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. 

A Retrospective Part 4

Several exciting things have happened in the past couple of days... I sold my first tutorial on Etsy, I finished Alot v2.0, I managed to get the promise of free beads, just because I liked a company's facebook page at the same time as placing an order.  Unfortunately, I didn't win the EuroMillions jackpot, but seeing as I didn't buy a ticket, I haven't lost anything either!

So in October 2010, I went to France with my Mum for a week to learn some wirework and chainmaille techniques at a little place called LaVidalerie, and I was asking Karen Sarll, the owner, how she went about getting her jewellery designs published in magazines.  She told me it was easy, and all I would have to do was send a prospective email to a magazine, and they would say yes or no depending on whether or not they liked my design.  I was so sure it couldn't possibly be that easy, but it turns out I was wrong! Either that or I was actually quite lucky.

Now I'm not usually one for making new years resolutions, but I did this year, and I decided that I was going to try my hardest get get one of my designs published.  After spending quite some time perfecting a technique for making beaded bezels for pretty stones, I sent a photo of a piece to a magazine called Beads & Beyond, asking if they would be interested in it as one of their articles.  To my absolute astonishment, they were interested, and they would actually pay me too!!

Well, the time has come, and the August edition of Beads & Beyond magazine has been published, and not only is my design in there, but it is mentioned on the cover!  (oh yes, I rock!!)  I've not seen the magazine yet, but the front cover is available to view here.

The design that can be found in Beads & Beyond is for my beaded bezel ring/pendant... these are pictures of the pieces I sent them for their professional photographers to play with (I'm sure their photos will be better than mine!).

The "seeing stars" part of today's missive is in relation to a tutorial I bought yesterday, by the amazing Jean Power.  She's a beader extraordinare, and we share the same love of geometric shapes in beadwork.  I bought her Geometric Stars tutorial, the design actually won awards when she first entered it into competitions.  So I had a go at making a couple of these beauties, one in silver and black, the other in red, pink and crystal.