Rose quartz

This is on elastic cord but when I get a magnetic clasp I'm going to restring it on regular beading wire. The rose quartz beads are not good quality so it pains me to have them strung with the purple amethyst because those are of good quality.  I got those for $18 for a string.  And when I first started beading I really didn't get the different between base metal vs sterling silver and a couple of the spacers beads had tarnished so I think the spacers are sterling silver.  The focal bead has hearts on it so I'm thinking about using craft wire to see if I can form some head pins with a heart to make earrings.

I fiddled with a variety of beads to get a good combination with the rose quartz, then I realized sometimes it's best to stick with simplicity.

I like the feel of these on my arm even though I don't care for the beads themselves.  I think I'm liking smooth, shiny semi-precious stones.

Etsy says do not use a flash when you photograph jewelry so I photographed it in natural light on the coffee table. 

Next I'm going to try making a seed bead bracelet.

Carnelian

Mayela came over today at about 1pm and we had a nice long visit.  We ate tamales for lunch then watched Passion of The Christ, then sat down for more tamales (I had chicken soup) and she, my husband, and I, talked over dinner for an hour.  Then we did a Bible study on the Parable of the Sower aka The Parable of the Four Soils.  Then at about 9pm she left.  Tomorrow we might go shopping.

So I took my bead box out a last week, or rather I had my husband get my bead box out of the shed.  I love going through all my old beads.  It's like seeing old friends.  All the plans I had that I never followed through on...hopes, dreams, desires.  Anyhoo, I decided not to go to bed until I made something.

I used 1 mm Stretch Magic elastic cord.  I prefer elastic bracelets and I thought I was making it for myself.  This one fit rather high on my arm but it felt good.  Or I could let it go to the bottom of my wrist and it wasn't too annoying. The stones are so big that they felt smooth and weighty on my wrist instead of light and flittery.

I love the look and feel of these stones.  The findings are all leftovers.  The stones are actually several of my least favorite of the string but still gorgeous to my eyes.

Carnelian is a quartz that has a waxy luster and is usually brownish red to orange but comes in a lot of shades and colors.  Geologists classify is as a chalcedony in the quartz family.  It has the same chemical makeup as agate so what one person calls carnelian could be another person's agate.  I suspect these have been heat treated to make the hues and lines stand out.  Some carnelian is naturally very red, but heat treatment enhances the color and beauty of carnelian.  It has a hardness on the Mohs scale of 7.

As I gazed at it while the glue was drying it did occur to me that it looked like a something Mayela might like.  She came over and I showed it to her and sure enough, she liked it.  I kind of wanted it for myself, but she'll wear it more than I ever would.  It looks real purty on her arm.  She wears bracelets every day.

So my first bracelet made in a long time went to a home where it will be loved.

I got one done

Finally. One, entirely, complete leaf earring.

I'm teetering. I'm on the brink of insanity. I'm starting the second one now. Actually, it's a third one because the first one I made I need to tear apart because now it's not good enough to match this excellent one.

When the earring moves in the light, I think the beads glitter!

Progress

She did it! It was no small feat. A Russian leaf with veins. The veins are done with size 15 beads and I only have three colors of those so I lucked out that the silver actually complements the green and brown.

I plan to place the little one on top of the larger one, sew them together, sew an o-ring to the back, and add an earring top. Hope I can find a pretty one at Hobby Lobby tomorrow. None of the ones I have have the connector going the right way for me to connect to the o-ring.

I think the green leaf alone would look nice but the two together gives it an extra "ahhh." Now to start beading a match.

Evidently obsessed

I can't stop with the Russian leaves. I'm still unable to make one with veins. The one I finished (brown one) I am no longer satisfied with. The top didn't turn out nice enough. I simply cannot hang that from my ear and feel good about it. Back to the drawing board. It's pretty but too narrow to add veins in the center. The other one is the pitiful specimen I created in class. What I want to do, like the one I saw at the bead shop, is make two leaves and put one behind the other and sew them together to make one earring. The brown one is a nice shape for the back but I gotta learn enough peyote to get the veins added.

