Belated Show Review.

I realised that I didn't really say much about the Welsh Bead Fair that I visited on 4th October and since I haven't taken any photo's for a while I thought I could break my blog silence with a quick post about it.

The Welsh Bead Fair was held at the Village Hotel in Cardiff and is run by Stitch n Craft Beads which is one of my favourite online bead stores. The show was smaller this year as there was a larger Fair being held in England on the same day & a lot of traders had obviously decided to go to that one instead.

There were about 15 stalls which included 3 great seed bead stalls; Stitch n Craft, Spellbound Beads and Oaktree Crafts, I bought from each of them of course, my favourites being some matte denim blue 11's from Oaktree, cranberry lustre 11's from Stitch n Craft and some lovely kits from Spellbound which I plan to blog about as they are completed. The lampworker Ray Skene was there and I bought a few beads from him, he was very nice to talk to and gave me a lovely leaf pendant for free with my purchases! There were various other stalls there including one showcasing knotwork, Wellhead books with an amazing selection, Anita's Beads and Precious Sparkle Beads which had wonderful semi-precious strands but I stayed away from there as I wanted to focus on the seedy side of beads. Another highlight was the Beadworkers Guild stand which had some lovely Saraguro style beadwork. I love the Saraguro collars that I have seen, in particular the ones designed by Chris Prussing and I plan to make one one day, maybe when I am retired, as they look like a serious amount of work!

While it was smaller than many other bead fairs, I still had a lot of fun and bought too much! I love the fact that it is so close to my birthday as it gives me a good excuse to treat myself!

Catch up!

Wow, a month has flown past since I last blogged! I don't have much work to show, but I have been very busy as it was my 40th birthday and I had lots of celebrations and lovely things to do! I went to the Welsh Bead Fair & bought far too many seed beads, I also had some beads for my birthday including a fab set of lampwork beads by Lush Beads from my lovely friends (you know who you are & I know you read this!) and Rachel Nelson Smiths fabulous book Seed Bead Fusion. I will share some photo's of my new goodies later this week.

Copper Rose Pendant.

I love Eastern art and architecture and was influenced by these when I was designing this pendant. I chose the pink to remind me of cherry blossoms and added copper.

Flowers at Midnight.

I am still on my self-enforced bead ban and frantically trying to make space for the new goodies I intend to buy at the Welsh Beadfair on the 4th October. I have had these flower beads for a couple of years and wanted to make something a bit different and special with them. After flicking through lots of magazines for inspiration, I decided to string them in an asymmetrical bracelet with onyx briolettes, swarovski 4mm in jet ans some black crystal pearls.

Calypso Flowers

I wanted to try a totally different colour scheme for this piece. I used swarovski crystals in Caribbean opal and lime and a pumpkin orange delicas. The pattern is a favourite motif from Suzanne Cooper's Victorian and Variations. I'm glad I tried it but I don't think the colour combo is successful and won't be using it again. The great thing about beading is that you can frog it & use the beads in something else.

South Western Strands.

This is a slight twist on the traditional brick and strands bracelet. I have added ladder stitch bars so that I could vary the length of the strands and have added a centre medallion which was made from instructions in Suzanne Coopers Victorian and Variations book. Turquoise and brown are a favourite colour combination of mine but I wanted this to look a bit different so, inspired by south western jewellery I added the red.
I love the vibrancy it brings to the other two colours.

My Version Of A Slant On Bails.

Life is back to normal after the school holidays, so hopefully normal blog service will also resume. My son is happily back to school in year 1, apparently his new class is super-fun!

As I mentioned in my last post I decided to make my own version of Mary Champions A New Slant On Bails from the latest issue of Bead Style Magazine. So the next night I sat down once kiddo was in bed and hubby at the gym to work out how I was going to do it.
First of all, I decided to add spirals at each end of the wire instead of bead covers as I didn't have enough. For the bails I thought delica tubes with a loop would work and decided on crystal shadow twist beads and bicones and hematite seed beads and delicas for a monochrome look. I even drew a quick sketch with notes which I will do more often as it made the actual beading process more easier and quicker.

The delica bails worked well in the design I thought but I think that next time I would add some embellishments to make them more ornate. I enjoyed the process of translating the design into something I could make with what I had on hand and I really like the shape.

I have managed to keep to the bead buying ban but I will soon need to order some more findings.