Wild roses and blackberries

Cyclamen opal satin

2012-01-29T19:41:00.000+01:00

You don't have to know me well to know that bling and sparkling crystals aren't my absolute favourite thing. Now, I can like a little sparkle and you can find charlottes and (lots of) fire-polished beads in my stash. As well as crystal rivolis. But it's rarely the sparkle itself I'm after buying crystal beads, it's the colour. There are so many colours and finishes I love. And that's the reason why I bought these beads last year. Don't use bicones that often, but the colour -- cyclamen opal satin -- just spoke to me.

I like how the satin effect (aka hematite) darkens the cyclamen opal and makes it more purple. Originally the colour is a sort of pink lavender as you can see here. I was sceptical about whether I'd like it IRL and to this day I have only seen it in a tiny 6 mm rivoli pendant. But the satin version grab my attention as soon as I saw it.

As I don't use crystal bicones that often these beads -- like most of the crystals in my stash -- are still waiting to be used. Until then I'll just hoard them, pick them up sometimes and enjoy the beauty of them.

Guess what? This second photo is the same colour as above. To acheive this effect, I lite the beads from below. You can often get a different colour by back lighting opal glass and also glass with certain finishes (try holding up a 2xab bead against the sun/a strong lamp). This colour was a bit unexpected, but it's also a shade I like and so I opted to include it here eventhough it looks very different from what the bead will normally look like.

TAST week 4: cretan stitch

2012-01-28T19:52:00.001+01:00

English name: cretan stitch

Swedish name: kretastygn

This week's stitch was one I've never tried before. At least I can't recall having done it. As usually, if a stitch can be stitched on counted fabric I prefer trying it on aida as I don't have to worry about getting them straight and evenly spaced.

As you can see above, I played around with different variations. Especially layering multiple rows of cretan (with the bi-coloured row you can see how I "braided" the two rows). The zig zag shape in the bottom right is made by stitching fly stitches between the bars of the cretan stitches.

Then I switched to a different fabric. Mostly to be able to stitch closer -- I especially wanted to try the variation you can see in the top, layering three rows of stitches close to each other.

Of cause I had to give the Red Heart Aurica yarn a go this week too. Not as perfect a match as for feather stitch, but still a fun effect.

Next I wanted to do some beaded stitches. I tried adding bead both to the "bars" and to the centre, even doing a few stitches fully beaded. I prefer the ones with beads on the edges. (And I forgot to edit out that ugly stain, which I didn't see until I uploaded the pics... Did erase in the pic on Flickr so it'd look nicer. That's what you get for watchng TV, drinking must and having playful kittens around you when embroidering!)

The next stitches started as a variation on the think border shown in the second pic. Here three colours were used instead of one. For the bottom row, I did cretan in red and then added fly stitches on either side, purple on the top and orange on the bottom.

Here I stitched a row with green and then teal thread. The bottom row differs from the variation in the previous pic as I entered the fabric (with the teal thread) on one side of the green bar and came up again on the other, therefore covering the first layer of stitches more than previously. The stitches above that row is stitched with both green and teal thread on the same needle.

Then, finally, I also wanted to try using another novelty yarn. I ended up choosing Carat by Marks & Kattens. Should've used a slightly bigger needle, but it worked ok. It doesn't give such a special effect as the Aurica yarn, but it's always fun stitching with less common materials.

So that's it, my fourth week of the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge finished. I do enjoy this type of stitch (blanket/buttonhole, feather, cretan) so it's been a lot of fun. So far I haven't dared try any of the knotted variations, but I'll have to do that soon. Have to learn some of the trickier stitches too.

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What is TAST?

Take a Stitch Tuesday is a weekly embroidery challenge throughout the year by Sharon of Pin Tangle. You can read more about it here (or by clicking the TAST badge to the right).

To see what others have done in this stitch, check out the comments in this post on Pin Tangle. Be sure not to miss Sharon's lovely stitch variations in the actual post.

Bead soup teaser

2012-01-27T18:19:00.000+01:00

I was one of the lucky who won a spot in the fifth Bead Soup Blog Party, which -- as usual -- is hosted by Lori of Pretty Things. This will be my third time participating in this fun (and huge) event. For this party, I was partnered with Canadian jewellery maker Penny of Copper Penny Designs.

This week, I assembled a bead soup for her and I'm keeping my fingers crossed there'll be something she likes in that soup. It's always tricky picking a good mix for someone you don't know. Even if it's supposed to be a challenge, perhaps working with beads you wouldn't choose yourself, at the same time you want to give something that the recipient will enjoy and can feel inspired by. So I'm hoping it will be an appreciated and positive surprise when opened.

But... I have to confess this... Guess what I managed to do.

The day after I mailed the bead soup, I tidied up a bit in my bedroom and what do you think falls out of a blanket. Yes, that's right, a little something that was meant to be part of the soup, but which had slipped out when I wrapped the present and hidden in the blanket. D'oh! That's what you get for not sitting at a table doing this! Can I blame one of the kitties for taking it? It might've been the case, but I can't blame them as it was my fault if they could reach it in the first place (I try never to let components I'll be giving other be near the cats what with allergies and all).

Luckily it was just that one little thing (which was neither focal nor clasp, the two components mandatory to send) so there's still plenty of soup, but I really wanted to include it so there'll soon be a second letter on its way to Canada.

The year of the dragon

2012-01-26T19:45:00.001+01:00

I don't think anyone has missed that according to the chinese calendar -- and several other asian ones -- we have recently entered a new year, the year of the dragon. Of cause I love the idea of that, being a dragon lover and all.

The zodiac animal dragon is said to have many positive properties such as power, success, growth, change (to something better) and so on. And thus it's said to be a good thing to start a project or a business in the year of the dragon -- as well as being bort in its year.

This year's dragon is supposedly a water dragon. Water representing things like North, stillness and conservation. According to Wikipedia, "In Chinese Taoist thought, water is representative of intelligence and wisdom, flexibility, softness and pliancy; however, an over-abundance of the element is said to cause difficulty in choosing something and sticking to it. In the same way, Water can be fluid and weak, but can also wield great power when it floods and overwhelms the land." In Feng Shui it often represents wealth and money luck.

I don't believe in astrology -- western nor eastern -- but I do like symbolism so I kind of see it as a motivator, as a good sign that things maybe, maybe might be turning now. That I can get out of this rut and leave my miserable low self esteem behind me. That this is the year. This is the time for change. The time to find my way back again. The time I actually am good enough.

And can it perhaps be a good sign that the last year of the dragon was in 2000, which was a very important and life-changing year for me. It was the year I finished gymnasiet, applied for university, moved out and began my adventures in higher education and an independant life as a young adult. The year I finially decided on my path, that it was the environmental issues, not economy and business administration, that was my true calling. The very path I now worry I might have to give up, not having been able to get a job in that area. You know, the things I whined about here and also moaned about here after having turned 30. But I won't get into self-pitying whine mode now. Try to focus on those positive dragon characteristics.

Anyway, in the spirit of the theme, I thought I'd show you some of my dragons. As a dragon lover I do have a few at home. Not live ones obviously, but beads, pendants, porcelain figurines, books, posters etc. As I've shown some of my beads and pendants before, they won't be the focus here.

This little jug (it fits in the palm of the hand) with a blue-eyed dragon is one I've had since childhood. It might not be an expensive antique, but to me it was and is a treasured piece. In fact, it was one of my first dragons. (A few years ago I also bought two almost paper thing tea cups with similar dragon motifs.)

Like with the red dragon at the top of the post, this metal dragon is one I've bought a few years ago.

This perhaps a bit odd and wingless critter is a sala dragon. I bought it as a souvenir when we visited Sala silver mine. They were made by a local ceramic artist and sold to tourists. Unfortunately, I dropped him in the floor so half his lower jaw is missing...

