cooled by ocean breezes. The reefs are beautiful, too, with all sorts of corals and fish; and I even got to hold a seahorse in my hand on one of my dives.

Although it's shown here as a bracelet, this piece is long enough (48") to be worn as a necklace looped once or twice around.

And aren't those beads GORGEOUS?!

Just in case you're shopping for beads, these came from my friend Shannon, of beadsandbabble. She has a HUGE selection of Czech beads, lots of them with the picasso finish you see here.

The next climate-based piece was actually inspired by the recent snowstorms that hit the midwest and northeast of the United States. We used to live in Illinois, and I was following the weather updates by some of my Facebook friends. If we still lived in our house up there, I'd have been shoveling more than two feet of snow. BLECH.

It was while I was seeing all that white on the TV that I decided to make a bead crochet rope using all white beads. This piece is called Snowstorm, and it's made from three different types of white beads: opaque matte, opaque, and translucent. The pattern in the rope is very simple, with the three whites just spiraling around the rope from end to end.

I have lots of other white beads, too, so I decided to add fringe to the ends of this rope using a whole variety of glass beads. There are frosted glass, faux pearls, opaque, translucent, and cats eye in the mix, resulting in a lush fringe that's more than 3-1/2" long.







Now it's time to go outside and enjoy some of the 45-degree weather. I hope all my Illinois and Wisconsin friends are warm and safe and finished with their shoveling duties. :-)

I Hereby Resolve...

NOT to have a New Year's Resolution! So there.

Oh, there are lots of things I could resolve to do this year: get in shape, spend more time with friends and family, work on more beadweaving designs, publish more patterns, clean the house more often, organize the mountains of paperwork that surround me, finish some of the UFOs that are sitting in boxes, yada yada yada.

But this year I'm not going to make a resolution to do anything. I think it's too much like the GOALS I used to have to write when I was working. I hated those things. Hated writing them. Hated having to scramble to get them done. Even hated having to review the progress my employees made on achieving their goals.

This year I'm just going to follow Yoda's advice. "Do or do not. There is no try."

So far, I'm doing. Photographing and listing jewelry that's been finished (can you believe some of these have been sitting around for a YEAR?! eegads). Cutting cardstock to list in my other Etsy shop (which has ACEO blanks and an assortment of kitschy and vintage stuff). Making a point to call my sister and stepmother with some regularity. Filling up the recycle bin with some of the paper that's accumulated.

Here are the new pieces I've listed so far this week. Happy New Year!

Shimmer, Sparkle, and Shine in a Slim Peyote Bracelet

Empress - Dark Red and Pale Matte Silver Bracelet (Knot, Ready for Primetime)

Stripey Triangle - Peyote Pendant on Satin Choker

Industrial Neopolitan - Metallic Striped Peyote Bracelet / Cuff

Romanesque - Matte Steel and Black Peyote Bracelet / Cuff

How about you? Any New Year's Resolutions for you this year?

Beadweaving Inspired by Bones' Temperance Brennan

I watch a LOT of TV. My justification for all the TV is that I use my TV time to do my beadweaving. I do a lot of beadweaving; hence, I watch a lot of TV. It's a vicious cycle. :-)

Unlike a lot of people, I don't have a studio or even a dedicated workspace for my beady work. I just camp out in my big comfy chair with my task light next to me, legs scrunched up underneath me in pretzel-like formation, and an old cutting board which acts as my work surface propped on my knees and the arm of the chair. Whatever works, right?

A couple of years ago I saw some catchy ads on TV about a website called hulu. And almost immediately, hulu became my friend. On it I could watch shows my husband doesn't like - science fiction, medical dramas, etc. And it was on hulu that I was first able to watch what is now one of my favorite shows, Bones.

Even though I'm a big fan of the show, I hadn't really paid all that much attention to the fashions on the show until one of my beadweaving friends pointed out to me all the striking necklaces sported by one of the show's main characters, Temperance "Bones" Brennan. She does have some style! There's even a flickr photostream dedicated to Bones' Necklaces.



So why am I babbling on about Bones? Well, because the Bead Art Originals team decided that we wanted to start doing challenges -- creating something for a particular theme to get our creative juices flowing. And the theme that was chosen by the last challenge winner (Darcy Horn, aka thejadedog) is a Bones-worthy necklace. The official name of the challenge (which I'm proud to say I thought of!) is No Bones About It. :-)

It was serendipitous for me that the details for this challenge were being talked about shortly after I received one of those ginormous boxes of polymer clay goodies from my friend and fellow BAO member DDee Wilder (aka Malodora). Mixed in with all the other goodies was a polymer clay cabochon that I determined would be PERFECT for the challenge.

What do you think? Would Temperance Brennan wear this? I think so. I even decided to name this piece Temperance.


Now it's time to go back to watching TV. And playing with my beads, of course.