Yep, I’ve been beading

I’ve also been relaxing, and keeping my feet up.  It is nice to sit in a chair for part of the day instead of standing for 10 hours.  I know I will have to go back to it soon…but I’m enjoying the time off while I have it.

But back to beading.

I’m on my third project since having the time off since Wednesday.  Technically I guess I finished up the one green necklace, I attached drops to it and did my loop and button closure.

2nd project I made a square stitch band with 6’s rocailles, and then did loops of seed beads and drop beads directly on top of the square stitch band to make a nice bubbly puffy bracelet.  Though I hit a little snag when I put it on and it was about two inches two big.  So I had to cut one side of my closure, had to remove some of the loops of seed beads and drop beads, and on the exposed square stitch band sew on a glass button, to reduce the size over all.  This made for a much more easy to wear, though heavy bracelet.

3rd project I started a while ago…this is out of a recent addition of Bead and Button….It is a triangle stitch, but it also must be Chevron stitch….either way, I’m working on that and becoming more familiar with it, now I’m thinking of possibilities for more projects with different size beads and if I can go 3d with it.

Okay, enough of my blathering.  I will put up pictures tomorrow.

Later,

C

Christmas Party!

We had a Christmas party at work and I brought the camera.

Doesn’t everyone look festive!

We were in such a well-lit room many of my photos were silhouettes.

See what I mean.  I didn’t want to use the flash.

So that was it.  We got some eats, some candy, some goodies.  A good time was had by all!

I like portraits.

See you soon.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. You know all that good cheer!

C

I won!

I entered a contest to win a book and I won!

The Bead Dreamers Blog is at this url.

http://thebeaddreamer.wordpress.com/

She has give a-ways here and there and I was lucky enough to win this one.

I won a signed copy of Bugle Bead Bonanza by Lark Books!

Thank You Thank You Thank You!

I will post photos of it when I receive it, and also when I make something with it.  I never know that to make with all my bugle beads.

C

The next day

Yep, I brought my camera in for two or three days.  I have different students working on different days, so I must bring the camera in for them.  This time though I did have Brad take some pictures of me though.

Angie, Chris, Brad, Nathan.

All of us.  Being goofy.

Well some of us.

My tree.  I don’t have that many lights on it, but as you can tell, this was at night, with the lights on.  Steady girl, steady.

See the flash keeps it steadier, but makes the lights a little dim.

Unfortunately when I went to get more ornaments, there was very few in the color choices my husband made, blue and red. I did find some red ones,  I was going for the non breakable ornaments too, as we have some feisty kitties.

Brad is tickled about something.

Goodbye for now.

C

We are all color coordinated.

“I took my camera to work day”

I took some photos of the group of kids I have to work beside me everyday on the front lines of the Journalism school sandwich needs.   Also their cookie and muffin needs, their espresso fixes and the smoothies infatuation.  (That one I’m not so infatuated with.)  So anyway here they are.  I had to drag the kicking and screaming for these photos.  I tell you two days in a row of these photos and they’ve had enough.

See I told you about the color coordination.

See there a bunch of  wise crackers.

Okay, they settled down….um usually our crew is not so full.

Ready for action……or sandwich making.

I had Brad take a photo of me with Jennifer….one of our sandwich eatin’ girls…um customer.

They had lost the love of my camera by this time.  This is the last time they posed for me.

And these two…what can I say.

and when I came home look what my husband and brought me.

First one in 16 years, but who’s counting!

So guess what you will see in tomorrow post!  Yep, some lights! Some decorations!  Hold on to your hats!

and a few more crew photos that where on today’s shoot!

Thanks for tuning in. Loving my camera.

C

Okay so I’ve not posted for a few days.

My husband noticed, “It’s been five days.”

Okay, so some times we take a little drive, I pop my head out of the window and snap a few photos.  I like to get on the gravel because my husband slows down a little bit, though he hates the dust on the shiny truck.

So the last time we went out we took a few photos of some neat old buildings.

Love old houses, love to see people living in them and taking care of them.

I would love to have one….I’m not sure if my asthma would take it though.

So any way, we are driving along and see this magnificence.

It was perched on this hill, the road bordering it, and dropping elevation, so it really stood on top of this outcropping.

Oh, how much money it would cost to rehab this one.  But wouldn’t it be wonderful.  I’m so grateful it is still standing for us to admire.

It just goes to show you, you never know what to expect the next road you take and what you will see.  I live in a county where everything older than 50 years old gets bulldozed and a brand new ranch style house, or a McMansion is put there.  I love to see  something like this.

Oh, how I would love to live here.

We got to see this little gem.

Same house, seconds later.  Remember, we are driving.

This is the remnants of the old school.

This is behind that wall.