These two dragons are of the kind you can find many in e.g. new age or gift shops.

One of my newest dragons is this detailed ojime bead. That you can find dragon, bat and cat ojime beads was one of the main reasons I longed to get some of those beads for years.

And that was it. Some of my treasured dragons.

Digital paintings

2012-01-26T16:45:00.000+01:00

I'm spending the afternoon working with photos. As uploading and basic editing can be a bit tedious if having many photos to process, I took a break to play around with the now free premium textures in Picnik. You might recognize the pics I've used from this post.

For each pic I used at least two different textures on top of each other, using different blending modes to create an effect I liked. I also added frames to two of them, but not sure it did much to enhance the "digital paintings". Sometimes a frame is a good way to delineate an image and create a transition between image and background. Perhaps even crucial. Other times it isn't really needed.

The "moon" in the image above is part of the texture. I added it just because it looked kind of like a moon or clouded sun, but it's not really a realistic effect. (Let's not even talk about realism when it comes to the sky in the next "painting".)

Kind of regret the frame around this one. Too much, perhaps. Too heavy, which makes it stand out more than the image, which should be the centre of attention. Anyway, I like the picture and frames can always be cropped later. That's one of the good things about creating on the computer. There's always previews and ctrl+z.

Snowy landscape

2012-01-23T19:44:00.000+01:00

Not all of the snow has melted again so today my sis and I went for a walk in the afternoon. Jisse followed us for a while, but it was too cold, he said (or rather, we saw how he shivered). And even worse: the icy crust was hard enough for him to put a paw on, but as soon as he put any body weight on the paw, the crust broke. Not always, but for about three of every four steps he took. It's really difficult for a little cat to walk in such snow, even if it's just a few centimetres deep.

The sun that was partially the reason for us deciding to go for a walk soon disappeared behind the heavy clouds so no in the end I didn't get any fab pics. But I did get a few I at least liked.

Here's an old roll of fencing. Walking past it, I was captured by the effect you get when looking at the layers upon layers of the same pattern. Before I show the more scenic photos, I wanted to show some macro shots.

These two pics should be view in full scale (click the image to do so). It's ice over gravel where the water drips from the gutter on the barn.

Moss and grass on one of the many low dry stone walls around here.

To the left you can see old bronze age mounds, to the right a more modern religion can be seen in the form of the curch in Hov. This is also a relatively big pic (700 px wide) so be sure to click it so you can enjoy it in full scale.

View over Skälderviken bay and the peninsula of Kullen. If I seem to only take photos from this point during wintertime there's a reason for it: during the warmer months there's a lot of electric fences, cows and crops in the way between this spot and our house. Too much of a hassle (and last year one of the neighbour's cows was unreliable so we were warned to not be on the wrong side of the fences).

The rest of the pics were a bit so-so even after editing in Picnik so I took the opportunity to add effects in Pixlr-o-matic which I like, but before getting that far, I found Pixlr's new Express and had to give that a go. Now that Picnik is shutting down, I'll have to check out the other free image editors to find a new favourite. So far Pixlr Express seems interesting and I like that it has all the o-matic has but without the hassle of flipping back and forth plus some image editing tools. And you can use multiple overlays, effects and borders -- something I missed using the o-matic. For the rest of the things I want to be able to do with my photos, I'll probably have to check out the Editor -- just having looked at it a few minutes, it looks promising.

First one's my favourite. That's why it's at the top. With the second pic, I used a ripped frame to remove a part of the image I didn't like. With the third pic, I forgot it's a bad idea to add a (toned out) black frame on top of a white one: it turns the white frame grey. Should've done it the other way around. Well, now I'm sure to remember it next time!

Bead blog recap weeks 2-3

2012-01-22T17:20:00.000+01:00

It's time for the first recap of my writings at Manekis Pärlblogg for the year. As usual there's everything from project tips to fun websites, but this time with unusually many tips on contests and challenges.

Read more »

Flower embroidery

2012-01-21T16:32:00.000+01:00

Inspired by my "flowering feather stitches" that you could read about yesterday, I stitches a few more lucite flowers last night. This time I just wanted to try a different way of embroidering with centre-drilled flowers and beads. Normally you fasten flowers like this by "locking" it with a seed beads. Thinking about the long stamen you can find on e.g. the delicated little veronicas (speedwell), I thought it might not always be a bad to have thread showing. So I simple tacked it down with four straight stitches between the petals. For the flower at the top, I also added a small french knot to the centre.

I also added leaves to some of the flowers. A stalk of doubled feather stitch for the middle fllower and doubled fly stitches for the flower in the bottom left corner. My favourite is in the bottom right corner. There I added small lazy daisies between each petal.

Going through my flower bead box for additonal flowers to stitch, my eyes fell on my black metal bead caps that I bought to use as flowers rather than caps. Of cause I had to embroider with one of those!

Here I first tacked down the cap using straight stitches between each petal and then I anchored it further by stitching around each petal and then over two petals at the time (resulting in the pentagram/star shape you might see in the middle). To make the centre less hollow, I ended by making a small stitch over the threads in the middle.

The big question now is what to do next, using this technique and : an embroidered piece of jewellery (pendant, brooch, bracelet) or "just" embroideries. It'd be fun doing an embroidery (as in wall art or other kind of work that isn't jewellery/wearable art) with bead cap flowers. A different way of using findings and jewellery components. Maybe a whole piece, embroidering with various findings such as chains, bead caps, tags etc? I just thought of that. Now there's an idea!

So either that or do jewellery, which is what I am -- a jewellery maker (and beader). Perhaps a cute bracelet with lucite flowers and lazy daisy leaves.

Snow day -- and a note on my blog list

2012-01-21T16:26:00.000+01:00

It's been snowing today. It just recently stopped. They've promised up to 10 cm today, but as it's very wet it won't be that much left on the ground. But the weather's kept me indoors today. No fun running between houses (i.e. the house where my sis and I lives and the main house where our parents live -- and where I sit using their computer) when you're being "attacked" by big, wet snowflakes. Not even the kittens wanted to be outdoors much today.

Above is a pic I took a few hours ago from my bedroom window. Below is two more I took just recently from the computer room (which has a window I couldn't open). The first one is most recent: the second I took while it was still snowing a little.

The blog list issue

As I'm already writing, I wanted to add a note about the blog list that has disappeared. What happened was I tried to update it, but it didn't work. So I made a new list. It worked, but I'd forgotten some blogs and when trying to add them, it didn't work. So I made yet another list -- and it flat out refuses to be saved. So now I have no blog list, updated or otherwise. Have tried that many times now for a couple of days. Even switching computers and web browser to see if that was the problem, but that had no effect. Not sure what the problem is (listing 187 blogs -- might that be it?) and so far I haven't made an effort to search the help forums or anything. Hopefully it'll resolve itself soon.

If anyone knows how to fix this, I'd love to know!

In the mean time, you can always go to my Blogger profile for some blog tips. It's not all the blogs I read, but many of them.

TAST week 3: Feather stitch

2012-01-20T18:57:00.001+01:00

English name: feather stitch

Swedish name: kråkspark

*UPDATE: I've added some new detailed photos -- and another feather stitch variation made last night*

Feather stitch is another one of my favourite stitches. Not just because of its slightly odd swedish name: kråkspark literally means crow kick. I pretty much like all stitches you "lasso", thread, whip or interlace. And I especially like stitches that have an organic feel, that meaned like vines or make great branches and flowers.

For my first attempt at beaded feather stitch, see this post on my WIP ribbon bracelet. For this week's challenge I only made one beaded version and that was with the 2-hole tila beads (by Miyuki) as you can see in the top right corner of the pic above. Thought the bead would align perfectly with the u-shape of the feather stitches, but you can't really see much of the stitch, working it like this and there's no real benefit to stitching a 2-hole bead this way so it's perhaps more fun than useful. I'm thinking about trying it with PreciosaOrnela's Twin beads too. Because of their shape the stitch might be more visible so to speak.

