My Creative Space - not too much creating here folks

It's a relatively quiet time of year - have I said that before.
And I guess I am resting on my laurels a bit, or at least getting through some of the things already made.

But today I made some Czech glass drop earrings for an etsy order - it's nice to get the pliers in hand again.

And something I prepared earlier -

Which just needed finishing.
Aka, they needed the earwires attached - no biggie.

designed by Alice Kharon from Bead and Button magazine

design by Sue Charette_Hood in Beadwork magazine

design by Maggie Meister in Beadwork magazine

There is another WIP.
It's a bracelet designed Smadar Grossman in Beadwork magazine.

I didn't have quite the right beads but I made do.
It's coming along nicely.
I'm nearly up to the clasp stage, so I have to decide how I'm going to do that part.

Watch this space!

How has your creative (or not) been?

Dabbling - my creative space.

Looking for a quick little project to make I found these pretty earrings in a Bead and Button Magazine.

You need 10mm round beads for the centre. Unbelievably I could only find these bright orange beads amongst my copious bead stash.

I found that I had a bit of a colour theme going for the other beads needed, which was great as I no longer have a huge amount of 4mm crystals.

I love the green/aqua tones with the bright orange.

What do you think?

They made up really quickly and I'm pleased with the result.

I'd love to make some more but I have to find/beg/borrow/steal some more 10 mm beads!
Any offers?!

These earrings were designed by Alice Kharon.

Owls and trees and a bit of seed beading - my creative space

I'm still finding inspiration from Beadfreaky's lovely little ceramic pendants.

I bought a few of them!

Here I combined an owl pendant with some nighttime themed components.
Some gorgeous rainbow moonstone beads, silver beads that look like birds nests. Contrast comes from the blue agate beads and labrodite beads and chips. I found some glass star beads to continue the theme and add some depth.

Here I used a tree pendant for a woodland theme - brass bird components plus some beads in the same tone family. A wonderful mookite beads, some rutilated rhodonite (the slightly pinky flat ones), a couple of green ceramic bead tubes, accented with the bright green howlite composite beads and a few unakite beads (the pink and green ones).
I used a small portion of chain at the back for lightness.

I'm pretty pleased with the way these turned out - but time will tell if anyone else is!

I also wanted to do a small project that I could do while the tennis is on (yes, it's Wimbledon time again).
I had an idea for some circle earrings - I guess it was making the large loopy ones awhile ago that kept the idea in my head. You can see them here.

I thought I'd have to use different size beads for this, but I really don't like the really little size 15 ones - and I don't have a great variety of this size anyway. But realised that I'd have to use them and some size 11's plus maybe size 8's in order to get the circle thing going.
Now I realise that I'm not inventing the wheel here and that there is probably a tutorial somewhere about how to make circles - so off to the interwebs I went - and I didn't have to look far.

If you haven't already found it, Interweave Press's Beading Daily site is a wonderful resource - there are many free downloadable projects as well as tips, technique tutes and all sorts of other grand stuff.

I happened to spot a beaded toggle clasp by Melinda Barta in the free peyote stitch projects ibook - that would tell me how to do it!

Sure enough it told me what I needed to know - bead sizes, number of stitches, number of rows - easy! So I could also concentrate on the tennis (Our Sam won and then our Bernie : D )

This is as far as I got last night and I think they might need to be a bit bigger, but I'll see what they look like when I finish.

How has your creative week been?

Do you have any favorite in-front-of-tv projects?

Joining in with My Creative Space at Village Voices on Kidspot - hop on over and have a look.

Finishing the frame - my creative space

My week has been less than creative - but I've had a lovely time!
I had a couple of young visitors staying, the daughter of my best friend from school and her boyfriend. So I've been tour-guiding and chatting, eating, walking and driving.

Now they have gone on the next leg of their world tour and it's catch-up time for me.

Today I hoped to finish a beadweaving project that I started a while ago and blogged about here.