Ordered our curriculum for next school year. They do a sale once a year so I buy in May and it'll be online for me in September and they'll send us the books and consumables in September. I can't believe I'll be teaching 7th grade! Oh my gosh. I sure like teaching. I'd be a teacher if I could have a class of motivated students. In my dreams, I'd like to be an art teacher. Next year I'll be teaching Life Science (we're doing Earth Science this year), English (his favorite subject next to history), and the first of two years of World History (we're doing Civil War up to the modern era this year). Oh and math, but I don't teach math. When I had to start asking my husband for help in about second grade he said he thought he ought to take over. Heh. Good thing.

Our youngest son will be 12 this month and our eldest will be 31 this month.

Youngest made a friend exactly his age when we were in San Diego. He and his family moved to San Diego from Alaska. Said they got tired of not seeing the sun. I can believe that. They were from Eagle River not far from Anchorage. At first he told us he was from Anchorage and I said, man, that's the city all right. Then he said Eagle River and we said oh we've been through there. I'm sure it's just easier to say Anchorage because most people wouldn't know where Eagle River is. Our son and he were texting today. It's nice for him to have a new friend that he has so much in common with. I've ended two sentences with the word with. Am I okay tonight? It's not illegal to end a sentence with a preposition but you should find another way to express your idea because ending with a preposition is generally frowned upon.

Today we visited Tombstone, Arizona. It's so commercial. They want money for everything.

Tomorrow we're driving to New Mexico. I have to get up at 8:00am.

Guess what. I think I'm all well! I have no discomfort. As of tonight I feel safe to say it's all cleared up. I'm doing a happy dance! God is good. He's a little slow, but I guess to Him he's right on time. I prayed through it even when I wanted to lie there like a lump of misery. That's a change because in the olden days I'd just isolate myself. Shouldn't do that. You need to be part of the body, the body of Christ, and accept prayers and ask for them. And be thankful for them. I am. :)

Exasperated mostly

I took out my beads and wire and looked at the stuff I made when I left off frustrated in May. I've been staring at them actually and not a productive stare at that. These were practice. I like everything as much as when I put it away and that's not much. I think I'll try to rework the wires with the green Swarovskis. I like their simplicity but the Swarovski color is blah. I have no idea why I picked them. Oh, but yes I do. They looked nice with the top I was wearing that day and I now hate that top. Then I'll redo the long chain ones with the bluebell beads at the bottom. I feel they have potential and maybe a prettier bead will do it. Possibly.

Test run earring

Mainly I wanted to do something with the olivewood beads I ordered from Bethlehem, Israel. I've been holding on to them. I hold on to beads way too much. Must be some sort of affliction. For some weird reason I feel so connected with my beads. I can pore over them for the longest time.

I realized I've learned a bit about beads since I bought my first ones at Wal-Mart about three years ago. The seed beads I used tonight - I realize now they're junk. They lack so much in uniformity, size, shape, and the colors look like they're rubbing off such that I find them unusable. Anyway, here's a mock-up, but I don't think I'll make a mate for it because the bugles look pretty bad. Come to think of it I used these same beads for a tank top embellishment and after I washed the top all the beads were one color; no color silver color! Why did I keep them? It's for certain. I must be one cookie short of a dozen for not throwing them out then.

Another view to show how they would hang from the ear.


I'm going to rework the design with different (as in better) seed beads and see what I can come up with out of the beads I already have. The wooden beads are from Israel. Oh, I already said that. (I like 'em a lot.) The others are oval, glass pearls.

Beaded dragon earrings

We're in Arizona. It's a little on the cool side, but I haven't been outside much. I haven't gotten much exercise since we left and I'm atrophying all over. Bummer. Our wifi has been a little spotty and I've been mostly offline. My fingers aren't atrophying though. I have a picture of my dragon earrings to share and it's not bad. I got the pattern from a book. I'm frustrated with trying to photograph my beadwoven earrings so they show well and this is as good as it gets so far. They're shown against a background of very fine styrofoam. Haha! Well, you do what you can do, right? And they're on a dusty laptop that's been taken out of storage because Vista is not doing any good on my desktop.