I've done several "traditional" variations inspired by a embroidery book borrowed from the library. That's the lavender stitches at top. There you can for example see chained feather stitch (second from the left) and grouped feather stitch.

The sixth and last of the lavender stitches is a basic stitch with a twist. Literally: the stitches are twisted the same way I did with some of the fly stitches here.

I had an idea to make a row with novelty yarn. Eyelash yarn was the idea, but looking at them, I felt it wasn't going to be pretty. So instead my eyes fell on another ball of yarn: Red Heart Aurica. It's just perfect for this stitch!

Then I went on to do some variations including fly stitch (to the right, lower half of the picture). First I added fly stitches to a row of feather stitch, using the same colour for both. For the second row, I added purple fly stitches. The third row is purple feather stitch with a second row of pink feather stitches on top of the first.

The last thing I did was another take on beaded feather stitch, but instead of seed beads I use tiny lucite (acrylic) flowers that I added directly to the stitches. As you can see, I tried to add them both to the middle and on the edge of the stitches. The flowers do end up sitting slightly slanted against the fabric, but if you don't want to add the flowers afterwards and think it takes too long to do, this is an option.

...and that's the result of my third weekly TAST challenge.

Oh, yes -- if you've missed my feather stitch bangle (which I consider part of my challenge result) you can see more of it here.

...aaaand then I went and did this last night. Inspired by the bi-colour (or magical) chain stitch. Same principle, but with feather stitch.

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What is TAST?

Take a Stitch Tuesday is a weekly embroidery challenge throughout the year by Sharon of Pin Tangle. You can read more about it here (or by clicking the TAST badge to the right).

To see what others have done in this stitch, check out the comments in this post on Pin Tangle.

Flower vine bangle

2012-01-19T17:20:00.000+01:00

If I had to choose one word to describe this bangle it'd be challenge. Not that it was a huge challenge to design and make, but because it is the result of two different challenges.

First, the idea to wrap this wooden bangle base with recycled sari ribbon came from my participating in B'Sue's sari ribbon party blog hop back in October. I'd wanted to do something with wrapped fibre, but in the end, I did something very different from that. But then in December I sat down and wrapped this bangle I bought ages ago intending to wrap it with thread, cord or some such. After wrapping it, I didn't have any ideas for embellishment that felt good enough. Scrapped the idea to use copper wire for example. Thought vaguely about embroidery, but in the end it just sat there in a UFO/project inspiration tray for ages.

Then came 2012 and I had signed up for the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. The first week the stitch of the week was fly stitch. This week's stitch was one of my favourites: feather stitch. Inspired by that I made this embroidery using DMC mouliné cotton floss for the feather stitch vine and hand-dyed flower thread (by Tentakulum) for the fly stitch flowers.

Maybe I should've used another hue of green or used flower thread instead of mouliné -- and it's far from the prettiest feather stitches I've ever made -- but I still think it looks ok. And it felt great to finally finish this project!

TAST week 2: buttonhole stitch (part 2)

2012-01-16T17:32:00.000+01:00

*Part 1 can be found here.*

There's still a few variations I haven't tried yet, like buttonhole wheels, snäcksöm and grouped blanket stitch where you stitch the bars one one side and then the other. Not to mention up-and-down buttohole stitch (but that might be a separat stitch for another week?). I'll hopefully get around to them too. Some day.

These are stitched on a scrap piece of cotton fabric. There are several reasons why these stitches aren't even: I'm no good at making even blanket stitches unless working on aida, I didn't draw any lines which could've helped me -- and I watched telly while making several of these stitches. In dim light. Not always a good idea, but then again, I'm mostly seeing this as an excersize and as doodle sessions. More about learning a stitch and experimenting with variations than to practise on making even stitches.

The above versions are all beaded. I wanted to do this as it was Jane Davis book on beaded needlework stitches that was part of renewing my interest in needlework so I wanted to fuse my new interest with my passion for beads. It's all buttonhole stitches, even the top row (the stitches are so small you can't really see the bars).

The black beads are Miyuki's mini drops. Unfortunately it's hard to tell as the fabric pushes them "belly up". Drops probably works better on edges where they can hang free -- after all, they are known as "fringe beads" for a reason.

And then I made some variations without beads too. The first half of the top row is made with double rows of stitches. The seven or so first stitches have then been whipped together. I like to whip stitches -- and it looks very nice when you do it with this stitch.

On this piece, I also wanted to include fly stitches as you can see in the last half of the first row and in the upside-down stitches in the bottom right corner. I quite like that stitch in the corner.Below is a close-up of it, turned the right side up.

As usual I've used plain old mouliné cotton floss -- with the exception of the triple row stitches, which are made using space-dyed linen thread. A bit too heavy for this cheap, flimsy cotton fabric scrap. Well, you live and you learn...

And a last pic. Did several rows of slanted stitches on aida and then filled in some of the open spaces with cross stitches to create a pattern.

That's it. The result of the second week of TAST. I do wonder what stitch we'll get this week...

Tangerine Tango bracelet

2012-01-15T20:51:00.000+01:00

I'm not just embroidering, I do still make jewellery. As mentioned before, I've taken on the Pantone Colour of the Year, Tangerine Tango, as a personal colour challenge for 2012. Here's my first finished piece inspired by that vibrant red orange.

This is a simple braclet made from a large gold-plated curb chain and heavy space-dyed rayon yarn that I wove through the links of the chain. I finished off by adding a big lobster clasp to the chain (with unsoldered chains like this one you don't need jump rings, just attach the clasp directly to the chain by opening the link like a jump ring).

Simple, but I like it. Not my favourite colours, but I don't hate them. I'm probably going to do some more bracelets in this design, trying different yarns, cords and ribbons to see how that changes the look.

So, anyone else who's challenged themselves and made something Tangerine Tango yet?

Previous post on the "Tangerine Tango challenge":

Tangerine Tango -- a new personal colour challenge
Tangerine Tango? (I do have an idea for that gimp now actually)

TAST week 2: buttonhole stitch

2012-01-13T19:30:00.002+01:00

English name: buttonhole stitch, blanket stitch (or not as some say it's the same, others that it's not -- se e.g. this link)

Swedish name: langettstygn, langettsöm

Oh, I'm a big fan of langett and have used it many times. Even for things it might not be intended such as mending clothes with ripped seams. I like that it's so fast and easy, I almost forget to stop once I get going.

I'm hoping to do some more this weekend as I've so far only stitched on counted fabric this time and would like to do some more "free form" stitches too. The aida used is actually scraps cut off from a larger, mounted embroidery (one of my mum's), which I've saved for something like 15+ years, stored together with my aida squares. There you see -- never throw away things. They might come in handy one day.

I've dabbled with several different variations here. Some, like the crossed bars and the version with detached chain stitches, are variations I've seen in books or online. Others are just ideas that popped into my head. The two rows with fly stitches in the first pic was just an idea that I thought would be fun to try: what if I try to incorporate last week's stitch in to one of the variations of this week's stitch? Wonder if it'll be possible to do the same thing for the rest of the weeks?

I'm not going to describe how I made all the variations, but if you wonder about any of them in particular, I'll do my best to describe how it's stitched. You just have to ask. It's also possible to click the pics for close-ups so you can see more of the details.

The eyelash yarn is not couched, which is possible to do with buttonhole/blanket stitches, but woven into the "bars" of the buttonhole stitches. I saw that being called darned or woven buttonhole stitch in and old UK or US embroidery pamphlet I downloaded from the Net.

This is one of the stitches I tried in my doodling sessions this autumn. Below you can see the variations I tried there. Because I did a lot of different stitches on that piece of christmas red aida, you can see a few other stitches too, but it's mainly buttonhole/blanket stitch variations.

