Beads and a bit of art

Hello everyone

Here are some beads I made recently.

I'm especially pleased with these:



The smaller beads are turquoise blue and I managed to get them all the same size. I'm really pleased about that. Although I work with my flame just right I think, in terms of it being neutral, one of the small beads has a darker streak which I think happens if there is too much propane in the flame.


The large beads have Corina's complex cane from Passing the Flame wrapped around then encased. I love the look of depth the cane gives the beads.


I made some more tiger beads. These are again from Corina's Passing the Flame book.


With this bead I was doing a bit of stringer control practice. I seem to be improving. The photo doesn't do the colours justice.


This is another type of stringer wrapped around a bead.


I like the ends where I feel it resembles a Spirograph picture.


And here's the art:



I love this picture so very much. It's been on the wall in my daughter's classroom for ages and I've admired it each time I've gone into the class. I'm thrilled to have it at home now.

Have a lovely week.

Sally
Xx

Isn't You Tube Brilliant

Hi

Don't you think that You Tube is just brilliant. Today, with the help of a very nice man, I fixed a puncture on P's bike. I have never done it before and wasn't sure I'd be able to but I wanted to give it a try. Here I am proudly holding the tyre I'd just liberated from the rest of the bike:



P took the photo for me. I look very pleased with myself because I am very pleased with myself. I couldn't have done it without the help of the pink hammer my dad bought me for Christmas.

That's my birthday t-shirt by the way.

Here's my work area with the helpful man on my iPad telling me what to do:



I also made chocolate chip cookies from an Ocado recipe. They went very flat but taste nice:


I made banana bread too but don't have a photo of that.

I cut these peonies from my garden. The open one smells amazing. I normally don't bring them inside but each year I usually get one flower and that's it. I thought that I'd try cutting them this year to see if it meant I got more flowers.






I finished this rabbit today:



I am so pleased with it. It's for A. Her favourite animals are rabbits and dogs. It took me quite a while and was really fiddly. It was fiddly because it's really small.


The pattern is from here: http://makezine.com/craft/craft_pattern_spring_bunny/





Here she is next to my massive cone of yarn from Yeomans. This yarn is lovely and what a brilliantly massive load of it I have now. £12 for all that isn't bad I don't think. I'd like to build a bit of a collection of these colours. I like how it's not shiny like a lot of crochet cotton.


I forgot to post a photo of these beads the other day:



I was attempting rainbow colours and practicing my stringer work too.


I am very low on bead release now but will hopefully be able to buy more soon.

A made this recently. She drew all little things for inside the igloo. There are medals, a bed, pants, glasses, books and all sorts. I love her art. This one makes me think of hyrogliphics. I haven't spelt that right, sorry.



I'd love to hear what you've been making.

Sally
Xxx

Forgot to say

I forgot to tell you something I've told A about six times. I'm booked on a course in September to learn to be like Tilly.

I'm so excited. I'm booked on Beginner Dressmaking. I've wanted to do a course ever since I got my sewing machine a couple of years ago. It will be brilliant. I'm going to so enjoy meeting other people with similar interests as well as learning how to make clothes.

I'll write on here how it goes. Apparently there will be homework so that must mean I'll be bringing what I'm working on home and will be able to take photos. I will mostly have a measuring tape draped around me like I've seen professionals with.

Sally
Xxx

Beads

Hello

I can't believe the children are off school again next week.

I've been out for two shed sessions since I last wrote.

I've done more stringer practice following some instructions by Corina:



The lines are getting straighter and I'm getting more used to where to hold the stringer in relation to the flame. You are suppose to move the bead rather than the stringer which I find very tricky.


I've been trying to make my beads more round rather then donut shaped. I'm not that great at it though and often end up with holes that don't have the dimple they should have:


The hole should have a dimple like this:


Without the dimple they don't look as good when strung to make jewellery and will be more likely to cut through whatever stringing material you use.

I moved onto shapes. These are 'tabs':


This is a cone but it's not brilliant:


And looks like a Darlek!


These are cubes that went quite well although it's hard to get sharp edges. When you flame polish off the chill marks the bead rounds off a bit.


These are cylinders which went quite well:






These beads use Rubino Ora which is a pink glass. Pink glass is expensive because it needs bits of gold. I've not bought any pink for ages because the price has tripled.


The one on the left was going to be a poked dot one but the bead release cracked so I abandoned it.

Here's a bicone that went well:


More stringer practice there.

This is another cone. I'm pleased with this one:





More stringer practice.


There was a twistie tutorial. I made one and wrapped it around a bead. Consistency of size was a bit of an issue here:


Corina has a tiger bead tutorial in her book and these have been very much admired by other people in the past. I made this one following my new improved skills and it's my most tiger like yet:


The shapes section includes a heart tutorial and following it has led to my best two hearts yet:


I have a heart press but find it very difficult to get good ends when I use it. These two hearts follow Corina's freehand heart tutorial and I'm really pleased with them.





It was my birthday recently and P and I went Ape. It was really good fun and great to do something just the two of us. A and I do lots together but he and I don't so it made it an extra good present.

A and I have discovered loom bands and been making a few of those. I started with a cheap loom but bought a proper one when I decided I really liked doing it. A is next to me now making one. There are some great videos on You Tube.

We've also all been Minecrafting a bit. I have a pretty good cave all dug out with a bed and what not.

Big d made a delicious meatloaf yesterday. It was met with great suspicion by the children. A isn't a great eater anyway and she wasn't keen. P ate all his and really liked it. D ate it very unenthusiastically.

