Beaded Beads

Confession: I am addicted to this right angle weave (RAW) beaded bead. The pattern ("Amphora") is from "Beaded Opulence" by Marcia DeCoster, and I have stitched it 3 times already, and have pulled beads to stitch it 2 more times!

Amphora Beaded Bead on Tubular Herringbone Rope, stitched by Sweet Freedom Designs

For this particular colorway, I used 3 different colors of Swarovskis, including one of my favorites: Cyclamen Opal. I also used gold-fumed lilac seed beads. I stitched a tubular herringbone rope to support the bead.

I have played around with different bead choices (colors AND sizes) for this bead, and keep telling myself I am going to make one without Swarovskis, for a more casual look, but I just can't seem to keep that promise! The Swarovski bicones make this bead so opulent!

Here's another colorway I've stitched (but still using the gold-fumed lilac Tohos - I love this seed bead color!):

 Amphora Beaded Bead, stitched by Sweet Freedom Designs

Thanks to Marcia for putting this collection of RAW patterns together - it's a fantastic book, full of inspiring ideas!

Beaded Bead Necklace and Earrings

I stitched up some beaded beads (in 2 different sizes) using champagne freshwater pearls, denim blue Swarovski crystals, blue and bronze seed beads, and Picasso blue Czech glass:

blue and bronze beaded bead necklace and earrings

I like the way they look with Vintaj Natural Brass, so I used that for the chain and earwires.

This particular beaded bead is fully reversible: it looks identical on each side. I am still having a little issue with the term "beaded bead", though, as this is the second beaded bead I've worked with that doesn't have holes for stringing. For this one, I stitched seed bead loops for hanging.

blue and bronze beaded bead earrings

blue and bronze beaded bead pendant, on Vintaj Natural brass

And look: I figured out how to get one of those artsy, out of focus jewelry porn shots that are so prevalent on Etsy:

out of focus jewelry porn

The earrings and necklace are available separately in my Etsy shop.

Beaded Beads with Long Magatamas

Long Magatamas are interesting little beads - they have a neat shape, and are often used to provide texture to patterns, but they flummox me a little. They are highly directional - if you don't pick each one up with the same orientation, your finished piece can look very "disheveled".

I used Magatamas to create a kumihimo necklace a few weeks ago, and have been looking for other ways to use them in my beadwork.

Yesterday, I started playing with some Magatamas, and found I could use netting to create beaded beads with them:

 Beaded Bead with Long Magatamas and 11/0s (netting)

It may not look like much in this picture, but after I made a few more, and strung them into this bracelet, I really like the result:

Beaded beads made with Long Magatamas (netting)

I separated each Long Magatama beaded bead with 10mm Swarovski crystals, which are each bookended with square textured and domed bead caps.

This bracelet is now available in my Etsy shop!

Tuesday Tangle: Mosaic Ammonites

"Mosaic Ammonites"

This zentangle was inspired by "Not Atoll," a mosaic by Sonia King. I love her mosaics, and this particular one had elements I thought would translate well to zentangling. (Her website was down at the time of this writing, so here is an alternate link to "Not Atoll").

"Not Atoll", a mosaic by Sonia King

Unfortunately, the pic of my Zentangle doesn't show the effect I achieved by using Sargent Art Metallic Markers for the blue and silver - they gave a wonderful metallic shine to the piece!

Here's a little recap of my weekend full of "Possibilities:"

Naturally, beading won out. No surprise there. I had taken home a pattern from an old, old Beadwork Magazine - I had torn the page out of the magazine way back when it came out, and the page doesn't even have the date on it. Sorry!

So this is how I spent Sunday afternoon: The pattern is called "Beaded Pillow Beads" - and basically calls for stitching up 2 peyote/herringbone triangles, and then stitching them together to make a puffy beaded bead.

This is the same pattern I played with weekend before last, but I had chosen galvanized beads, and the colors were coming off on my fingers (leaving no color on the beads!) - so I had chosen some non-galvanized beads this time.

Here is my bead:

The pattern called for making the triangles have 13 rounds; I stopped at 11 (it has to be an odd number of rounds, in order for the triangles to stitch together properly). I'm glad I stopped at 11, and didn't waste any time making these any bigger, because I'm not real thrilled with the result.

It's cute, and a clever idea, but if you look at the pics, you can pretty quickly see that these "beads" don't have any holes for stringing.

My plan had been to make 5 of them: 1 larger than this one, 2 this size, and 2 smaller, and then string them as the centerpiece of a beadwoven rope. But I don't want to mess with trying to string beads with no holes - I know it can be done, I just don't choose to. Plus, the triangles are really tricky to sew together; if you look at the last pic (click to enlarge), you can see my thread showing at the lower left, where the corner of the bottom triangle (the dark blue beads) meets the middle of the side of the top triangle - I should have pulled harder and reinforced this stitch, but I didn't see it until this macro shot called it to my attention!.

So I have a little, lone, novelty peyote puffy bead.

But wait .... there's more!

I naturally spent several hours Sunday and Monday morning on Pinterest (which was on my list of possibilities). Check!

Sunday afternoon I made the bead. Check!

Monday afternoon (hold on to your hats...) I vacuumed and mopped my whole downstairs. That's a big deal for me. I wanted to do the upstairs, but once I had finished the downstairs, I was over it.

Clean house - partial Check!

Then I spent several hours finishing my Zentangle. Check!

So I was surprisingly productive! I even squeezed in a little reading. Yay!

Now, back to work on my freeform netting, which is almost finished - double yay!

Beaded Bead Holiday Earrings

These started with some large (24 mm) silver colored filigree beads - I had purchased these for enameling, but I have hundreds of them! Hundreds! I'll never enamel them all - so I started to think ... what ELSE can I do with these beads?

I grabbed some Fireline, and doubled it, worried that the sharp edges of the holes on these metal beads would cut the thread.

I grabbed some seed beads, and started playing, weaving in and out of the holes.

It took several tries before I found a pattern I liked:

They were supposed to look like peppermints, but by the time I finished, and added a Swarovski crystal dangle at the bottom, they look like Christmas tops!

I gave these to Sonya this morning as her Christmas gift - I think she likes them!