My favourites here are probably the "multiple row" ones in the first pic. Especially the one with the offset rows.

Buttonhole or blanket stitch is always fun. Almost always easy. And very useful, be it in embroidery or for edgings. In my mind, it never gets boring as you can always find a new variation. Or if not, the sheer usefulness combined with the simplicity makes it a pleasure to use in it's basic variation too.

--
What is TAST?
Take a Stitch Tuesday is a weekly embroidery challenge throughout the year by Sharon of Pin Tangle. You can read more about it here (or by clicking the TAST badge to the right).

To see what others have done in this stitch, check out the comments in this post on Pin Tangle.

...and then the snow was gone

2012-01-10T17:41:00.000+01:00

I knew it already yesterday that the snow would be gone by today. My sis had told me the temp would go up. And so this is what it looks like outside today. Very different from yesterday.

Took a new photo of one of our bamboo plants. I love bamboo and as it's an evergreen it's a thankful photo object this time of year. This time it was with the intent to do something fun in Pixlr-o-matic with it. But I ended up not being able to choose effects so therefore it's two instead of just one photo below.

Yeah... I'm thinking the first one turned out better...

Som trivia about bamboo: In Chinese art, bamboo is known as one of the "three friends of winter", the other two being pine and plum (more specifically méi, also known as ume in Japanese). Three plants that do not wither or die when winter approaches and therefore came to symbolize properties like perseverance, integrity and modesty. I've thought about doing jewellery on that theme, but it's never gone beyond just loose ideas. I have made a few pieces inspired by just bamboo, though.

TAST week 1: fly stitch (update)

2012-01-10T17:14:00.000+01:00

I've added some more "doodles" this weekend so I thought I'd show an updated version of the fly stitch "sampler". You can read more about the sample and TAST challenge in my previous TAST post here.

Ideally I wanted to add a fly stitch pendant too, but it isn't finished yet. Got sidetracked, but not by the usual suspect (Internet), but by a book. Which feels more ok to be consumed by somehow. I'm re-reading Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of al-Rassan so while I should be familiar with the story, I'm still reading it like it's new to me and find cliff hangers that means I just have to read one more chapter. It's a few years since I read it the first time.

Anyway, the fly stitches. It's just a few more variations. Tiny stitches compared to the first ones -- do click the picture for a close-up. I like how a loose twisted fly stitch done upside-down turns into an awareness ribbon. My favourites are the vine on the right and the little wing/moth motif over the second pink flower.

(At first I didn't do many vines/ferns/branches as in Swedish embroidery books that's considered another stitch, kvistsöm. Kvistsöm can also be made in a different way and is then called fern stitch in English.)

And now I'm on to week 2. This time it's all about blanket stitch -- and I intend to use beads this time. Will show pics later this week.

Afternoon snow

2012-01-09T20:40:00.000+01:00

Some time after noon it began snowing today. First snow of the new year. Of cause I had to take some photos. I actually took these leaning out of my bedroom window as I didn't want to go outside, while it still snowed as the camera might be damaged.

Julle of cause had to run out to play after it'd snowed for a few hours more. Jisse didn't want to join it, preferring to sleep on a cozy blanket (after keeping me from sleeping this morning -- I think we both suffer from sleep deprivation today after hours of him demanding to be cuddled). Jinja did venture outside, though. Not as fond of the snow as Julle, but she had to check it out -- and be attacked by the hyper-active maniac.

I'm not exactly sure what Jinja is doing in that last pic. She's either trying to catch a snowflake or her tail. Or possibly both. At the same time. Both Julle and Jinja tried to catch falling snowflakes when I didn't have the camera ready. Really cute.

And I visited Pixlr-o-matic for the first time in ages, resulting in these two images:

They had some new overlays and frames I just had to try. It can be a lot of fun playing around with photos like this. Only problem is, it can be so hard to choose between all the options. In the end I just had to say stop and save what I had in front of me at the moment or I'd still be there, not being able to choose what frame to use...

TAST week 1: Fly stitch

2012-01-05T16:49:00.004+01:00

English name: fly stitch

Swedish name: öppet/öppna kedjestygn, y-stygn

*UPDATE: there's a new pic of my spot sampler with new stitches here.*

So here it is, finally, my first Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. The first stitch of the year is fly stitch, a small stitch that can be very fun and versatile to work with. This was one of the stitches I learned last year when took up my interest in embroidery again after 15+ years. Pics of the (few) fly stitches I did then can be found below.

I've embroidered these little doodles on a thick polyester felt if you wonder what that porous surface is -- I'm pretty much using up scrap fabric and old cotton floss for this challenge. As you can see, I do consider myself to be a beginner level embroiderer. In other words: please don't expect perfect, even stitches, ideal choices of materials etc.

The doodles I'm most pleased with are the "maltese cross" on the right (made with four long-stemmed stitches and four large regular fly stitches in between) and the border with two rows of interlocked stitches in the middle left. I liked making doubled stitches, e.i. stitching a second v in the same tacking stitch (the third pink flower from the left is made from a triple fly stitch), and making twisted fly stitches as the on i the lower right corner.

The first ever fly stitches I made looked like this:

Fly stitch is fab stitch that I most likely will use a lot in the future. There's so much potential in it and it's so easy to make.

--
What is TAST?
Take a Stitch Tuesday is a weekly embroidery challenge throughout the year by Sharon of Pin Tangle. You can read more about it here (or by clicking the TAST badge to the right).

Embroidery on filigree -- an update

2012-01-04T19:21:00.000+01:00

I wrote about embroidering on filigree a few days ago and promised to show some more of it when it was finished. And here it is, my embroidered gunmetal filigree.

I'm thinking of adding a backing of leather, faux skin or somesuch to protect the threads on the back and add findings. Because of that I haven't fastened the floss used to whip the edges as I'll have to redo it, whipping the backing to the filigree. It'll either be a pendant or a brooch. Brooch was my first thought, but I fear the cast filigree might be a bit too heavy for that so a pendant is more likely now.

I also made a second pendant, stitching on a thin stamped brass filigree. It's a very simple "design" that I made while pondering what to stitch on the gunmetal filigree.

The brass filigree had larger open spaces which made it harder to stitch on, both in terms of creating designs and stitches and in terms of hiding the threads on the back (e.i. you can't travel with the thread as much as in the gunmetal filigree).

Bead mix variations

2012-01-02T17:25:00.000+01:00

I keep going through a lot of photos that's just lying around. This is a series of pics I took of a shell pearl mix I bought from Rings & Things. While I liked the colours enough to buy the strand, the combo wasn't really my favourite. But then I culled one of the colours and suddenly, the colour combo felt more harmonious. That led me to experimenting with different ways of combining the colours, omitting one or two colours at the time. The result of that can be seen in these following photos. (Unfortunately taken outside on a very bright -- and windy! -- day so please excuse the harsh shadows and highlights.)

So what did I learn from that? Well, if you've got a bead mix that doesn't feel just right, try and remove one or more colours and the mix might turn out more appealing and useful for you. On mix can contain several interesting colour combos if you just look for them.

It's of cause easier to do this with "big" beads than with tiny seed beads. With seed beads it's easier to alter a bead mix you don't like by adding more beads, either in a new colour or in one of the colours already found in the mix (though think before you do it or you just end up with a bigger pile of beads in messy colours).

PS! I did end up using one of the two-colour combos above actually: they can be found in this bracelet.

Hopes for the new year

2011-12-31T18:06:00.000+01:00

The blogs are filled with people wishing others a happy new year and planning ahead for 2012 now. Some are sending out greetings to their readers and followers, others are making resolutions and preparing for their own personal challenges or inspirational mottos for the new year. I was just going to publish the photos today and let that be my greeting to you on this day, but then I just read this new year's wish from Neil Gaiman on his blog and thought it really applied to us beaders and jewellery makers -- in our personal lifes as well as in our creative pursuits -- so I wanted to share it with you:

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever."

