Sue Beads

Wow, time flies! And this is the last "Component" of the Month Challenge - if you didn't see it, we're switching over to themes for the rest of the year, to allow for a wider variety of interpretations and mediums. Niky made these awesome copper clay Runes for us for February.

A rune, in case you're not familiar, is a symbol used in ancient Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet. The runes Niky chose are "Elder Futhark" which is the oldest of the runic alphabets. As usual, I didn't take a photo of my rune until after I was done making something with it, but the one I received is the bottom left in the photo above.



My rune is Uruz. The meaning is Auroch, or wild ox. The "esoteric" meaning of this rune is physical strength, speed, a time of great energy, action, courage, tenacity, wisdom.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my rune, but I used it as a cabochon. I didn't want to put any holes in it - I didn…

This month, it was Niky's turn to provide the Component of the Month - she sent us these awesome hare coin clasps! She makes such awesome things! And yes, as usual, I didn't take a photo of it before I used it.  I do that, I admit it.

I wanted to learn a new stitch, and thought flat chenille stitch would go perfectly with the size of this clasp.  I chose size 11 and 15 Japanese seeds in coordinating colors, colors I thought would look good with the brushed silver of the coin.  And then I learned flat chenille stitch.

To be honest, I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to actually figure it out.  It's a pretty easy stitch,but for some reason, I was having trouble initially in turning over to the next row.  Once I got it, it went really quickly and it's a pretty fun stitch, with quick results!

 Here's the whole bracelet, very easy to wear as well!

I have another clasp of Niky's from last years' CoM, and I already have beads picked out to turn it into a f…

This month it was Laney's turn to provide the Component of the Month, and she made these cute little Zombees!  I did not take a photo of mine before I made something, if I did you would probably drop dead at this point!

Here's my little zombee creation all done up with a cool effect from PicMonkey.  Are you aware that you now have to pay for PicMonkey - a yearly subscription.  I paid my dues because I use this program a lot and don't have time to learn another free one. 

 So here's my creation - a bookmark.  Yep.  Lame.  I did not have a good enough idea until it was too late to do anything about it, and I wanted to make something, anything.  So I made this bookmark.  The zombee is trying to get the fall flowers. 


My real idea at this point is to make a glass cabochon that looks like a pumpkin, bead bezel it, and make it into a cute necklace, with the zombee being part of the strap - I was going to a strap in some sort of beading pattern, maybe chenille stitch.  And a…