I fiddled with amethyst and red last night and decided I don't like it, so I'm going to take it apart and try again. I like amethyst and red just not in this particular earring. I think I'd like it in all dark red. The red in the center is of brighter seed beads. I thought I'd try blending them in the middle and make them dark at the bottom but I think now I should have made the bottom bright red to draw the eye down the length of the earring then out into the universe. A person doesn't need their eyes stuck in the middle of an earring.

Peacock earrings

Finishing touches finally finished! I inserted size 15 beading needles through the neck of each earring to reinforce them. In low light they're dark yet they glimmer and shimmer when you move! The Swarovski crystals are jet AB2X. The double aurora borealis application turns the jet black into a peacock blue and the facets individually reflect a gold color as well. I was so lucky to find them. The pattern called for clear crystals but I didn't think clear would provide any wow factor. The beads for the body are galvanized dark green and I used purple iris for the wings. The wing pattern shows depending on how the light hits them.

The posts are 24kt gold plate. It's vermeil - which is gold plate over sterling silver applied electrochemically. Gold filled is better quality but for gold plate these weren't cheap. I think gold plate should weather well since they're not rubbing against skin. Hope so anyway. Gold filled, also known as gold rolled (which makes more sense), is more durable. Gold plate is a very thin coating of gold although 24K is a teensy bit heavier than 10 or 12K. Gold filled is not really gold filled, but gold over the outside of some other metal.

Honestly, they are prettier in real life! They individual beads in the body absolutely glitter in the light.

Do or do not do

I couldn't bead anything that looked pretty...so at 2:00am last night I ordered more beads and findings.

Here's some very bad, bad advice. If you cannot bead something pretty, order more beads.

Placed Amazon order

Oh boy! I ordered four beading books; one about making beaded ornaments and three about making beaded earrings.

Accent on Beaded Ornament Covers
Techniques of Fashion Earrings
An Earful of Designs
Beaded Images: Intricate Beaded Jewelry Using Brick Stitch

I will make beaded ornaments for Christmas gifts. The earring books I need because there's no bead store within 300 miles that I like and the books will call out colors needed for each design. (Uh, I think.)

The bead store in Las Cruces is dark and dank and I dislike the owner. The other one is over priced and small. Good if you need one unusual, particular bead. Their selection of Japanese seed beads is small. So, I shall order all my beads online this winter. My husband said I could and said I should since I don't like the stores. I love him so.

In the evening our son says "Mamma, why don't you do some beading." I don't know why, but for some reason it gives him warm fuzzies - me beading at the kitchen table. In the trailer where ever we are, we're close. Not only physically but emotionally. It's been an unexpected positive side effect of our changed lifestyle. In a big house family members are physically separated, and when there are children it can become a spiritual, mental, and emotional distance too. A family just doesn't need a 2,500 square foot house.

I still have to sew a pair of flannel frog pajamas before I start anything new! Boy, those p.j.'s are hanging over my head. Gotta get them sewn this week-end.

And I've had this hankering lately to take a picture of my hair.

Fringe earrings! Blue.

Finished last night

I did several things differently.
1) I added beads to each side of the daggers at the bottom. Interestingly, doing the bottom like this made it easier to get the fringe to hang smoothly.
2) I used bugles in the home row of the header but none in the fringe.
3) I made a linear design in the header.
4) And I like this effect a lot, I added some Czech fire polished beads to the design.

Of course they look a little different hanging from your ear. The photo below is taken outside to show the color in natural light, and shows them hanging down rather than lying down on a piece of paper for a photo op!

I'm so pleased with them. I get my inspiration from mswolflady at Ebay, foxy-momma, and Aunt Jewelry. I'm crazy about Aunt Jewelry's fringe earrings. I think the big ones would be too heavy for my ears. I'll bet I've gazed at these three sites for hours before I finally decided to try making my own. I love the WWW! It gives me the ooomph to try things I never would have tried.

Recently I made a big decision. No more stringing for me. I seem to buy, and buy, and buy beads yet a design I love fails to come to me. I make stuff but it only makes me feel so-so. But talk about seed beads. Seed beads turn me on!