You can read his whole new year's eve post at Neil Gaiman's Journal.

Now I'm going to enjoy the last six hours of this year. And I hope you're doing the same. See you next year!

New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T17:45:00.000+01:00

A couple of years ago, I began a new tradition: to photograph my surroundings on the afternoon of every December 31st. In 2009 it looked like this (with the big, pink moon rising on the lavender blue sky) and last year -- which was a very white winter -- it looked like this. Today the weather was as it often is on new year's eve around here: foggy. Last night the sky was clear and starry, but tonight when everybody -- more or less -- want to see the fireworks, it's of cause foggy. Foggy and frosty -- which means you can get some nice photos:

Because of the fog, I didn't go for a long walk. Just around the garden and then up on the hill.

(Above picture might give you an idea of how thick the fog were at times. The colours makes it look like it's about to snow -- or, had it been summer, a thunder storm about to come -- but that's not the case. Pretty realistic colours, but different from the rest in many ways.)

...and then there were some photos with a bit more colour than the ones above:

Happy New Year!

Working with stick pearls...

2011-12-30T16:58:00.000+01:00

I bought these biwa pearls -- or, more correctly, stick pearls -- ages ago. They were on sale and I liked both the colours and the shape. Very autumnal, which is something I'm drawn to and often find inspirational. But, alas, so far I've not even used one pearl on that strand. Especially silly considering I've even written this post on stick pearl jewellery projects to inspire others...

Maybe I should just pick out twelve of the most challenging -- and perhaps most forgotten -- "old" beads or other components/supplies in my stash and label them each with a month, from january to december. Sometime during the course of each month I have to use the strand/bag/hank/spool/box -- all of it or some of it -- labelled with the month in question. Or perhaps pick out 24 things and combine them two and two as a monthly variation of a muffin tin challenge [but with the notion that I can add other things freely to the two items assigned to each month]?

Yes, perhaps I should do that. It's a shame, really, to just have these lovely pearls tucked away, collecting dust in a bead tray, when they could make fab jewellery. I know it's not the first time I talk about challenging myself this way, but then forgetting about it.* Perhaps New Year will be a good deadline for actually comitting to such a challenge once and for all?

* = Doesn't apply to the Tangeringe Tango "challenge" -- I've at least one WIP for that one right now and have selected beads and fibre for some more. Including an idea for this gimp cord.

WIP: embroidery on filigree

2011-12-30T16:08:00.001+01:00

Here's another current WIP (work in progess) I've been playing around with. My idea was to embroider with cotton floss on a piece of cast filigree sort of in the same way you can use jewellery components like these for embroidered jewellery. (That type of components can also be used for beading and just plain odd things.)

This filigree is cast and has less sharp edges than several of my thin stamped filigrees so I hope it's easier on the soft thread -- my biggest worry, embroidering on metal, is that the hard edges will wear down the embroidery threads.

This is a WIP rather than a finished piece by now mainly because I've got no idea what to embroider: what colours to use, what pattern to create, what other stitches (if any) to use. It's just a doodle and I haven't got an inkling how I want to finish it. Guess it could be left as it is, but I want something more -- though without totally obscuring the pretty pattern in the filigree. And preferrably it shouldn't have any beads as it's not meant to be a bead embroidery.

Well, well... no idea when it'll be finished, but hopefully soon. And perhaps I'll get some ideas from the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge, which begins already next week (yes, it's almost 2012 already!).

If you're interest in seeing what the filigree looked like before being embroidered (not that it's covered up that much -- yet), here's a pic from the shop I got if from, Perles & Co. (You can click on the pic to go directly to the product page for a bigger photo.)

Violet cider

2011-12-27T17:06:00.000+01:00

What do you do when you have a bottle filled with beverage in a pretty colour and decorated with nice florals? Well, you begin to take photos of it...

This is a bottle of violet cider (apple cider with sweet violet flavour and food colouring), a limited edition by Herrljunga to celebrate their 100th anniversary. I bought it some time ago, mainly because I like violets so I was curious to give it a try. Plus the colour is pretty.

Below, you can see more of what the bottle looks like (when you don't take photos of the plastic label through the bottle).

Dagger flower tutorial

2011-12-25T22:32:00.000+01:00

*Instruktioner på svenska finns HÄR*

So here's the English version of my "christmas gift" to my blog readers, my second dagger flower tutorial. These instructions are just for the flower, not a whole piece of jewellery -- I will leave it up to your own imagination, how to use it and incorporate it in a whole design. As always I'd love to see what you make with my tutorials so do feel free to post a link or e-mail me if you want to show me what the tutorials on this blog has inspired you to create.

If you like beading with dagger beads, don't miss my other bead flower tutorial for the Dagger Flower Drops.

This flower was developed from my dagger-and-lentil flower, which you can read more about here. One of my original inspirations was a free lentil flower tutorial at Beads Mania -- if you like cute little bead flowers, be sure to check that one out.

Supplies for one flower:

10 daggers, 16 mm
5 fire-polished drops, 7 mm
5 11/0 seed beads
Beading thread (e.g. K.O. or Fireline)

Tools: 2 beading needles, scissors

Tekniker: 2-needle right-angle weave/cross-weaving, surgeon's knot

1. Cut a comfortable length of thread (e.g. 40 cm). String one drop and two daggers as in the photo and centre on the thread.

2. Cross the threads through a dagger bead.

3. Continue stringing the remaining beads as in the previous step. Pull the threads to tighten the tension after each crossing. It's not always easy to keep the tension tight, but it's ok as you will remedy this later. At this point, it's mostly to keep the beads from tangling or swirl.

4. Make sure all daggers point in the same direction. If a dagger is trapped on the wrong side, loosen the thread tension, push the bead back to the correct position and tighten the threads again.

5. When the last drop and dagger has been strung, cross the threads through the first dagger to form a circle with the daggers pointing outwards. Pull the threads and make sure they don't catch on any beads or that a beads get tangled in the rest.

Continue by passing through the next dagger with your right-side needle and through the next drop with your left-side needle. Pull the thread before stringing through the next dagger using you left-side needle. See illustration of the thread paths below.

(As it's hard to take a picture of this step, I've chosen to show it with just four beads, equivalent to the beads strung in steps 1-2.)

6. Making sure the tension is tight, tie the two knots with a surgeon's knot. At this point, the flower will most likely feel a bit floppy (unless you used a very heavy/stiff thread). We will fix this in the following steps.

7. Take one of the threads back to the front of the flower by going through the dagger. Keeping a tight tension, circle through the drop beads several times until the flower feels rigid and the beads are nested tightly together.

8. Return the thread to the back of the flower. Move it aside so it doesn't get in the way of the other thread.

9. Pick up the other thread and sew throught the nearest dagger of the five that constitute the five back petals. String one seed bead and go through the next dagger.

10. Repeat the previous step until you come full circle and then continue circling through the dagger and seed beads until the flower feels stabile. As before, be sure to tighten the thread as you go along so the flower firms up. Exit the beads when next to the first thread.

Knot the threads with a surgeon's knots. Finish by going through a couple of the beads before cutting the threads.

11. You flower is now ready to be used.

Tip: You can also make a smaller flower using 11 mm daggers, 3,4 mm drops and 15/0 seed beads. (You can also use 6 mm smooth drops for the big flower, but I prefer the look of fire-polished drops.)

Season's greetings

2011-12-24T16:28:00.000+01:00

It's Christmas eve. Green as predicted as the snow washed away. I'm listening to christmas music, eating chocolate and eagerly awaiting the christmas ham (one of the few things I actually eat on the julbord). I thought I'd take a minute to wish you all a very merry christmas. And thank you so much, all of you who read, follow and/or comment on this little blog of mine. I really appreciate it even if I'm not always good at letting you know how much it means to me.

