January Retrospective

 I must say, I've beaded more in January than I have in a very long time, and I've really enjoyed it. Although there were only 5 weeks in January (I've been beading a pair of earrings for every weekend, rather than every week)... I've actually made 7 pairs of earrings! If you read my new years resolution blog, you'll be familiar with the first two pairs, but I wanted to keep a record of each month's makes together, so I've included them here again. 

Tassels and Superduos - my own design. 

Scintilla Earrings - my own design. 

Keep your eye out for Bead & Jewellery Magazine issue 107 to see a tutorial for how to make these.

RAW Pearl Bezel design by Jean Power from her book Rivoli Beadwork. 
I initially made these as I'd seen a friend make them with sapphire rivolis and cream pearls, and they were beautiful, but very traditional looking - I wanted to see how different they would look with dark pearls and a lighter rivoli. The long kidney wire earring findings added to the different look. I really love them. 

In fact, I loved them so much.... I beaded a second pair! 

These are based on the Bicone Snowflake design from Jean Power's book Rivoli Beadwork, although I have used chatons - the 14mm chatons are lovely, etched Chinese crystal chatons which have a really unusual look.

I am in love with these Little Lantern earrings from Sabine Lippert's book Beaded Fantasies.   I made a pair years ago and they have been worn a LOT, so making a second pair seemed like a good idea. They were quick to make up and used some really interesting construction techniques, as Sabine's beadwork always does. 

This last pair for January are my design. A simple loop of CRAW with a crystal dangle in the middle. I must say, if nothing else, I'm very impressed with my wire wrapped loops on these earrings. They're neat and they match - that's quite a feat for me! 

I hope you've enjoyed joining me on my earring journey in January. If you have any questions about the designs I used, or have any suggestions for future months, please drop me a message in the comments. 

I've also noticed that my colour schemes seem to fall into the pink or blue/grey box, so if you have suggestions for colours you think I should try, just let me know. 

2021 New Years Resolutions

 The beginning of a new year is the time to make new starts and new resolutions.  I'm not normally one for new years celebrations or resolutions, but this year I've been inspired. 

I was asked by the lovely Clair Rigby if I would like to join her in her #earringchallenge2021 to make a pair of earrings every week in 2021. This is a no-pressure challenge, and I'm aware that I'm not going to be able to achieve this every week - but it is at least, an incentive to bead each week. It's also giving me the opportunity to do something that I've been thinking about for quite some time, which is to document my creative endeavours in a slightly more structured way. At the moment, if I'm lucky, there will be a picture of something I've made on my phone... but no information on materials, who the designer was (if I used a pattern), what inspired me (if it's my design), what materials I used etc. So I'd like to use this challenge and my blog to gather this information. I'm aiming to blog once a month and post my weekly makes on Instagram. If you don't already follow my on Instagram, you can find me @beadsbybecs

To start the year off, I've got a couple of earring makes I have to confess, the super-sparkly pair I started in 2020, but I attached the ear wires in 2021 (that counts, right!?). 

These are made with some lovely white opal Swarovski chatons and the bezels are made with 3mm and 4mm bicones. This is my Scintilla pattern (it'll be released later this year). 

If you can get more glam than all this sparkle, then this second pair of earrings fit that bill. They're much more dressy, and they continue along my little self-challenge of making bezels with different beads to just regular seed beads. 

These are bezelled using superduos - superduets actually - they're navy on one side and cream on the other. The rivolis are Chinese crystal rather than Swarovski, but still incredibly pretty. I made the tassels using a Clover tassel maker and three different colours of thread - navy, hot pink and a silver-grey. Also, I tend to use wire guardians at the top to add the ear wires, they're very hard-wearing and give a professional looking finish. 

I'm quite happy with these two pairs of earrings as a start to the year and to the challenge - I've started as I mean to go on. 

I think six years ago I set a resolution to learn to knit, and I learnt to knit and fell so passionately in love with it that I ended up getting repetitive strain injury from knitting, and now I can't do it without considerable pain, but the point I'm getting at, is that I know I can stick to a resolution, and I know I can fall in love with a creative idea - not necessarily *just* making earrings, because I know that'll probably be a little too restrictive, but I want to fall in love with making again, and the process of relaxing with my beads, instead of sitting with my phone in my hand, endlessly scrolling and watching the doom and gloom go by. 