It's a design by Sue Sloan that I found in Bead and Button magazine issue 103.
I thought it would be a good way to enhance some beads that need a bit of jazzing up.
This is a handmade lampwork glass bead that I've had for so long that I'm afraid I can't remember the who the artist is. So if it is you - I'm sorry!

 
Voila! I finished the frame - now I need to string a necklace.

I'm joining in with My Creative Space on Village Voices on Kidspot.
Come and see what's going on.

I'm also joining in with #amonthof #mycreativespace.

Today's prompt was a creative space.
I have several creative spaces - I'm lucky I know!
Here is my beadmaking space where I am learning how to make lampwork glass beads.
It is the tidiest space, that's why I chose it!

If you would like to join in with the month of creativity you can find out about it here.

Solving problems - My creative space

I had a problem to solve.
I wanted to string a triple strand of beads.
I wanted to join it to some chain, so that the beads were just at the front.
I wanted the beads strands to lie nicely and not be all jumbly-umply.

I didn't have quite the right things that would have made this easy - like a 3 to 1 connector.
Or I could have used a big cone if I'd had one, but then they would have been jumbly-umply.

I had these 3 strand thingys (small bar with 3 holes)
I had some big rings that I'd recently bought to make some big hoop earrings with.

Laying the beads out on a bead board like this helps to get the drape of the strands right (my bead board has seen much better days - even before I gave it a home)

How I attached the strands to the rings.

Then I just added the chain with jump rings.

 This all took me far too much time! So I decided not to waste it and so  I made 2 more but in different colourways. (Which I haven't photographed yet)

I have a big 2 day festival at the weekend so I'm in bulk production mode!
If you are in the area pop into Leura Fair in the beautiful Blue Mountains just west of Sydney.
So then I strung up some lava stone necklace as well.

I'm taking part in My Creative Space over on Village Voices - come and join us!

If you would like to leave a comment you will go into the draw to win a pair of planettreasures earrings, drawn Tuesday 9th October.

Using up more bits and bobs - my creative space

A couple of weeks ago I posted about using up my odd bead stash to make bracelets - this week I gone crazy making rings.
These use up some of the lovely czech and venetian glass beads combined with artistic wire.
Sometimes I also use nice quality stones too.
This is a very portable project - I have it on my shoe box lid with a piece of fuzzy beading mat.















What's in your creative space this week?

Would you like to join in or look at other creative spaces? You can over here - My Creative Spaces at Village Voices on Kidspot.

Earrings #4

So it's the 10th day of the month and I've made precicely how many pairs of earrings?
I am way behind schedule : (

In my defence I have to say that I have been on vacation and travelled for a couple of days and then my daughter returned from overseas and....so on!

And then this last pair of earrings was quite fiddly and took me 2 days to complete!

This is a design I found rummaging through my Bead and Button magazines - they are so great for inspiration, techniques and stretching your boundaries!

These earrings were designed by Aurelio Castano.

My creative space

Back to more little beadiness this week.
Another portable beading project to play with while I was at Making Spaces Marketplace.
 

This was inspired by a newbook by Nancy Zellers "Bead Tube Jewelry" and some little wire bracelets I found while out supply shopping on Tuesday.

Peyote stich bead tubes are such fun to make and I was making up the patterns as I went, this involved a lot of frog stitch as well (you know "rippet-rippet" ?*)

What is in your creative space this week?

For more creative spaces or to join in, pop along here.

*the sound of stitches being ripped out when you make a mistake

My creative space

All the little sewingy thingys are finished (for now) so it's back to little transportable beady projects.

This is a pattern I bought many years ago from Stephanie Eddy at a Bead and Button show when I was lucky enough to go to Milwaukee, USA!

It is a little floral bracelet using seed beads and glass flowers and leaves - so sweet and it's easy too!

What's in your creative space?

If you would like to join in and share your creative space or just have a sticky to see what other are up to - pop on over to Our Creative Spaces.