On a down note, I beaded a brown cotton tank top of mine. It turned out real pretty. The beads were bronze, copper, gold and silver. Did ya notice the past tense in that sentence? Yeah, I washed it and now all the beads are silver. Waaaaah! Live and learn. I was concerned about beads falling off but only one did. Easy fix. Didn't imagine the dye would come off of the beads. Back to the drawing board.

Outside to see the blue

On a pilsner

The very center Czech beads are teal green. The Czechs were left overs from another blue project. If I did this earring again I'd use all teal green Czechs. They'd look yummy with the blue! In the future I'm going incorporate Czech beads in my earrings. Think of the possibilities!

It makes the earrings a wee bit heavier. I can't wear heavy earrings anymore so that limits how many larger beads will go on an earring for me.

A lady wanted a pair of my earrings at Bingo last week. Made me feel real good.

Plains Cree

Plains Cree Way of Life 

I photographed this one because it mentions beads and I like beading.

Standing outside R&T

She's a cool cucumber in Spokane, WA

Anybody who's beading knows about Rings And Things, one of the popular online companies that sells beads and findings. Their web site is horrid to navigate, but their merchandise is good. I bought some 4mm garnet nuggets and rectangles, and 4mm amethyst (A grade quality, woohoo), and teardrop fluorite beads. The store is full of everything in beads you could want. They gave me a free catalog and I'm like an 11 year old girl with the Sears Roebuck catalog with this thing. I can pore over it and dream for hours!

It rained. It rains and mists here a lot. I like it though I think the grey might make a person a mite crazy after awhile. But there are a lot of people living up here so I guess it's doable. Spokane's downtown was quite nice. It's a city with a small town feel.

Flying in to Rings and Things

Flying in to Rings and Things 

It's a pose and the employees on their break are sitting in the parking lot on the curb laughing and smoking their cigs saying what a great idea this picture is. :)

Rings and Things store and warehouse

Inside Rings And Things

This shows only about 1/4 of the store. There are tons of beads. And...all the rest of the stuff in the catalog is in the warehouse which is behind the counter. While I was waiting for my husband to pick me up (after my foray in the bead store!) I must have seen four or five different employees come out for their break time. It's a big company. Even my husband looked around at all the beads. He bought a Swarovski crystal to hang in the truck on the rear view mirror.

Time on my hands so I beaded

Dainty drops

Heyburn State Park in Idaho is full of millions of lodgepole pine so our satellite didn't work the whole time we were there. Yipes! Twelve whole days I've been offline. Seems like a month!

Got a few pics here of beading projects completed the past two weeks. This one is a seed bead, Czech crystal, and cube bead necklace, another project kit from the place in San Diego. It's strung on size D Nymo. The Czech beads shine but you can't see it in the pic. They're only size three, teeny weeny, but pretty. Of everything I've made I've worn this the most. The beads are a matte peacock color. It's 18 inches long. The coolest thing is it's got a magnetic clasp! Have you tried one? Very cool I think. Before I realized it was magnetic I was twisting and twisting twisting to no avail, all the while I was talking bad stuff about the store as I wondered aloud why they sold me a cheap, stinkin', lousy barrel clasp. Then, voila! I pulled instead of twisted and it came apart. Silly me. I had to take back all the bad things I said.

Eyeglass necklace

Blue!

I've been needing one for myself for three months. Our son picked out the cobalt blue eyeglasses way back in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. Such a pretty color of rims. I bought myself 12 eight mm Swarovski bicones in capri blue which I love and used two, plus various and sundry Swarovski crystals that I've just never used. I knotted the Soft Flex, glued, let it dry, and put knots in clamshell bead tips.

Memory wire bracelet

8 loops

Mermayd and I have both been itching to try Memory Wire. You have to use Memory Wire cutters to cut the wire or you'll ruin your side cutters. You can see I looped the end of the wire to hold the beads on. A lot of people add a dangle to the loop too. Another way you can keep the beads on is to use half drilled metal beads or cone ends and E6000 glue. Don't use Hypo Cement because it doesn't bond metal to metal. Anyway, glue just sounds like asking for a bead accident and I dont think I'd want to see that happen.

I was hoping it wouldn't bug me like most bracelets do, but it does. The loops fall down too low on my hand and that's what bugs me. I need littler loops maybe but Memory Wire is one size fits all.