I hope you're having a lovely and peaceful holiday, enjoying the spirit of the season. Relax, remember to savour the good things -- the little things that can make the season magical and merry -- and drive carefully.

God jul!

Merry Christmas!

Recipe: Nutella chocolate

2011-12-24T15:35:00.001+01:00

It's Christmas today and of cause I've had time to cook both traditional and less traditional sweets. This year, I experimented with Nutella -- not something I buy very often, but was inspired by all the American Nutella recipes on Pinterest -- and came up with this, a version of the peanut chocolate recipe. I see it as a tastier version of ischoklad. We used to do ischoklad every christmas when we were kids, but I never really liked it when I got older.

This recipe has the same soft, melting character as ischoklad, but with more flavour and a less buttery feeling. If you want to avoid transfats and palm oil, you can use homemade Nutella, but not having tried it myself I can't say if the texture will be the same. There are several recipes for it online, just google "homemade nutella" and see which recipe you prefer. One simple recipe for chocolate hazelnut butter can be found here.

This recipe lists the exact ingredients I used, but you can use whatever chocolate you prefer -- certainly no need to use both dark and milk chocolate. You probably want to avoid sweet chocolate as the Nutella is already packed with sugar. Unless it's for kids who wouldn't mind a mild, sweet chocolate taste.

Nutella chocolate

100-125 gram Nutella (or other brand of chocolate hazelnut spread)
125 gram dark chocolate 55-60 %
25 gram milk chocolate 36 %
½-¾ dl roasted and skinned hazelnuts (optional)

1. Chop the chocolate.

2. In a heat-resistant bowl, melt the Nutella and chocolate in a waterbath on the stovetop or in the microwave oven. Stir well to completely mix the ingredients.

3. Pour into mini muffin cups or ischoklad cups.

4. Add a couple of hazelnut to each cup if you want. You can also add the nuts to the chocolate before pouring it in cups if you prefer that (in that case, you might want to chop up the hazelnuts a bit first).

Store cool in an air-tight container.

Note: Hazelnuts can be roasted in a skillet on the stovetop or in a pan in the oven. Mine were roasted at 225 °C (437 °F) 5-10 minutes, stirring a few times during the process. Rub the cooled nuts with a towel to remove the skins. Roasted hazelnuts have a fuller taste and you don't get the slightly bitter off-flavour of the skins.

Bead blog recap weeks 49-50

2011-12-22T17:32:00.000+01:00

Yes, I forgot the recap (= last two weeks of posts on my other blog, Manekis Pärlblogg) and then I thought it was better to wait until Christmas as I'll be publishing a "christmas gift" on it on the 24th. But then again, I will be publishing that on this blog too so I might as well do the recap today. Hope you find something you like there.

This time you can find everything from faux geodes and candy necklaces to tutorials on fishskin tanning and december challenges.

Read more »

Do you believe in dragons?

2011-12-22T16:04:00.000+01:00

I promised dragons, but I've been a bit too busy to write what I wanted about it (been out photographing, baking, making christmas sweets etc). So instead I'll just show this initial "digital doodle" I made on the theme 'believe in dragons'. The dragons is close to invisible compared to my previous dragon doodle, but that's also the idea here: see the dragon if you want to or ignore him if you prefer realism to magic and fairy tales. But he's there if you just choose to look a little closer. (There's a little cartoon kitty too.)

I made a second version of this pic, which I'll show when I get around to write that text.

WIP: fuzzy bracelet

2011-12-21T20:40:00.001+01:00

I made this bracelet last night. Had no plan, just twisted the "ribbon", but kind of liked the result. Right now I'm sitting here thinking whether I should add some beads, charms, fibre or anything else to it before finishing it with a button closure. Thinking of it as a stackable bracelet, intended to be worn together with a couple of other bracelets, and if so, I guess it doesn't need as much embellishment as if worn alone.

Have to think about it while picking out a suitable button for the clasp. Anyone else got any ideas or suggestions?

Snowy landscape

2011-12-21T20:31:00.000+01:00

Well, we had a little sun around noon today so I took the opportunity to take some more photos. No masterpieces, but a way to enjoy the snow while it lasts. I wanted to get a photo or two of the birds, but with three kittens in tow the birds weren't keen to approach the feeding spot. Did get this pic of a nuthatch and great tit, though.

And some mixed photos:

And early tomorrow morning (our time), the winter solstice occur, meaning that the days now will get longer again. Together with the snow, the days not just feel longer but also brighter, compared to the grey darkness of November. So let's hope there will be a (moderately) white season this winter again.

First snow

2011-12-20T19:42:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know I said there was going to be more dragons today, but then I woke up today and it was snowing. That means the dagons have to wait.

Now, it has snowed one night before this, but that melted before dawn and while there were a few snowflakes in the air a few days ago, they never made it all the way to the ground. So this is officially the first snowy day of the winter -- and to make it even better it was the day I introduced the kittens to snow. They did have a lot of fun two weeks ago when there was a massive hail shower in the morning so they have already experienced playing in white, frozen water. But this was their first time playing in snow.

Julle had already seen the snow from my bedroom window. Later, when I was getting up, I grabbed Jisse (who was sleeping in my bed) and put him in the window, pointing at the snow. He didn't seem that interest at first, but when I returned him to bed, he suddenly made a big jump from bed to window -- seems like snow actually was more exciting than he let on. I regret not having the camera with me when I first opened the door for the kittens. They all sat there on the threshold, in a row, just looking at the snow.

Three kittens, three reactions. Julle loved it, ran out and began digging and pushing the snow, jumped in it and ran around. Jisse came next, but was as excited as Julle. Still thought snow was a fun thing, though, and began playing with Julle. But the little girl, Jinja, she remained by my side in the doorway, looked up at me, whimpered loudly and then looked at the boys, the snow and the stone by the door. They often sit on that stone when going in and out, not least Jinja. But this time she shouldn't jump up on it because it was covered in cold, wet snow. Yuck!

Well, after a while she did overcome her scepticism. Not as fond of it as the boys, but it was ok at least. And when we began throwing snow balls, well, then even she found snow to be fun. Still, sleet is wet and cold so she preferred not being out as long as the boys.

As for the adult cats, they were pretty much indifferent. No surprise there. Though, on a sunnier, less wet day I do think at least some of them will turn into kittens again as we have our little snowball "fights".

I did take some photos of the surroundings too. I'm afraid those pics are rather crappy too: there's been no sunshine today and all photos came out dark and noisy. Oh, well, better luck next time. It's not like it only snows one day a winter, not even down here.

It was a couple of degrees above zero so it was more sleet than snow really. I'm not sure how long it'll last as the weather will get warmer at the end of the week. It doesn't excatly look like we're going to have a white christmas, but then again, we rarely have those here in Skåne.

Dreaming of dragons

2011-12-19T19:24:00.000+01:00

Here's another on of my "digital doodles". Initially, the idea was to make some sort of christmas greeting, but it kind of turned into a dark dragon image instead... I guess there might be a reason for that: love dragons, there's a couple among the stickers available at Picnik -- and I'm re-reading some of the fantasy books in my bookshelf (as a substitute to buying something new). No dragons in them, but magic and dragons are like personifications of magic and non-realistic fiction. And apparently the dragon stickers were more inspirational than the Christmas stickers -- and not having PSE anymore, I can't work with layers upon layers of my own images, am limited to using what's available at Picnik. The free version of Picnik even; I don't have access to any premium features.

I'll get back to my reading, there's a little something about it I'd like to share, but not today. Today all you get is a black dragon against a blood red sky. No jewellery, no beads -- not even any embroidery floss (eventhough I got a whole bunch from Mollie, having won them in a giveaway at her blog, Wild Olive. There'll be another dragon tomorrow. More low-key and more in line with the things I'm contemplating, re-reading Moonlight and vines. Not my favourite author, I'm afraid, but de Lint did strike a chord with me yesterday.

