Bead blog recap weeks 19-20

Uhm, I ended up never blogging on Friday eventhough I said I would. If you are looking forward to more flower and landscape photos, I'm afraid that'll have to wait a few more days. This last week has been real hectic, but at least I remembered to do a recap this time.


Emboss leather with filigree
Vintaj shows you how to emboss leather with filigree and stamped charms like their fastenables using a scrapbooking tool known as a Sissix. A tool that can also be used to emboss metal in lieu of a rolling mill.

Beautiful ceramic pendants with recycled glass
Artisan Clay makes lovely ceramic components with crackled glass (which you will see an example of in this blog soon).

Leather stamping
How to stamp on leather using leather and steel stamps.

"Floating" designs with Fimo Deco Gel
Often resin is used to make bezels and pendants with motifs suspended "midair" in the bezel, here's an example of how you can use liquid polymer clay to create a similar effect.

Sparkling metal components
Coloring and painting metal components like charms and filigree for a personalized as well as more colourful design is popular. In this version, glitter is added for extra sparkle.

Filigree base tutorial
Step-by-step instructions for making the manipulated filigree base I used for my necklace Whispered words. To get a component in the right shape, I sawed and bent a piece of brass filigree. Tutorial is only for the base, not the whole necklace.

Ribbon-wrapped beads
How to wrap a basic bead with ribbons (or floss/yarn) for use in dimensional embroidery and more.

Beadmaille bracelet
Lark offers a free project from Cindy Pankopf's book Beadmaille where se adds chain maille techniques to off-loom beadweaving.

Bead looming with fibre
Different ways of adding fibre (yarn, ribbons) to you beaded loomwork.

The color queens want your questions
Bead colour experts Beverly Ash Gilbert and Margie Deeb have teemed up. For their new collaborative pdf-publication they want colour related questions from their readers to answer.

Book review: Bead embroidery. The complete guide
My review of my latest bead book by Jane Davis, a book on how to add beads to decorative embroidery stitches -- from basting and cross stitch to ribbon embroidery and smocking.

Fold forming
Fold forming is an interesting metalworking technique that's sometimes describes as origami with sheet metal.

Call for submissions: 500 Beaded Jewelry
Lark is looking for "excellent photographs of excellent, original beaded jewelry pieces" for their latest coffee table book in the 500 series. They are especially looking for a diverse range of contemporary beaded jewellery of all kinds from around the world.

ITS as paint
ITS, Image Transfers Soloution, can not only be used for image transfers. By adding pigments it can also act like a paint for non-porous surfaces like metal. For a beautiful effect, remove the paint from the raised areas before setting it so that only recessed areas are colorized.

Message bracelet contest
Swedish bead shop Smyckestillbehor.se is hosting a new contest featuring their new leather lace. Add you own message using your choice of techniques and materials to their lace for you chance to win a gift certificate. Winner will be chosen based primarily on the message.

Romantic patina'd bronze butterfly wings
These lovely bronze clay wings from Artisan Accents by Staci Louise are finished with a colourful, matte patina. Pictured in the photo above.

Swedish bead shop map updated -- but flawed!
I have finally updated the map of brick-and-mortar bead shops in Sweden, but due to technical issues the map, or rather the information on each shop, is jumbled and flawed. Please have patience while I try to find the time to fix these issues. Currently, I'm on my own working with the map and updating it takes a lot of time. Add technical issues and a hectic work schedule to that and it's a sisyphean task right now...