My New Tumbler

I got a new tumbler!

On a whim, I decide to check Craigslist and see if there were any tumblers for sale.  There was one, and it was right in my town.  It is a Lortone 3A, which I think is a good tumbler for a beginner.  So I emailed her, but she wanted $80 for it.

80 dollars???!!!  I could buy a new one for 80 dollars.  So, I offered her $30.  She came back with $50, and then we ended up splitting the difference and settling on $40.  I asked her if she had the shot and she said no.

Well, guess what?  When I went to pick it up today, the shot was inside of it!  She didn't even know, she said it was her son's tumbler.  So, I actually ended up getting a pretty good deal.  It doesn't look used at all.  She even had the instruction booklet.  I'm going to run a cycle with the just the shot and the water/Dawn solution to make sure it's clean, and then I'm all set to start using it!

Cat

My Little Cube

I made a mistake and bought the wrong size jump rings for a bracelet project (embarrassingly, several times), and then I had to also buy the right sized ones. Now I have more jump rings in my house than the bead store has!  (I'm not kidding, I have hundreds of them, LOL)  So I decided to do something constructive with them and teach myself chainmaille.

Little did I know, chainmaille is fun and is just as addicting as beading!  Of course, as usual, I jumped in feet first.  I could have started with something simple, and probably should have, but hey, why not go all in?  I spotted this pattern for a cute little chainmaille cube by lunabellvarga, and just had to have one of my own.

Thank goodness the directions were very clear and there were good photos!  It was still a bit confusing in spots, but I did manage to successfully make a little cube.  Now I'm on the hunt for more chainmaille projects to work with.

Here is a photo of my finished cube...

Cat

Ava'a Bead Projects

Well, as promised, here are some pics.  For Ava being only seven years old, she is really a good little beader!  She has so much patience, making sure her needle goes into the right bead, backtracking if she makes a mistake, and not giving up until she completes a project.

Last time I was there, I taught her peyote stitch and she picked it right up.  I was a little surprised, because she only has a set of "hobby" beads that someone bought for her, and as you know, they are very uneven in size.  But she picked up the idea of culling right away, and used the beads that were most identical in size.

This time I thought it would be fun if we made a daisy chain.  She caught right on to it after a few mishaps, and here is her first chain.  I think she did a great job!

She also made a air of earrings all by herself to surprise me.  I'm not sure if the different color drop beads are supposed to be a fashion statement, or if she just didn't have two matching beads in her stash.  I'm just proud to have them, and yes, I will wear them as soon as I put some earring findings on them.

I only wish she lived closer so that we could bead together more often.  She loves it, and seems to have a natural talent for it.  I am sending her some size 10 beading needles so that she will be able to thread them without help.  She had a bit of trouble with the 13's that I brought with me. 

Well, that's it for today.  I am working on a chainmaille project that I hope to be able to show you soon.  It is so cute!  I can't wait to finish it.

Cat

A Week In Seattle

I haven't posted in quite a while, and now I arrive at Blogger to make a post and the layout is completely different!  Arghhh!  I hope I can figure it all out.  Obviously, I did figure out how to get to the page where I compose a post, now if I can just get it to publish correctly, maybe I can figure out the rest of the site later.

I have just had a great week in Seattle spending time with my granddaughter.  The weather was great all week, and Seattle is really a fun place.  There is always something to do, and most everything is within walking distance.  My old bones are aching after all that walking, though.  And up and down hills no less!

We did lots of fun things together.  We saw the movie Pirates in 3D.  She really wanted to see Dark Shadows, but she is only seven and her guardians wouldn't let her see it. Boo on them, I'd have taken her.  I used to watch the series as a kid, I'd run home from school so I could turn it on at 3:30.

We watched a Mariners baseball game at Safeco Field.   The Mariners won in a shutout against the Twins.  YAY!  Good day for us to attend.

There is an annual Elders Tea at her school, which I attended with her. It's lots of fun.  We got all dressed up and wore jewelry that we made.  The teachers served us tea, cookies, fruit, and finger sandwiches.

We went out for ice cream.  There is a new gelateria by her house.  I had chocolate and ricotta gelato.  The ricotta was surprisingly good!  She had mango for her first flavor, and I can't remember the second flavor she had.

We spent a lot of time at the park.  She loves going to the park, and at the one near her house there is always something going on.  We saw some people doing a fashion photography shoot, and then we took some "fashion model" pictures ourselves.  We watched people practicing dance moves, people playing baseball, a group playing croquet (believe it or not, she really loved the croquet!), and just generally hung out and had fun.

And of course we ate Peeps.  Shhhhh...she is not allowed to have them, so each year I sneak them there in my suitcase and we go to the park and eat them.  Hey, what are grandmas for?  ;-))

Next post I'll have pictures of the bracelets we made together (she is a pretty good little beader!) and of the earrings that she designed and made for me all by herself.

So, that was my week.  How was yours?

Cat  

Playing With Wire

 

My daughter and I are fascinated with wire.  We’ve been playing with it for weeks, finding out what it can do and what we cannot force it to do.  This week, in addition to our experiments, we made three projects.  I don’t have pictures of my daughter’s projects, but here are mine.

First, we made a butterfly out of wire. It was pretty easy, just some spirals wired together.  We used Beadsmith silver craft wire, 18 gauge, wrapped with 24 gauge.

Then we made simple rings with some beads.  I used 3mm Swarovski crystals in turquoise with 21 gauge copper wire.  The lesson we used is called 3-Bead Hammered Ring, but I used 5 beads in mine.  This was the first time that I hammered a ring to make it harder, and we were both surprised at how much harder the metal got!

