Another crystal rosette bracelet

I finished this a few days ago but haven't had chance to post, it's been a really busy week, I used a sort of midnight blue matte ab seed beads, matte ab is my favourite finish at the moment. I apologise for the purpleness of the background, I was trying to make my photo's less boring, but I have the feeling that this background colour is just a little too interesting! I also made a tassel necklace for myself but haven't got around to taking pics yet. I am dithering about what to make for my mil, it's her birthday Saturday so I'd better get my butt in gear, but no doubt I will spend too much time reading blogs when I should be beading!

Sarah.

Crystal Rosette Bracelet

The weather is terrible here, raining & very bleurgh, so I am blaming that for the terrible pictures of this lovely bracelet I just finished yesterday. The medallions are based on Marcia DeCoster's crystal flowerette earrings. It combined 2 of my favourite things to do, making small components to create a larger piece & using up leftovers from other projects, I have another planned using black seed bead & some fancy finish swars, hopefully I can get that done this weekend. I am still trying to decide on what my next embroidery project should be, a cupcake or a bird, any ideas?

Sarah.

Bert the beaded alien

Poor Bert, he only has one visible nostril, how's a poor alien supposed to assimilate the smells of planet earth with only one nostril? I beaded from the outside in on this one & things in the middle got a bit squished. Never mind, my son loves him!

Sarah.

Bead Embroidered Heart

I know it's a bit shocking for me to post two days in a row but I'm cheating, I've taken photo's of a few things while we had the light and I am going to eek them out so I have a few posts lined up. Planning ahead is generally not my thing, but I'll try almost anything once!

It's hard to avoid bead embroidery on the net at the moment what with the Bead Journal Project participants producing such beautiful pages, I haven't managed to view that many of them yet(there are hundreds of participants) and The Lone Beaders Banksy Car, which is the coolest thing ever, check it out if you haven't seen it yet, links to the right.

I wanted to practise my stitching so I sketched a simple heart shape to bead, It was fun to just bead without a pattern & I learnt from it. I am now beading an alien face like the one in my banner, it's a bit trickier 'cos the mistakes really show up but i am still really enjoying it.

Sarah.

Blog Tinkering & Bracelet

You might have noticed a change to the blog. For a while now I have been dissatisfied with the name of Sarah's Handcrafts, it's descriptive but boring. I was messing about with our holiday snaps earlier & came across the photo of the balloon alien & since I am a sci-fi geek, take me to your beader made me laugh! I may well get bored & change it again, who knows?

I made the bracelet above this week, it's a design by Dustin Wedekind & was very easy to make using Size 8 & 11 miyuki seed beads. Lately I have been very interested in making different styles of clasps, this has a hidden snap, I like the look but I do find the snap very fiddly to do up, I think I will continue to experiment with seed bead toggles.

Cheers,

Sarah.

Golden tassle necklace

Here is a necklace I made for myself last night using mix seeds/bugles & czech glass with a murano focal. It was pretty quick & I really like it, I've worn it all day today. I am gearing up to start making xmas presents for the many girls/women in my family, I think at least one of these will make it on to the list. Thanks to Lynne Davy (link to the right) for the instructions to make the tassle.

Cheers,

Sarah.

My 1st peyote cab & multistitch necklace

Just finished this tonight, my 1st attempt at peyoting around a cab, I ripped it to pieces once & swore a little bit but it came out nicely in the end. The neckstrap is made with tubular raw, beaded beads & spiral rope. It's quite an adventurous piece for me & I enjoyed making, I have a few new ideas from it too I think.

Sarah.

I've been catching up with the photo's, here's a herringbone pendant for the YOJ theme Pheonix & Dragons, a pair of earrings for the YOJ theme Bronze Beauty & A right angle weave necklace. I seem to be on a right angle weave obsession after reading the article about beading small components in beadwork mag. I tend to flit from stitch to stitch so hopefully I may develop my skill a bit further by using one stitch for several pieces, maybe I should try and do a series, not sure I'm up to the committment though.

If you haven't already, check out Diana Grygo's blog The Lone Beader to see how her bus is coming along, hi Diana! Also vote for her work in the Saatchi gallery, I want her to win so that I can go see her work in London!

Sarah.

I finally got the latest Beadwork magazine on Sunday, it was worth the wait,there are some beautiful projects in it. I particularly enjoyed Marcia de Costa's article about beading small components & these earrings are one of the results. The photo was taken with our new camera, hopefully pictures will improve as we learn more about using it, the detail of the stitching shows up pretty well though I think.

Sarah.

Back from holiday!

We just spent a very relaxing week in West Wales, I did some beading but not what I planned (now why am I not surprised, no pics yet though 'cos we are waiting for a new camera, hopefully we'll get it tomorrow. We were lucky enough to get to visit the Welsh National Botanical Gardens near Carmarthen, http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/, it's a beautiful place even in dull weather, here are a few pictures I took.

