Having More Fun At My Bead Desk

Been busy at my beads lately, my Muse keeps coming up with wonderful ideas.



The Rhyolite and Pearl necklace is very rich looking in person. It's so hard to translate colors, texture and feel in pictures. I tried to get a close up of the beads so you could see the patterns. I like working with these Rhyolite beads and will be making more jewelry with them.

The red button earrings are made with two vintage buttons, one stacked on top of the other and then stitched together with seed bead fringe. They are very fun to wear and not heavy. The purple spiky beads are just plain crazy! They are soft rubbery vinyl and so light you forget you are wearing them. They look extremely dangerous, but won't leave a scar if they graze your neck.

Using the Muse

I finally finished my necklace and uploaded my form for Use The Muse IV, a beading challenge hosted by Scarlett Lanson. This was a great challenge. It had some wonderful beads to use and the Muse fit perfect with all of them. According to the rules, I can't say, in any way, what the Muse is until the Big Reveal. Then all of the pictures of the pieces that were sent in will be posted to The Beaders Muse.

I can show you a bit of my piece, tho', but not the Muse.

Magna Mater Medallion Necklace

I was able to use a strand of Rhyolite, some faceted Tigereye rounds and a strand of faceted Picture Jasper rondells with some tinier Tigereye and Jasper beads I had in my stash. While looking through the rest of my stones, I found a bag of Tigereye drops and decided to bring them out and see if they would fit. They did. I ordered extra beads from Artbeads.com (great supplier) and added two colors of green seed beads to it. The colors from the kit inspired me to go with a nature theme and this time of year the weather here can be very dark and rainy with brief flashes of sun. I can look out my window and see the hemlock, douglas fir and cedars. Green branches and great woody trunks, the raindrops on the tips of the branches look like crystals, sparkling when a splash of sunlight hits them. The Magna Mater Medallion Necklace was created from these inspirations.

At first, I was going to make a large barrett, but as the piece grew bigger, decided it would be a necklace. I very rarely sketch things out, and audition fringe and necklace designs on my design board as I need them. I had about five different designs for the fringe this time. So...I did four, saved one for one side of the necklace and made a completely different one for the other side. I like asymmetrical stuff and with the small wooden connectors, that were part of the kit, it was fun to see what I could do. (Of course, I had to order more because we only got two in the kit.) These are very lovely pieces, laser cut and varnished. I think I need to have some more in my stash.

Now comes the frustrating part. I have to put the necklace away and wait for the Big Reveal. I can't wear it out or show it to anyone. As soon as Scarlett gets all the pieces up, (she does this all by herself), I will let you know. In the meantime, go on over and take a look at the previous challenges and don't drool too much on your keyboard. The Beaders Muse

New Spring Drawings

It's Spring and time to get out and see all the beauty popping forth from the ground. There are wild rabbits and a ton of birds all over the place here. I guess that's why these two popped out of my pen. This "bird" started out as a completely different design, but instead wanted to be tall and something other than what was coming out from my brain.

I found a stencil of this bunny and decided to pattern a rabbit for Spring.

Happy Easter to you all!