Well, anyway, maybe this can still become a Christmas card? For dragon lovers, presumably. Just write an appropriate holiday greeting instead of (the barely legible) Dreaming of dragons. I'm listening to the christmas channel on Sveriges Radio's web radio so maybe that can get me in the mood to make a christmas dragon "card". Surely there must be christmas dragons?

Embroidery thread for Christmas

2011-12-16T18:13:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling a bit stressed, which is odd. Now, I know a lot of people are stressed this time of year, but that's people how try to juggle work, gift shopping for the kids, Christmas dinner preparations and more at the same time. I don't have a job, I live in a family that don't do a lot of gift giving and julbordet is mainly my mom's task. So why do I feel stressed and restless on and off these days?

I guess a large portion of it is "residue stress" from ordering things online, making choices of what to buy and what not to buy, hoping they'll make it in time for Christmas and part is that I want certain things done before the new year. And then there's the daily advent calendar contests and giveaways I don't want to miss. Or maybe it's just a late reaction on the whole turning 30 thing. "I'm getting old, time's precious and shouldn't be spent in front of the computer", "what am I doing with my life", "everyone my age's got man, babies, home of their own and careers" "I'm tired of people seeing me as a failure, but am lost for what to do" sort of. Or maybe I'm picking up other people's Christmas stress?

So -- whatever the real cause may be -- while I should have more free time than most people right now, I've felt slightly stressed out and been really bad at reading all the blogs I enjoy and just generally being even more hopeless at the social interaction thing than usual. Not sure if it's Christmas or a late reaction to turning 30. Anyway, I've ordered everything I need for Christmas and gotten it, will do the last food shopping tomorrow and have written my last blog post for the year at Maneki's Pärlblogg so now I'll try to unwind. Pick up my beads -- and my new embroidery floss. Because this is what I got the other day in the mail, my Christmas gift to myself.

Above you can see two skeins of Dansk blomstergarn, Danish Flower Thread (the original). I really like the soft colours and recently they added new colours to their range. So what more? Because you know I couldn't stop there...

I also got some hand-dyed multi-coloured flower thread by german Tentakulum, Klippans lingarn (Swedish linen thread), DMC linen thread and Raj Mahal art silk (viscose). There's also some dyed heavy linen thread by Stef Francis in the background. That skein is from a previous purchase.

The package also included soie de gobelins from Tentakulum. It looks like a mess -- and that's how it looked in the cellophane bag -- but it really isn't. Soie = silk.

And as I'm so childish sometimes I of cause had to get the DMC glow-in-the-dark polyester floss. I've got GITD glass beads and Fimo too. Just missing GITD seed beads.

As usual, you can see that I tend to gravitate towards certain colours. This time, I consciously tried to include teal and blueish hues and I also bought some flower thread in red-peach (not in the pics). As usual, I bought these without any ideas of what to do with the threads. I'm a collector, I collect colours and materials rather than buy a thread.

Talking about threads I don't know what to do with, here's some Stef Francis hand-dyed silk from a previous shopping spree. It's just so soft and pretty, but what to do with it? Especially the spun silk with flames is hard to plan for: I want to use it in a way that really brings out the texture and colours in this variegated thread. "Flames" means it's thinner in some places and heavier in others. Beautiful in a skein, but I worry about ending up doing an embroidery where this variation is lost in the stitches and patterns.

I'm not giving up beading and jewellery-making, of cause not. But I like the idea of rekindling my love for embroidery -- and finding a way to combine beading and embroidery as well as make embroidered/needlework jewellery. This is something I'll be working on these coming months. Will try to have some computer-free days so I can really focus and then hopefully I'll have something nice to show here on the blog next year.

PS! If you like flowers, don't miss my blog posts on yarn, More yarn!, for more pics. There's some space-dyed perle cotton too. And I've got a Pinterest board with nothing but ribbon, yarn and threads as well.

More bead flowers

2011-12-14T16:33:00.000+01:00

I've got some new flowers to show. Two of them are based on the same pattern as the ones I showed in my previous post.

The flower above is made using 11 mm daggers and Miyuki drop beads. A smaller version of my blue-and-brown picasso flower in the other post. It looks slightly different not just because the shape of the centre beads (smooth drops instead of facetted fire-polished), but also because these small daggers are about as wide as they are thick so all the petals are about the same width.

I also made a new large dagger bead flower as I wanted to see what it would look like with 6 mm pressed-glass drops instead of the 7 mm fire-polished drops used in my first big dagger flower. When making it, I found that flat drop bead you can see to the right. I'm thinking that would make a pretty flower if substituting it for the daggers standing on end. I just have that one bead, though, so I couldn't test my new idea. And I didn't find this bead shape in the bead shops I normally buy from so I'll have to scour the web finding a place that does have them.

The colours of the drops doesn't really match the daggers, but as I've said before: these flowers are made from whatever I find in my stash and as I'm working on the design, the colours doesn't really matter as the flowers aren't necessarily going to be incorporated in a piece of jewellery or finished beadwork.

My third flower is made with long magatama beads (Miyuki). At first I just made one row, thinking it was a cute little flower -- and it could also be used as an unusual bead cap. But just for fun, I added a second row of beads underneath the first. And was pleased with the result. This is such a cute little flower -- or hop (as in Humulus lupulus flower cone -- and the size is perfect for a ring or even earrings.

This flower isn't finsihed, it needs one or several beads in the centre to cover the thread and hole. I've got a few ideas for that. We'll see which one I settle with.

(I want a light table or light-thing-a-ma-jig so I can take backlit photos. Looks fab when working with transparent glass beads. In this case I took the photo with the flower placed on the milky white semi-transparent plastic lampshade of a lit lamp.)

Because I know how difficult it can be to gauge sizes when seeing photos like these, I took a snapshot of my four favourite flowers where you can really see how small the magatama flower is compared to the big dagger flowers. (Darn, one of the magatama beads have been pushed out of shape -- have to secure that stitch a bit more, I think.)

Tangerine Tango?

2011-12-14T15:54:00.000+01:00

In an earlier post, I wrote about taking on Pantone's Color of the Year as a personal colour challenge. I've been going through my stash to try and find something in the appropriate shade and it came as no surpise that most of my oranges where brownish, such as different topaz shades and indian red. Most of my reds are dark, maroon and burgundy. But I did find some hyacinth orange glass beads, a red-yellow murano flower bead that's sort of red-orange like Tangerine Tango -- and then my orange and purple viscose gimp cord, as seen above.

I bought this space-dyed cord from Stef Francis, thinking I like purple and that orange was kind of nice paired with my favourite colour, but since then I just haven't found a good project for it. Guess it's time to find one now. The purple is sort of the kind of purple found in the Pantone spring colour trend report, I'll be using for my challenge. Maybe it isn't exactly Tangerine Tango, but this will be an interesting part of my challenge, finding a good use for this gimp.

PS! I have used gimp in my jewellery at least once before: the green cord in my ribbon jewellery project Vaucresson Rose necklace.

More dagger flowers

2011-12-11T17:27:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year I showed some lentil-and-dagger flowers I was working on. Haven't done any new versions of those, but yesterday I was inspired to do some new dagger flowers, exeperimenting with different bead types. Some turned out better than others.

For the first flower I used 16 mm dagger beads and tiny fire-polished drops. As usual I supported the back row of daggers with seed beads. Not sure I like the "slanted" daggers so perhaps I'll try a different way of attaching them for the next version. This will be ripped up, not because I don't like it, but because I need the daggers for another project. Darn...