 It's been an age since I last blogged, and I though that I should start again... to keep you all updated with what's going on in my beady little mind. 

Firstly, lockdown has been really tough on my creativity and except for a couple of Zoom classes I took, I stopped beading altogether!

Moving house seemed to bring my creativity back though, so I'm back to beading, designing and enjoying myself. 

I thought I'd share a little free tutorial with you all for some beaded beads made from pinch beads.  They're cute little beaded beads and make pretty earrings. 

Materials:
To make one beaded bead

15 pinch beads

5 size 11 beads

Beading thread - I usually use fireline, but KO or OneG  beading threads or similar in colours that match your beads will work just as well. 

Scissors or thread zap

Beading mat

Step 1

Pick up 3 pinch beads and tie them into a circle.  Thread through the next pinch bead in the circle.

Step 2

Pick up two pinch beads, and thread through the bead your thread is exiting from to make another triangle.  Thread through the two beads just added.

Step 3

Pick up 2 pinch beads, and pass through the bead your thread is coming out from to create a triangle.  Go through the first pinch bead added in this step.

Step 4

Pick up two pinch beads, and thread through the bead your thread is exiting from to make another triangle.  Thread through the two beads just added.

Step 5

Thread through the bead marked with an arrow, pick up one pinch bead, and then thread through the bead your thread was exiting at the start of this step.  Keep threading through bead until your thread is coming out of one of the side beads (shown with an arrow).

Step 6

Pick up two pinch beads and go through the bead the thread was exiting at the beginning of this step.  Go through the first pinch bead again.

Note – The beads from this step onwards are purple to make it easier to see what to do.

Step 7

Pick up one pinch bead, go round through one of the side beads, back towards the beads already added in step 6 – following the arrows in the diagram, so you are exiting the next side bead around.

Follow the numbers on the arrows to show the thread path.

Step 8

Pick up one pinch bead, go down the next pinch bead, through the side bead, then up the pinch bead just added – see the arrows and follow the numbers to see the thread path.

Step 9

Pick up one pinch bead, go along through a side bead, up a pinch bead, and down through the pinch bead just added (follow the arrows and numbers to show the thread path).

Step 10

This step finished off the pinch beads… without picking up any beads, go through the side bead, up a pinch bead, down the next pinch bead, and back through the side bead.

Step 11

Now to embellish the side of the bead… pick up one size 11 seed bead, pass through the next side pinch bead.  Repeat this all the way around the bead.  Weave the thread through the beads to get to the start, tie the ends together and trim the threads.

I hope you've enjoyed making these little beaded beads. If you've given them a go, please leave me a message below - I'd love to hear what you think. 

Happy Beading! 

Unicorn Balls

In October last year, I went to the Big Bead Show - nothing too unusual about that.  I had a lovely chat with Vicky Roberts, the new editor of Bead and Jewellery Magazine and she asked if I would be interested in designing something new and geometric for the magazine. Of course, I was interested!

I decided to re-imagine my spike-balls, to include some two-hole beads in them to make them easier to zip together, giving them a different look. 

Here are my original spike balls...

They are made from twelve spike beads, each set in a pentagon - making a dodecahedron. These spike balls are made entirely using 'traditional' seed beads, with crystal embellishments.  The tutorial for these spike balls is available in my Etsy shop. 

When I initially designed these spike balls (back in 2012), two-hole beads weren't readily available, and I certainly hadn't considered designing with them. Now there are so many choices! I chose to use miniduos when re-imagining my spike-balls as they're the smallest of the two-hole beads, and they fit in nicely with the size of the beads I had used in the bezels. 

These spiky balls, (named 'Unicorn Balls' by a friend of mine) have been published in Issue 85 of Bead and Jewellery Magazine.  

The team at Bead and Jewellery Magazine liked my design enough to decide to put it on  the cover of the magazine! I was so shocked and delighted when I saw it, I actually squeaked! 

The second generation of spike balls are slightly larger than the first, and the way the miniduos interlock and form triangles at the corners makes them a slightly stronger structure. 

I love the way that beading is so versatile that you can re-engineer a design to accommodate new bead shapes and techniques. 

That's no moon.... it's a space station!

