Treasures by Louise

While at the Library, I was looking for bead related books, to see if there was something new. I was thinking seed beads: off-loom bead-weaving or bead embroidery. I wanted to learn more about doing a picot edge for a bracelet that I started. (It won't need that picot edge for a while, but I was anticipating the challenge!) I found my tutorial on beaded picot edge in a wonderful book about beaded quilts. Wow! Two of my great passions together in one book, and what quilts they were, too! Whether you are a beader or a quilter, you will LOVE looking at this book.  My first passion, and the cause of my overflowing fabric stash was quilting, or collecting quilt fabrics, if you will. ;) While I have set aside making quilts in the last few years, I still have a love and appreciation of fabric, bed quilts, art quilts, and all things mixed-media. So I highly recommend this book for both the tutorials on bead embroidery and the beautiful quilts pictured inside. Here is a link to Amaz...

I hope you are enjoying your last-minute gift making and shopping for the Holidays! If you find anything in my Etsy site:  LilyAndJasmine on Etsy , I recommend the last day for first class shipping would be December 19, at the very latest. The USPS says December 20, so that would give me time to package, label and drop off at the post office on the way to work! Enjoy your days leading up to the holidays! December 21st note: My shop is on vacation, while I spend time baking cookies and enjoying family traditions. Hugs!

I found another giveaway to share with you: This one ends tonight at 10 pm so check it out soon! Donna Millard Art Glass is giving away a set of lampworked beads from her Winter Holiday Line. Here is a link to her blog post explaining the contest: im-thankful-giveaway Donna Millard: I'm thankful giveaway I'm just imagining what I could make with these beautiful beads: Would I use them all in one set? Necklace, bracelet and earrings? or would I divide them up and make several sets, by adding beads to coordinate? So many possibilities. While you are checking out Donna's beautiful glass lampwork, also  check out on her Etsy site, what she does with vintage metal - handcrafted bead caps!  Vintage bead caps  - Fun ! Such a cool idea. Here's a link to her Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DonnaMillard . Just a note that if you enter, you must have an active blog address, or share on Facebook. Have fun!

Our wonderful Guild had our Bead Bonanza yesterday. I am a new member, and volunteered to be a runner: A person who brings food or drinks from the food vendor to the booth members, or watches a booth while a vendor runs to the rest room. It was a great way to see the show and meet some of the wonderful people who come in to sell their wares. I hope everyone had a successful show and was happy to be there. Brenda Schweder was there promoting her Now That's a Jig, with her book and had a free make and take.  http://www.brendaschweder.com (Dark Side) I had fun working with Dark Annealed Steel Wire, and made a neat charm. I may have found a new favorite wire! (pics later) I found more Kazuri beads - from Tamie Simpson of Small and Beautiful Beads. http://smallandbeautifulbeads.com/ She also had some cool wavy spacers that should look great with the Kazuri Beads. I also got some neat metal charms from Lipstick Ranch,  http://stores.thelipstickranch.com I picked up a special...

Oh Boy! It's a big giveaway: Krafty Max Originals is giving away findings, beads, jewelry components, and a beading book from her own stash. Yes, I try to enter some of the many Giveaways! Somebody has to win, so why not me! But you can try too! Just go to this link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code That's: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/NzRjNDVjNzFlNjgwOTA0YTQyNmFkNmZkMDdhMWUwOjY1/ Here's a pic of all that's included:

Yay! I just found out I am the winner of the earrings I posted about last Thursday. I  want to share a link to Dillman's Diversions, the Etsy store of the artist who makes the beads: Check out this beautiful Lime green & Black bracelet (http://www.etsy.com/listing/153530210/lampwork-bead-bracelet-in-lime-green-and?ref=shop_home_active) Follow the link above to see this bracelet and the whole store! I hope to finish Amy's Green and Grey necklace in the next two days,... so check back Friday to see the finished project.

I'm making progress, on the green and grey birthday necklace... Ideas are germinating and sprouting! Meanwhile, another giveaway, I'd like to win: these earrings. This lady does some very nice work with lamp work glass beads. Visit Dillman's Dallies to share and comment for your chance to win. Dillman's Dallies

I have a request from a special person for a Birthday Necklace and these glass beads are part of the inspiration. We had the black and green faceted beads first, to me they resemble reptile skin with their coloration. The green faceted beads brighten things up a little and they go nicely with the dress. Hematite works but it all is a bit too dark. I made a (center) wire wrapped section of three links, but am at a stand still for the moment. Glass and Hematite beads The dress is a white background with black, grey and green large 3-5" floral motif . I have some creamy white shell beads and some pale green quartzite and some green quartzite chips. I'm also considering some silver beads to brighten things up. If you have ideas on what you'd add to these beads, please leave a comment.  I don't have a focal bead in mind but one of the pewter animal beads in this Giveaway might be just the thing. Don't you think I should win!?? I'm sharing a link to Lor...

