Sue Beads

AAAANNNDDD another month has gone by, and this time it was Caroline Dewison's turn to provide the component for the Art Elements Design Challenge!  She sent these! Beautiful celestial beads!  As usual, I did not take a photo of my set, but hey, you'll see them below!  So drumroll..... here's what I made! I did another spiral stitch necklace, with Star Sapphire size 8 and 11 beads, and some gold plated hex beads (all found at Bead Fest because I remembered to bring the set Caroline sent me so I could match beads!!!!) Proud of me! The hex beads mimic the starts on the ceramic round perfectly! I used a ball-and-socket clasp, I really like these when I make a spiral rope necklace, easy to apply and easy to use! I'm not an "all matchy matchy" person but we did have these great round beads, and since I didn't use them in the necklace, I decided to make a simple pair of earrings with them!  I like them, I like simple jewelry so there you ha...

We've moved to a once monthly challenge, which falls in the middle of the month, and the Component of the Month is at the end of the month - this gives us more time to be creative! Works for me, because I was very much inspired by the August theme of Faces.  Here's what I made! This first one is called Mother Earth and features a face bead by Dana Swisher - I have a cat face cabochon from her too, but now I'll need to become a collector and get more!  I so enjoyed making this! Hope it shows!   This next piece features a bone face cabochon, dichro dots by Cindy Bos, and it's called The Four Cardinal Directions. I wanted it to have a buddhist, namaste feel.  I feel it! I already have another one in the works, an Inuit inspired piece.  I'll show it when I'm done! Thanks for stopping by!

I provided the scarab beads for the Component of the Month Challenge over at Art Elements for July! And as usual, didn't take a photo of my own bead before I started working with it.  But here is the one I used - unfortunately, you can't see the lustrous oil slick colors of this black metallic glass because once again we have cloudy days here in Pittsburgh. I made a choker length necklace using spiral stitch and these awesome seed beads that go so well with this black metallic glass! I used hematite swarovski crystals to divide the bead stitching and the scarab focal bead; I actually ordered a pile of pairs of various black swarovski colors and decided that these match the best! I finished off the necklace with the ball socket clasp - it's a nice way to finish a spiral stitch - the size is just right and it's fairly easy to sew into the design. Please check out what our guests and team members made with their scarabs! And thanks to everyone who took par...

Time for another Component of the Month - this time Lesley sent us these awesome shell cabs/pendants.  I chose a cabochon, I just can't get enough of them! The cabochon is somewhat shallow, so I didn't bead bezel it, I glued it down really well and started beading around it. I wanted to invoke the feeling of the ocean, but underneath where there's movement but it's gentle and flowing! I used colors that were found in the colors of the cabochon, and then added "tentacles" of size 15 seed beads and then size 11 seed beads - kind of an anemone look. I used some awesome O-beads that I had picked up in Texas last year - they are sparkly and AB/mirror like - perfect for under water! Right now I'm not sure what it wants to be so I'm going to leave it like this for a while.  I was thinking either necklace or pin - but maybe it wants to be part of some kind of sea piece wall art? Not sure yet. Please check out what everyone else made, and than...