No pics, 'cos the bird did not work well.I like the shape & the colours were fine, the beading was okay with the 15's but I only had 11's in one of the colours & that did not work at all. I will be buying some 15's in the correct colours & try again. In the meantime I have 50grammes of shiney lime delicas that are burning a hole in my bead drawer! I've had them for years & just haven't decided what to do with them yet but I quite like the idea of using them with black 11's for a twist like this http://sarahshandcrafts.blogspot.com/2007/04/herringbone-twist-finally-done.html, not sure yet though. I also have some 15's in lilac & white so may try a flower brooch instead of the bird.

Sarah.

Twisted ndebele ribbon necklace.

I finished this today, I've been wanting to try this variation of herringbone from Carol Wilcox Wells book the Art & Elegance of Beadweaving, ever since the book came out. I thought it would take ages though so never bothered, it actually didn't take as long as I thought, it was much quicker than the other twists I've done. I enjoyed the technique but visually I prefer the contrasting colours in the other 2 twists. I will be buying some beads later so I now know to purchase some high contrast colours, I better go grab Margie Deebs book before I shop.

Hopefully my next finished object will be a bead embroidered folk art style bird, fingers crossed it works out.

Sarah.

Pendants from 1st ceramics workshop.

I started going to a ceramics workshop at the local art centre 3 weeks ago. I made some pendants in my 1st week and glazed them last week, I picked them up on Wednesday & was really pleased to see I had 3 that I really liked and that the others were at least usable. Unfortunately the last class is next week so I won't be able to make any more until September, but I plan to start an ideas book for the class & I have some clay to play with, so I'm sure I'll cope for a while!

Sarah.

Hello Dolly.

Well here she is! Like I said not perfect but lots of fun to make!

Sarah.

Bead Embroidery - A New Obsession?

No pics today I'm afraid, can't find batteries for the camera. I might not have pics but I do have a finished object to talk about, a beaded doll no less, woohoo, a fairly long held beading ambition finally achieved!

I've wanted to make a beaded doll ever since I saw one of Barb McLeans dolls probably about 3 or 4 years ago but was always kind of intimidated by the idea of actually making one. I tried bead embroidery once, from Sherry Serafini's instruction in B&B December 2003, it's still half finished in a drawer upstairs & is very unlikely to ever be completed.

But, this Saturday I found my way to Celticats Bead Doll FAQ, printed off the instructions at 4.30, had a completed doll body from Ronda Kivetts 2 1/2" tiny goddess doll pattern by 6.15, was sat down beading from 7.25 til 10.00 by which time the back was finished & also a bit of the front. (At this point, my hand felt like it was falling off & my shoulders were knotted & sore from hunching over it but I could not put it down, obsessed much?)

Now she ain't perfect, far from it, but who cares? I don't 'cos I actually got off my backside and tried something I wanted to do even though I thought I would not be able to. I decided to forget about perfection & just concentrate on creating texture & a fair bit of colour, she's purple aqua & gold, so I definitely got colour going on there! My hubby hates but pah, what does he know? Pics soon I promise.

Apart from another doll (yes I already have plans), I want to try a beaded brooch using The Lone Beaders instructions, the layering looks like it will be huge fun.

Links to check out
Barb McLean http://www.beaddolls.com/
Sherry Serafini http://www.serafinibeadedjewelry.com/
Celticats Bead Doll FAQ http://beaddoll.freewebsitehosting.com/Index.html
Ronda Kivetts Doll Patterns http://www.kivett-studio.com/patterns
The Lone Beaders Tutorial http://www.ebsqart.com/ArtMagazine/za_522.htm

Enjoy,

Sarah.

New peyote bracelet

I needed a plain black bracelet for a work thing on Monday but wanted a bit of embellishment on it, of course I have very few black accents so I came up with this. I have a few other ideas from it that I hope to make soon.

Sarah.

Pendant quick fix.

I made the necklace in the 1st photo a while ago & have to admit it's sooo boring. So today I thought I would give it a bit of a make-over, a couple of peyote strips & a starflower from Diane Fitzgeralds Beaded Garden book & it's much nicer. Quick, easy & economical, three of my favourite things!

Nice necklace, shame about the picture

I have to admit that I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the quality of my pictures. This necklace is very pretty irl & the pic makes it look a bit blah. I guess I need to take some time to really practise & get a decent set up but the free time I have I want to actually bead. Oh well, can't have it both ways. Have a great bank holiday weekend!

Red & Gold Collar.

I made this for a challenge on the UK Beaders Forum. It had to be completed by this w/e & I started it late Thursday night, remind me never to do that again. I am quite pleased but it's not quite what I wanted, I had intended to do extra layers of netting but it was just too much work. I have wanted a collar for ages though & now I finally have one.