Oh dear, it has been far too long since I last blogged - I am so sorry!
I have been wanting to blog about a piece of beadwork I made for quite some time (I actually finished it in January), but I had to wait until the judging of a competition before I could publicly share it.
I decided to take part in the Beadworkers Guild Crystal Anniversary Competition; it was sponsored by Swarovski, so it had to be something bling.
I'm not often a very sparkly beader - I have the odd moment when I go crazy with crystals, but usually, I'd prefer pearls.  After my first geometric beaded sculpture being accepted as a finalist at the British Bead Awards, I decided to make another piece along the same lines.  Still 60 triangles, but joined together in a different arrangement, to make a stellated dodecahedron (a round(ish) structure made from 12 pentagonal pyramids).
To show off the crystals to their best, I decided to make the majority of the structure from white delicas.  Buying delicas in 50g packs was something quite new to me... it felt very odd!  To complement the white, I added a pale pink (think coconut ice) and a matte copper to embellish the edges of the triangles. 
I chose five different finishes of Swarovski chaton to include, and a generous sprinkling of Swarovski sequins to add some shine to the vertices.
As my first geometric structure ended up with a nickname (sixty flippin' triangles), this one did too - I jokingly started calling it The DeathStar (I am a secret sci-fi geek).
When I had finally finished making it and stitching all of the triangles together, it was so close to the deadline... I only just made it!  I took some photos and submitted them, and I was honoured to find I had been selected as a finalist in the competition.  The Beadworkers Guild website has a gallery of all of the finalists and winners.There is some incredible work on display in the gallery, it is well worth checking out. 
I wasn't selected as a winner, but I am grateful to have got through to the final round of the judging.
Here is my DeathStar... It's so nice to have it back, proudly displayed in my living room.

Beaded Flowers

It was a while ago that I posted my pattern for Friday Flowers, but it's really sparked some inspiration in me (and hopefully some of the 5000 of you who have looked at it).  I've been working on designing a repertoire of flowers because I would like to start making more bridal jewellery next year (once I've got my wedding out of the way).

Two of my recent flowers are based on the Friday Flower, the  Ruffled Rose and the Water Lily.  The Ruffled Rose is available as a tutorial in my Etsy Store, and the Water Lily should be joining it there soon. 

The water lily has pointy petals, which curve more, they make a cup-shaped flower.  The centre of these flowers is a pearl, rather than a chaton, which gives a softer look, and also allows for a deeper flower too.

The last of my flowers (for the time being) is a little daisy.  This flower is completely independent from the Friday Flower as the bezel start is peyote rather than herringbone.  

Here are a few more flower pictures to give you an idea of how they look. 

Beaded bag part 1

At the moment, I am planning my wedding. I'm lead to believe it's quite a stressful thing to do... 

We would like our wedding to be as quirky as us, and part of that is basing it on a handmade theme. We would like as much as possible to be handmade and individual, preferably made by us, or people we care about.

One thing I decided I would like to make for the wedding is a small beaded clutch bag to keep my essentials in... such as my asthma inhaler.  I've never made anything like this before, and I've certainly never attempted a project this big.  I thought it would feel daunting, but I'm so excited about it, I'm enjoying it without feeling worried about the scale of it.

I've seen some bead embroidered bags before on the internet, and from what I can work out, they've been based on an existing bag. The way I'm making mine is to use a plastic mesh bag frame as the base. I've drawn the shape out on some blackout curtain lining, and I am embroidering onto that.

The first step was to decide on a rough design for the bag... I knew I wanted it to be mainly white, but with hints of gold and pale pink. I also knew I wanted a lot of sparkle in it, so I put together a selection of swarovski rivolis and chatons in crystal, crystal AB, rose-water opal and light colarado topaz. I scattered these over the bag template and shifted them around until I had a distribution I was happy with... and then I marked which stone went where.

I've started beading bezels around the swarovski stones, then sewing them onto the backing and embroidering around them.
I am so excited with the progress so far... but I know there is a very long way to go.  I will keep updating photos on this so you can see the progress.

Playing with Spikes Part 2

I've been playing with spikes again... I recently went on holiday, and took a small box of beads with me... some 15s, some 11s and some delicas, and 12 spike beads. My aim was to bead myself a dodecahedron, with spikes all over it.  An element of maths was required to work out how the elements would join together, but it wasn't too taxing for a holiday.