Yes, I am a Bead Hoarder! Thanking Lori Anderson for this wonderful challenge: It has gotten me started on creating again, and using what's on hand is a great way to stretch one's design ideas. (So are almost 170 other beaders, LOL. I want to visit all the hoppers and will, but it is taking a while!) First is a necklace from a set of assorted beads already pre-coordinated by Bead Landing. To see the stash I blogged about, click: Here  (Purchased on clearance.) I added the copper beads and the central howlite disc from my stash. Easy peasy, just need to decide the arrangement and add the spacers. Blue - Copper "Color Splash" Necklace - beads from Michaels I created this first attempt at 'bead weaving' ( I think it is actually netting, if you are getting specific ), while I was on vacation with my family in June. I dug out the bead stringing thread, needles and little and big crystals from way back in the drawer to take a small project for working on ...

I have been sorting through my hoard for the Lori Anderson's Bead Hoarders blog hop , and it appears my storage strategy is sorely lacking. I have three under-bed storage boxes, and inside there are loose strands, as well as some nicely sorted beads in divided storage containers. Storage bin and random beads Some beads were stored in empty prescription bottles that my dear mother gave me. Well, I thought it was a poor solution since the bottles are amber and you can't easily see what you have. I have also learned these bottles are fairly breakable when you quickly stack lots of bins on top of them. :( Don't try this at home! I now have one six-drawer storage unit with plastic drawers from Office Depot. I am transferring beads, and will probably need at least one more. These can be labeled with categories, such as: seed beads, wire, stringing materials, wood beads, glass, and miscellaneous. I'm sure there are more categories that will come to mind. Making...

One of the fun things about swaps, is you get to see and work with beads that are unusual. The black glass disc beads with the silver carving here have a design that looks like a spider, but not enough that you could only use them seasonally for Halloween. I have been busy designing, with the spider beads that my partner Crystal sent me in our swap! Here is the first necklace. The amethyst seed beads and amethyst bicone crystals are from my stash. Necklace: Silver and Amethyst tones I had fun making this piece using a lark's head knot with seed beads strung on beading wire. I like the black, silver and purple colors. It's a bit different than colors I usually choose. I am very pleasantly surprised with the combination. Silver and Amethyst Surprise

Here are the beads I recieved for my first bead swap: I love the silver and black glass donut and all the supporting beads. The carved glass beads with the silver spider-like design are both beautiful and challenging! The black glass carved rectangles  with gold will be set aside for another project.  Also included were silver spacers, black glass beads, and extra large silver seed beads!  I decided to add a pale amethyst crystal and pale amethyst seed beads as an accent color. These will be fun to create with, and also cause me to work outside my comfort zone. There are lots of possible alternate colors I could have added - Leave me a comment and let me know what you would use with this set of swap beads!?

I have many choices in my bead stash to draw from for the Bead Hoarders blog hop. Here are some pretty glass beads and a string of a bead mix that would make a pretty necklace. The bead mix is a strand of Color Splash beads from early this spring at Michaels. The glass beads are from the same store, from Bead Gallery beads and coordinates nicely with one of the beads of the mix. These would be nice as a short, about 22 inch necklace. And of course, I would set aside a few for earrings, too. I like the color combination of the turquoise shades with the golden amber crystals and the square ceramic beads. The next group of beads is from Jo Ann and was inspired by the very cute ceramic owl beads. The yellow beads are a matte finish glass, and the bronze pearly ones are also glass. I thought these beads were such a great neutral and so versatile, that I ordered three more strands. I think they will go with several colorways of beads that I love to collect. I added the orange ceramic ...

Count me in! I signed up for Lori Anderson's Bead Hoarders Blog Hop. I really NEED to go thru my stash and use up some of those beads. Never mind thinking about picking up a few more beads....I have plenty to work with, now I just need a bit of focus, and to carve out some time. :) Here's the link to the Blog Hop, if you'd like to join in!: Prettythingsblog.com/bead-hoarders-blog-hop-sign-ups-are-open.html

Hello: I've been busy beading and creating and vacationing. I even took a bead weaving project on vacation and managed to teach myself from a Maria Rypan pattern. I'll share that necklace once I add the closure and weave in the ends. It was my first real attempt at fringe, but I'm hooked and inspired, so I think there will be several variations to come. I've also completed a bead swap necklace, tho I have more to create; to use up the beads I was sent. I've been working with the large green beads and copper tassels. I have one necklace that I just love, and another still on the design board. Here is the beautiful copper and green: There's copper ovals with wire and seed beads for connectors, and around the back, the same seed bead sequence is echoed with the braided strands of seed beads. The color combination just happened, based on the seed bead mix, but in the afterwards, I saw that the colors fit nicely into the Pantone colors for Spring 2013! Bear ...

Hi again: As I mentioned, I am working on organizing my craft area, and I happily sorted through my findings and put them in a divided storage container. Then I pulled out some clearance components that are intended to be easy peasy snap together statement pieces. I decided to re-design and re-purpose the pieces and so I took most of them apart. Here is what I started with: The large green beads look heavy, but they are fairly lightweight, so probably acrylic resin. I added some bead strands and considered a few chain options: add in some Australian Jasper, copper beads and chain and mixed metal beads.   I picked some Australian Jasper that toned nicely with the large resin beads , and added in copper metal beads.  The design was begging for some seed beads to balance the large beads, and this seed bead mix seemed made just to tie together the copper and green tones. Check back soon to see what becomes of this collection!