Sunday, September 20, 2015

September Art Bead Scene Challange

I have been following the Art Bead Scene for a while now and have challenged myself make an entry for the month. This month's painting is View of the Pond at Charleston, East Sussex by Vanessa Bell.







I really liked the colors in this painting and tried to use the dark rose, peach, green and warm beige.
I made a cane using these colors and tried to imagine walking through the area around the pond. I pictured some stepping stones or the tiles around the window sill and came up with a design that I felt
could relate my feelings to the painting.
The result are these beads that are round coin shape with the look of stepping stones with green areas around them.


I do so love following the Art Bead Scene and visit the site almost everyday that I can. They always have interesting  and inspiring posts and great tips.


Wednesday, July 29, 2015

July Art Bead Scene Challenge

I have been following the Art Bead Scene for a while now and have challenged myself make an entry for the month. This month's painting is Still Life with Shells by Balthasar van der Ast.





For this months entry I wanted to make beads with swirls in them to resemble shells. I combined the colors of red, orange, and taupe to make coin shaped swirled beads. The swirling gives the beads a shell like look and mixes the colors to give the beads a more painterly look. I am pleased with the way that the beads look.












Thursday, July 16, 2015

We're All Ears Creative Challenge

This month the We're All Ears Challenge was beautiful detailed quilts like this one:





I had just made a polymer clay cane that I thought looked like fabric and decided to make beads out of it.

Here are the earrings that I made out of the beads:


I added crystals for some sparkle in dark purple and lemon yellow.

Monday, June 22, 2015

June Art Bead Scene Challenge Beads

I have been following the Art Bead Scene for a while now and occasionally make an entry for the month. This month's painting is Feuilles, by Lois Seraphine


I had make a cane with some of the colors in the painting a while ago, and decided to use the cane to make some lentil beads for the challenge. The cane was in a leaf shape and it seemed to fit the painting well:

The lentils are a versatile shape for earrings, bracelets and necklaces.


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Owl Delicious

I could not wait to get Deb Hart's Tutorial from Craftartedu. It captivated me and I have made lots of beads, but I have never done cane sculpting before. It is a great tutorial with clear concise instructions. My owl is not perfect of course, but I would not expect him to be.
I began by making the canes described in the tutorial. For the feather cane I used blue, white and turquoise, since those were the colors that I wanted for my owl. Here are the canes that I used - the eye cane and the peacock cane I had already made for another project.

I had never made a project this involved before and was surprised at all the steps that needed to be completed before I even got to start adding the cane slices. It is definitely a labor of love.
Here is what my owl looks like:






I made some mistakes of course but I am quite pleased with the way that my owl came out in the end. I  may just hang him in my studio for inspiration, as I now have a number of new ideas in mind to use this method. Thank you Deb for an excellent tutorial and I had a lot of fun making this guy!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Bookmarks

I love making things. I guess that I always have. My Mom and I would craft together. She would make all sorts of things to sell at the church bazaar to make money for the church. She passed away several years ago, but when I make beads with flowers I always think of her, because she loved flowers. I have been making beads for a long time and mostly think of making jewelry with my beads. I had these brass bookmark hooks for a long time and I decided that I needed to so something with them.
I used waxed linen cord and some of my birds and hearts to make some bookmarks for Mother's day or graduation. I think that they came out really pretty will definitely will be making more.



Friday, March 20, 2015

Spring Butterflies

Here in Florida it has already started to get warm. I can see the signs of spring everywhere. Flowers blooming, birds and squirrels also signal the signs of spring to me.
I have been busy making beads that make me think of the flowers blooming and butterflies.
Here are some pictures of my newest beads:





Are you ready for spring?