Well thanks for tuning in.

My progression on the latest necklace is coming along.  I didn’t work on it as much this weekend because I was trying to rest from my very weary week.  I have about six more days of work, and then my much-needed winter break.  Hopefully I will be able to show you some stuff fairly regularly then.

Thanks for visiting. Happy beading.

C

Yep, beading again….

Yep, I’ve been working on some stuff this weekend.  You know that time of the year for me…I would rather make things than buy things.  I can’t keep it all.  Besides I’m getting better so my stuff is improving compared to some of the stuff in my stash bag…my stash bag of finished pieces.

So a little of this.

my giftie girl likes lime green, so I looked at the opposite side of the color wheel, and it said violet red, so this little so gel seed beed in clear pink isn’t to saturated or bold.

So this is a 2 drop peyote band.  I have added some 8’s along the bottom to give it a little more curvature.  This is where the drops will hang soon.

This was taken about 1/2 an hour before stopping.  I guess I’m at about 2 hours or less at the length of about 10 inches.

So here is my selection process.

I pulled out these.

So I selected the lime green with clear beads to disband and use.

But I haven’t used them yet.  These are probably more like 6’s, So I haven’t used them in the peyote band…I think I will use them with the drops…

So I got out my 8’s.

I picked out dark lime green silver lined, and also a transparent root beer (which seems to go with everything) to alternate for the 8’s on the bottom of the band.

I also worked on stringing some pearls.  You know I just got better at this trick.

So this is what I made this weekend.  Three necklaces and one peyote band necklace started.

We end with this photo.

Thanks for visiting.  Take care and happy shopping all.

C

My other Bezel…

I told you I would post the second bezel that I made.  That is second ever made.  Still I can see some improvements need to be made.

The problem?  I guess I made the back to big before starting the “cupping” part.  So I had to add a few extra rows of the 15’s to keep it in there.  It is still a little loose, but better than my first attempt….

Okay, so back to the green cat’s eye.

See this one I did my version of a peyote stitch with 15’s.  I don’t have the little pointy parts like the last one.  But that is because I didn’t use the component the pattern asked for.

Here are some more shots.

Okay, time to start my car for the morning commute.  It’s getting cold around these parts.

Have a great day everyone.

Thanks for stopping by.

C

continuing…..

I worked a little more on the necklace.

Here I have added the second color of scallops.  Boy I have to say that this first row was a little tiring on the hands.  Maybe it is because I’m not stretched out on an easy chair.  I think this had to do with sitting at a table, and making sure to keep the necklace’s weight on the table and not in my hands.  Residual carpel tunnel syndrome methinks.

 

 

Here is the second row starting.  This got to be way easier by this point.  I don’t know why those top rows were making my hands really numb.

 

Here is the second color in the second row.  This piece does start to lay more flat as you work in more beads.  The first row, and the first section was whirling around and not staying in place, but once I added that second color, everything started to drape correctly.

 

So working time on this one for me is about three to four hours so far.  No I don’t think I’m a fast beader, I have to take pauses to shake my hands alot when they start hurting.  Dang that carpel tunnel!

Thanks again for checking me out.

Don’t hesitate to send me a comment either.

C.

What I’m working on….

I have a few days off, so I’m trying to get some Christmas presents done.  I feel this is a great excuse to make something for people because I don’t “sell” my stuff, and it gives me an excuse to keep buying beads.  I mainly make my stuff for me, and to give away.

Though I am willing to make something for someone if they wanted to tell me what they wanted, the colors they would like, and length, etc.

But this is out of a recent past issue of Bead and Button Magazine.  A design by Kara Jacob called “Through and Through”.   The magazine called it a variation of netting, which I guess is what you call it.  It looks like it will drape like a netted collar anyway. Here is the beginnings of it.

 

 

The scallops are dangling from the wire base of strung beads.

I’m using Ming Beads from Fire Mountain.  I have some better beads, but I wanted to make sure I had enough in three corresponding colors.  So I figured this necklace would be find with the Mings on the first try of this necklace.

 

 

I find it interesting that a lot of the beaders that are getting published in Bead and Button have only been beading for five years or less.  I think that is amazing.  I’ve been doing it for about three years, and I certainly see my advancement grow.  Part of that has to do with continuing my lessons through these magazines.

Another source that I check out are some of the blogs written around the world.  If you can find some bloggers from Hungary, then start looking at their links it is truly insightful.  There are many many of these bloggers publishing pattern for bead construction.  But don’t let not knowing the language get to you.  I find that in the patterns they are using universal names and telling you what the size is….you don’t need to speak Hungarian to understand.  Plus there are translating applications that will translate some of these for you if you really want to know.

Keep in touch, thanks for stopping by

C