A invented a new word when she said "I'd like to bring this chair in but I don't know how to unwet it".

Have a great week.

Sally
X

It's been a while

Hi there

It's been a while since I've written to tell you how the bead making is going.

I managed some shed time last week and yesterday.

Last week it was poked dots:




This lesson from the book was really helpful. I learned some good tricks to make my poked dot beads better. I was very pleased with how these ones worked out.

These are twisted dots:


I tried to work slowly and carefully but I was too eager to get onto the next bit really. These beads could have done with more practice. I only made two of them.

These were the ones I wanted to get to. Cosmic Swirl Corina calls them and she has great step-by-step photos and words in her book. I liked these so much that I put them on a very simple bracelet so I could wear them:


Yesterday's lesson was stringer related and it didn't go well:


I need lots more practice. The words she has written (and there are a lot of them) are really helpful. You couldn't wish for more information but I'm really struggling with this.

I do love how the Turquoise Blue has feathered and gone a bit metallic. I used two kinds of black and I don't know which one gave this result so I need to experiment next time I'm out in my shed. One was Charcoal and the other was Effetre black.


These are some other beads I created yesterday. I managed some nice raised hearts. It's the swirls I'd like to be able to do but am struggling with.





These beads are destined to go off to Beads of Courage. This is a charity I've been wanting to send some beads off to for a little while. Before they go off to the charity though they are going to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with A and I tomorrow. I read that its nice for whoever ends up with the bead to know it's been somewhere special or been with someone whose done something special. My plan is to send them off with a note and a photo to show they've been to see the show. I really hope they very slightly make a difference to a family. It's something I'd like to do more of in the future. We are lucky enough to get to do different things from time-to-time and it would be great to take beads with us that we could then send to Beads of Courage with a note of where they've been.


Sally
Xxx

Beads, a Breakage and Mother's Day

Good morning to you. How are you? I feel like it's been ages but it hasn't.

It's the first day of the holidays and I thought I would lay a bit longer in bed and write to you.

Mother's Day was lovely. I stayed in bed until all the homework was done - there's normally a bit of crossness and I wanted to hide from it. I had a bagel and scrambled egg brought to me - my favourite breakfast. Then came presents and cards. P made me a great card at school which I love and A had made me a lovely one too. A gave me this:



When I sewed her nightie recently I would have loved one of these so I'm very pleased with this thoughtful gift.

P bought me this book:


It's a bit daunting if I'm honest. It jumps right into quite tricky stuff despite saying that it's for beginners but I did enjoy looking at the pictures and one day I might be good enough to make something from it. For now though, I need something much more basic and want to buy a pattern for a skirt that I've seen a blog about. Someone called 'Lazy Daisy Jones' is doing a sew along and it sounds like it would be a good place to start.

I spend most of Mother's Day sitting about which was most enjoyable. Then had to do stuff later when Big D's hayfever got very bad.

Bead wise I've been working on dots. I moved onto what Corina calls the distortion effect. This was my first attempt at following the book:



Absolute pants. I learnt that if the dots touch even a bit then the effect is lost and the bead looks a bit rubbish.

Then I worked slowly and tried very hard to have good dot placement and the results improved:








These beads are Effetre black with ivory and periwinkle.

This photo is of all my efforts at the distortion effect taken in my little light tent:


This one is taken on a piece of white paper just in the light:


Not as good is it.

I was pleased with how neat some of the ends are:



I wanted to show you the disk I make before I melt it down for a bead. This one is taken in my light tent. It's Effetre black again:


This one is taken in sunlight just on a bit of white paper. You can see that black glass really is dark transparent purple:


I then moved onto a tutorial Corina has:




The bead on the right is encased but it took ages to melt down the encasing so, after that one, I decided not to bother. I wanted to work on covering the white dots and not spend ages melting down encasing. I was very pleased with the results above.

My encasing has improved too as can be seen below:


You can see the white there and you shouldn't really be able to.


I tried one ambitious bead and am really pleased with how it turned out. It's something again from Corina's book that an artist called Andrea Guarino. She calls these 'Salmon Egg' beads.










Same bead in natural light:


I also wanted to have another go at reducing silver glass to bring out the colour. I'd read a helpful tip in a book and wanted to have a go. I was very pleased with the result:




The one on the left is how it looks before it's encased. You can see me taking the photo reflected in it. The above one is in my light tent. The below one is in sunlight:


Both are Triton on top of Grumpy Bear.

Yesterday we went to the park so that A could practice bike riding. Big D and D played a bit of tennis which A was very keen to join in for. I tried to read a bit but only managed a page:



Big D loves Stephen King and I'm gradually working through this epic book but it's hard when you like making things. I find it hard to read and crochet or lampwork.

A made this card and I love the picture:



This was very disappointing:


I loved this bracelet. It was one of my favourites and looked like this before the breakage:




I always used Beadalon for stringing any jewellery I made:


A reel like this was around £18 to buy and I had always thought it was worth the expense because of how good it was.

In the breakage picture you can see how the glass and crystal has roughened up the wire so that a breakage would have been inevitable. I can only think that I will have to use actual wire going forward for my jewellery since anything else might break. I like the idea of my jewellery being made to last so won't be using this Beadalon stuff again if glass and crystal are involved. Very disappointing since I'd found great findings that I was very happy with.

I don't know when I will make it out to the shed again. The children are home now for two weeks. When I do manage to get out there I'll be doing poked dots.

Have a lovely week.
Sally
Xx