I was very pleased with the result, and even more pleased when it was described by one of my friends as "very Laura McCabe"!


I have written this up as a tutorial, which is available from my Etsy store.

Earlier in the year, I blogged about going on Laura McCabe's beaded sculpture masterclass, which I attended the week after I got back from my holiday.  I was very proud to take these little spiky balls with me to the class, and Laura liked them too!  I'll blog about the masterclass itself another time.

Silversmithing and PMC at La Vidalerie Part 1

Last year, I went on a short break with my Mum to learn some wire-work and chainmaille.  We went to a little place in the Aveyron in France called La Vidalerie.   Run by a couple, Karen & Tim, it's a very friendly, beautiful place to go, very relaxing as you're looked after well, but also seriously educational!  Karen is the teacher, and Tim cooks, and is re-building the rest of the 300(ish) year old farmhouse.  Well, the thing is, I enjoyed my holiday last year so much, that I decided that this year, I would go back!  This year though, I went on my own, for a week instead of a few days.  

Right, enough of how beautiful the place is, and on with the jewellery making... I decided that it would be fun to learn something I had never done before in the field of jewellery making, so I thought - silversmithing, that sounds like fun, and while I'm playing with precious metals, why not try precious metal clay, too!


I arrived on Sunday afternoon, Tim picked me up from the airport, and in the evening, I had dinner with Karen & Tim - Tim is a very good cook!  On Monday it all started in earnest with a croissant and coffee, and straight on with the PMC.


I was a complete PMC novice, I knew nothing, but with Karen's tuition, and her tips on seriously planning what you intend to do with the clay before you take it out of the packet, I managed to make some really pretty things.


PMC is done in several stages, first, rolling, then cutting, texturising and adding embellishments.  The next part is leaving the clay to dry to make the 'biscuit' stage, this is when you can file off any rough parts, and if you're feeling brave, drill it.

At this stage, it just looks like pale grey clay, but the magic happens when you fire it.  There are two ways to do this, with a kiln, or with a blowtorch (which is a LOT more fun!).  After firing, it still doesn't look too special, but it's nothing a good brushing with a brass brush and some burnishing or tumbling doesn't sort out.

 

These were my finished results.  The hearts had fine silver wire added in the clay stage, but after firing, they become 'part' of the whole and fuse together.  After they had been fired and polished up, I drilled holes and added jump-rings and ear wires.  The ear wires were hand made... a design I came up with to complement the shapes of the silver diamonds.  I just love the colour of the orange CZs, they're so pretty and sparkly.  They did get slightly darker during the firing process, and they're held in by the silver clay - it contracts about 10 % when it's fired , so as long as they're well pushed in, they stay in place.


I have to admit - this didn't all take place on the Monday... they clay needed to dry out over-night, and I only fired a couple of pieces at a time - keeping something red hot with a blow torch for 2 minutes (whilst concentrating on not melting it) is quite hot and hard work, you don't want to do too much at once!


Monday afternoon was a bit wire work... the other lady who was on holiday with me didn't arrive until just after lunch on Monday (she booked her flight for the wrong day!), so we started off with something simple.

 

These are elegant little earrings - silver and flourite, and copper with chrysocolla.  Cute and fun, and best of all, easy to make!


We also did a bit of wire-wrapping... this was really fun to do, and I will certainly do this again. 

I have plans for this piece of turquoise, it's going to turn into the focal for a longer-length necklace, with a load of rich, sparkly dangles hanging from the bottom of it.


And that was it for day one... I retired to my (gorgeous) attic room for a fabulous nights sleep, safe in the knowledge that there was more learning and creating the next day!

Melding with the Mavens

Well, after several weeks of planning and around 30 hours of beading, I have finished my piece for the Maven Meld challenge.
And to show it off, I've finally got around to buying some proper jewellery display equipment!    Purchased from ebay, I bought a display bust in white leatherette, and a matching bracelet display rack.
So, here is my new bust, with the finished challenge piece for the Meld:

Showing the detail of the necklace:

Please do have a look at the other entries for the Bead Maven Challenge - on their blog, or their facebook page.


I'm very excited about the bangle rack though - as I love making bracelets, being able to show them off properly at last is great!