Then, we made a ring called The Wave.  This one gave me some difficulty.  The instructions were great, but I think it’s a little above my level right now.  My ring definitely doesn’t look like the one in the tutorial, lol.  But I’m wearing it, so it’s not that bad.  I managed to make it the right size, and to smooth out all the ends inside so that it isn’t scratchy on my finger.  I used Beadsmith square craft wire, 21 gauge, in silver and antique bronze.

Now I’m going to try making a beaded rosette.  My boyfriend’s sister wants an ohm symbol, and she wants it to be round.  I found a really nice picture of one, and I have the Easy Bead Pattern software, so I put it in there.  It’s a free program, check it out. 

First I tried peyote stitch, but none of the shapes in the picture were coming out correctly, so I switched over to rosette stitch.  It looks great, but I’ve never done this stitch before.  It’s kind of like bead embroidery, done in circles.  I’ll give it a try and see what happens.  It looks like I’m going to have to use a million beads, though.

What do you have on your beading table?

Cat 

Busy Day

 

After losing my muse for such a long time, I’ve been back in the mood with a vengeance the past few days.  I finally finished my Czech tile bracelet, and I love it!  Beside the tiles, I used some reddish Czech size 11 seeds, gold size 15 seeds, and 4mm gold Swarovski pearls.  It’s too big for me, though.  I always do that when I make bracelets.  I underestimate the size of the clasp.  Plus I have a very small wrist.  Oh, well, it’ll either be given away or sold, and I’ll make myself another one.  I want to try and write down the thread path I used, also, so that I don’t forget how I made it. I added a magma color Swarovski heart to the clasp.  It matches the red in the beads perfectly.

I’ve also made a few pairs of earrings.  I made the ones with the green Swarovski margheritas that I’ve been planning to make.  I also made two other pairs.  One is made with some black and gold wooden beads that I found at the bead shop, and the other is made with a milky white pair of beads that was in their bead soup mix, so I don’t know what they are.  They’re kind of hard to see.  I couldn’t get a good picture of them, even using a dark background.  I’ll try again tomorrow outside, maybe that will help.

I’m so glad to be beading again and enjoying it!  I missed it so much.  Maybe having my new wallboard helped me out.  It really does make me feel like I have a little studio, even though everything is really in a small 4x3 foot space in the corner of my bedroom.

Well, I’m going to get back to beading while I’m still in the mood for it!  Maybe I’ll have some more pictures in a few days.

Cat 

More Storage

 

Look what my boyfriend put up for me yesterday!  Lots more storage!  My neighbor was giving away the pegboards, and we got a beginner set of hooks and storage stuff at Lowes.  Isn’t this cool?

I can hang everything up where I can see it easily, and get to it quickly.  He is so good to me.

Now I just need to see which hooks and accessories I use the most so that I can buy more of the ones I like.

And on the bottom right, you can see my current work in progress, a Czech tile bracelet which I will hopefully be finishing today and have pics to show soon.

Cat 

A Bargain at Any Price

 

Head on over to Jen’s blog, The Cheeky Kea, to find a good short read.  She tells us why buying handmade jewelry (handmade anything, really) is such a great bargain!

It’s a good thing we all love what we do, because very few of us are going to become millionaires from it.  I’m happy if I can just keep buying more supplies.

Speaking of supplies on hand, since I’m sharing links today, Operation Tackle That Bead Stash is a great blog that does exactly what it says.  Sarah helps you to use up the supplies you already have before you go out and buy more. (well, except for those times when you really can’t hold yourself back, haha)  And even gives you a chance to earn prizes while using up your stash!  Plus there’s great eye candy from some very talented beaders.  If you haven’t visited yet, you should check it out.

Cat 

Finally, Some Prototypes

 

After all my agonizing, I did finally come up with a couple of things to do with my tile beads.  I’m still experimenting, but the more I work with them, at least I’m learning which thread paths are possible with these.

The first one I made is part of a bracelet.  You don’t want to see the earlier attempts that got me here.   But at least I ended up with something I like, and I may even embellish it some more if I can figure out how.  Here is what the piece of it looks like so far.  Not too bad.

Then I attempted a beaded bead inspired by Anna Elizabeth Draeger’s bangle bracelet design in the latest B&B.  This is actually embellished cubic RAW.  The cubic RAW is Anna’s, the embellishments are mine.  I think I’ll be taking this one apart.  It doesn’t seem very useful.  I’ll wait awhile though, you never know.  I may need a rectangular bead for something.

I know the pictures are phooey.  That’s the problem with having my photo studio downstairs, and having to set the whole thing up every time I use it.  I never get down there and do it.  I just go for the quick pic upstairs on the bead mat.  I can be so lazy sometimes.  Oh, well, you still get the idea of what I’m working on.

I like working with these beads better than I do the Tilas, though.  The walls are thicker, so I don’t have to worry about them chipping when I make multiple thread passes.  And I like the Picasso finishes.  I don’t like the ones I’ve seen that appear to be metal-finished.  They look like someone gave them a coat of metallic spray paint, and it doesn’t look like it will last very long.

Cat 

Where’s My Muse?

 

Aaaack!  For days I’ve been playing around with my new Czech two-hole beads, trying to make a bracelet design.  Except nothing is working out.  Every design seems to look good in my head or on paper, and then when I start fiddling with the beads it just doesn’t look like what I’d imagined.  Or it doesn’t hold together firmly.  Or it looks like a design I’ve already seen.  I love these beads!  I want to make something with them so badly.

I guess I really only have a few choices.  Keep fiddling around and see if something useful comes out of it.  Move on to another project until my mind clears, and bring these beads out another day.  Buy a Tila project and work on it to get my juices started. 

I’ll probably end up doing all of those things.     Right now I just feel desperate and frustrated.

What do you do when you want to use a particular bead or type of bead but it doesn’t want to cooperate?

Cat