Sue Beads

I had all kinds of high hopes to get some amulet bags done for this post, but I scheduled a trip away and there's just not enough time.  Cathy chose Amulet Bags as the theme and I know that all my teammates are going to have some amazing things to show.

So here's mine.  It's a Native American pattern, not sewn up yet.  I had purchased a pattern and kit but as of the day I left for my trip, the beads and kit weren't even mailed so, so much for that.

 Starting the loom with size 11 beads is extremely hard, at least for me.

 I finally got it going.



 The last row is also very hard...but I got it done (after about 10 times relooming the last row because of missing the warps).
And here it is.  I will sew it up into a very small amulet bag, add fringe, and it will be an appropriate size to wear as a necklace.  I do like it, looming 11s is hard but satisfying.  Check out what everyone else made!


Guests Samatha Wescott Oksana Bevz Genevieve Camp
AE Members Caroline Cooky Jenny Lesley L…

Appropriately, Jenny provided us with kintsugi hearts for the Art Elements February Component of the Month.


But not just any hearts - broken hearts, stitched up.  You may know that kintsugi is the japanese term for repairing broken things, in some cases pottery with gold.  That's what these hearts stand for! I chose one of the olive green hearts, mostly because that's my favorite color. And yes, as usual, I did not take a photo of mine before I started working on it!

Here's a close-up of my heart:


 I made a beaded bezel with some awesome metallic earth delicas I picked up on my trip to Houston in Fall, 2016.  Then I used some great old gold size 15s, and finally finished the bezel with bronze gold 8s and galvanized gold 15s that match the gold foil perfectly.

I used an awesome gold heart charm from Cathy Daly that I purchased in her etsy store to finish the bezel.

And here's a photo of it finished and hanging on a thin black cord.  I could also put it on a gold chain, …

It's time for the January Component of the Month and this time, Lindsay Starr send us leather cabochons!  As usual I did not take a photo of mine before I started working, but this photo is from her post over at Art Elements!

In her post, she explains the elaborate process she went through to make these cabochons.  I chose one that, to me, evoked the sea and jellyfish!  Here's my finished project.

Lindsay had sent along some extra coordinating components, and one of them was this tassle.  While I was originally going to make the jellyfish tentacles with beads, I decided that this tassle was actually a really good choice!

 I stitched the bezel using a really pretty delica bead that picked up the colors of the cabochon, and used the small size 15 beads to pick up the most subtle shade on the cab.

I was going to add some beads to the tassle, but didn't do that yet.  I'm going to ponder it a bit first.  As for now, this is going to make a great ornament!  Check out what ev…

And it's time for another Component of the Month with Art Elements.  This month we had a guest contributor - Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay.  Even though I didn't get chosen to use one of the components she gave away, I had one in my stash that I had recently reclaimed from an unsold necklace, so I decided to play along!

As usual, I did not take a photo of the piece before I used it.  But really, did you expect me to?

I really enjoy the zen I get from bead weaving, so I decided that's what I was going to do with this ceramic ring.  However, the hole in the middle presented a dilemma to me.  I had seen Jennifer Cameron made a piece and filled in the hole with a perfectly sized czech bead; however, I didn't have any.  I did, however, have this lucite flower bead, and I used a small czech flower in the middle, and a size 15 cobalt bead to hold it all in place! 
I have these awesome black necklace blanks so I decided to make the loops to simply string on one of them.  I h…