Sue Beads

It's the end of February already, hard to believe.  Time for another Component of the Month challenge.  This month, Diana Ptaszynski made us components - it's called a Phaedra! She did such an excellent job with this, as they are very fiddly to make!

And so I'm the loser this month because I didn't have time to get mine ready.  I was away for a week from the middle of the month, and before that crazy busy with work.  Then, when I got home from my trip to St. Maarten, I got the stomach flu and was not able to complete my design.  I'm still posting today because I do have an idea.

I'm going to take my Phaedra and make it the centerpiece in between two pieces of chainmaille in the Byzantine pattern.  Here's a photo of what the Byzantine pattern looks like:

I think the pattern will go well with Diana's component.  So when I finish it, I will post back here with a photo!

Thanks for looking at my idea - please look and see what everyone else did!

Guests Shaih…

This month, it was Karen Totten's turn to provide the component of the month to the AJE Bloggers and their guests.  She makes amazingly meaningful ceramic components - you can find her shop here!  Here's what Karen made for us to enjoy.

As usual, I did not photograph the component I chose. It's the yellow and brown one in the lower left/center of the photo.

I knew what I wanted to make right when I got it.  So I asked team member Jenny Davies-Reazor if she had any face cabs left, and she did!

I used a tutorial I had purchased on etsy by Beverly Herman for "Queen Wanna Bead".  This challenge proved to be a little bit difficult for me. I think that, for this pattern, you really have to use what Beverly tells you to use for the base - I used ultrasuede because that's the only thing I've ever used when I bezel a cab.  But you really need stiffer material because this is a larger, busy piece.  I am going to try it again, and use the right materials, but I'…

This month's AJE Component of the Month challenge was from Rebekah Payne of Tree Wings Studio.  She makes awesome polymer clay beads, but recently she has been making hand painted leather feathers.  For this month's challenge, we could choose either a single larger feather, or a pair of smaller ones.  I chose the smaller blue pair.


I wanted to make some bicone beads to match these feathers, but as soon as I got back from Bead Fest I started working my other job again, and quite honestly have not wanted to even look at my torch right now.  I had these pretty round swirl beads that matched perfectly, so I went with them!


I knew I was going to make earrings, and wanted to figure out a wire wrap, instead of punching a hole in the feather.  It took me a few tries, but this is what I came up with.  If this is a technique that's already out there, please just bear with me!   Here's what I came up with:


I folded over the tip of the feather, and made a wrapped loop.  Here's…