My second flower was more problematic. Perhaps because I was focusing so much on big beads (as in "not seed beads") while you need the seeds to tie it all together. Here you can also see that I'm not thinking so much about colour: it's really about finding the right bead shapes and sometimes the colours don't match as well as other times.

Not so sure about this one, but perhaps it looks a bit like a waterlily or winter aconite in other colours. At first, I just used green daggers, but I messed up so for this one I used two colours to keep track of the beads. But I will do another with just green dagger leaves.

My third flower is the one I'm the least happy with. I like the idea of incorporating long magatama beads, but the big daggers feel out of place. Maybe it looks better if I use other colours for the petal beads and long magatamas, but it feels like the next time, I'll use something else than daggers.

I've got so many more bead combos I want to try, but together with my lentil flowers from May, this is as far I've come right now with "developing designs". I know others that make big and exquisite dagger flowers -- they are fab and I admire many of them, but I really love making these small, simple flowers. I hope you like them too.

PS! If you like dagger flower patterns and haven't seen it yet, do check out my free Dagger flower drops tutorial.

Tangerine Tango -- a new personal colour challenge

2011-12-09T16:16:00.000+01:00

I like when Pantone (and other paint companies for that matter) announce a new Color of the Year. Not because I follow fashion trends or anything like that, but because I treat it like a colour challenge. Especially these last couple of years when it has been at least partially about colours I don't use very often, such as Honeysuckle (I actually do like it a lot!), whatever turquoise/sky blue it was the year before and the egg yolk yellow Mimosa before that.

This year it's Tangerine Tango, a vivid and warm red orange, that got the honor. Described by Pantone as "Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it /.../ Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy."

But most interesting is perhaps that it's used as a spring colour. I use orange sometimes, but almost always mixed with browns, yellows, reds and other autumn tones. Often using beads that mix two or more of those colours in one piece. I have even done a piece using topaz yellow, carnelian orange and dark pink. It's not my favourite colour and a really bright orange can have me stumped, but what's going to be my personal challenge is using this colour either on its own (or as a main colour) or mixing it with colours from Pantone's spring colour trend report, as seen below.

So I've tried orange-yellow-pink before. And orange with purple. (And orange-white-copper, but that's a whole other story.) Have seen orange and dark blue done by someone else and not sure if I'll do that (but maybe I should -- and add some of that dark pink to it just for fun). The big challenge would be to use at least one colour from the second row. Not the nougat Starfish, a neutral is trying to take the easy way out.

Oh, I must admit to really liking the look of that dramatic pink (Cabaret) next to the dark blue (Sodalite Blue). Remember when Swarovski launched their innovations with those two colours? Never thought I'd like that combo as much as I do!

PS! You can read more about Tangerine Tango here. Inspiration for beaders can be found at e.g. Beverly Ash Gilbert's blog or in Rena Klingenberg's report on the news. For colour trends from bead manufacturers like Swarovski and Preciosa, please see my other blog for on trend colours for 2012. I've also pinned some of them on my Inspirational colour palettes pinboard, I think.

Farfalle beads

2011-12-07T17:15:00.001+01:00

I was going to show some other photos today, but yesterday's cold and a stubborn headache in combination with a pretty much sun-less day means I'm too tired to edit the pics. Instead I'm continuing my quest of uploading old pics so I can clean up the harddrive a bit.

I like exciting new bead shapes as a seedbeader. Like Miyuki's Tila or PreciosaOrnela's new Twin bead (haven't got my hands on any of the latter yet). These are farfalle beads, which have been around for a couple of years by now. PreciosaOrnela (formerly Jablonex), who made them first, calls these peanut-/bowtie-shaped little beads farfalle, "'butterfly", while Matsuno calls their version peanut beads and Miyuki named theirs berry beads.

They look great just strung, but you can actually use this bead shape in bead weaving too (I've mostly seen it in off-loom designs, but if it works in that, it should work in looms as well). I first learned about that at the B&B blog section Maggie's Musings. She showed samples of RAW, peyote and herringbone stitched with farfalles -- and offered some tips based on her experience. You can find that blog post here.

So far I've only tried to make chains of single rows of RAW, as you can see below. But just that can be nice enough, seeing how the bead shape in itself has an attractive shape that draws the eye to it.

One reason I haven't done much with these is that I've only got two small bags of farfalles in two colours. Most of my bronze-lined beads were used in a strung necklace and bracelet I made ages ago. I will add a better pic of the set, but this is the only one I have right now.

I like to think I've come some way since making that... Both in terms of photography and jewellery making.

PS! If you're looking for inspiration for your own project, go to PreciosaOrnela and Miyuki for some jewellery ideas. PreciosaOrnela have some free projects here, where you'll find a nice farfalle bracelet.

Bead blog recap weeks 47-48

2011-12-03T16:43:00.000+01:00

It's time for a new recap of my writings on Manekis Pärlblogg. Contests and challenges, swaps, embroidery techniques, bead knitting and more. Of cause one of the hightlights was when I mention Wendi Gratz' embroidery kits as they included the super cute kitties you can see above. Aren't they just so adorable? Be sure to visit her blog for more info on those!

As usual: the blog is written in Swedish, but you can use Google Traslate to translate the texts (available if you click the "share" button under each post). Most of the links are to websites and instructions in English.

Read more »

Time to start opening those calendars

2011-12-01T17:41:00.000+01:00

You know, it feels weird. Of cause I knew it was almost December. I write my posts on Manekis Pärlblogg in advance so I've already begun writing dates with the 12th month. And I knew it was late November yesterday. And we've lit the first advent light. Still I can't really get it into my head that it's already December. Today. That it's time for all the advent calendars (and now I'm thinking of contest/giveaway or "offer of the day" calendars from online shops and magazines, not the chocolate ones or the one on TV for the kids). How did that happen?

Oh, well, I guess I'll get used to it soon. Time to pop the christmas music in the player, put up the lights in the windows and enjoy the upcoming holidays. And keep my fingers crossed I'll win something in the calendars.

PS! You might have noticed a new badge in the column on the right. I've decided to join Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) 2012 now that I've found needlework again. Hopefully I'll have fun learning new stitches and be inspired to do new things with my embroidery. No idea if I can keep up and do every weekly stitch, but I want that challenge so I get "around to it", trying more stitches.

If you want to join, sign-ups are still open -- and all skill levels are welcome.

Challenge of Color Blog Hop

2011-11-30T14:00:00.191+01:00

Welcome to the 2nd Annual Challenge of Color blog hop!

This colour challenge and blog hop is hosted by Erin of Tresori Trovati. In the beginning of the month, she presented the challenge along with a palette of twelve different colours. Each participant was to choose one of the colours to work with. You could stick with a favourite colour or go for something completely different and challenging. Then Erin, would select an inspiring colour palette, made by Jessica of Design Seeds, for each and everyone based on the chosen colour.

I decided to be daring and chose a colour I -- and many others with me -- rarely work with: yellow. [Are you surprised if I tell you that of 54 people, only two choose to work with yellow?] Felt a bit scary because I knew this could be really hard unless I got some very familar colours to go with it. I've mostly combined yellow with autumn tones or purple before -- and often opted for either soft almost pastel tones or dulled down nuances (with hints of brown, khaki, apricot/orange etc) when buying anything yellow. Never bright, sunny yellow. But I kind of thought that was the kind of yellow I would get when I made my choice-- and that would be a real challenge for me!

Then Erin sent the e-mail with the participant and palette list where she assigned me Sunny Flower to work with. I had mixed feelings when I saw my palette: the bright, cheery colours are not exactly me. The three colours in the centre felt "safe", like old friends, but the two bright colours on each end felt more daunting, more like unfamiliar territory. Just working with bright turquoise and yellow was a challenge, regardless of the other colours! Pairing such a bright turquoise with what I mostly see as autumn, not summer colours, was going to be tough. But then again, I did choose yellow to get a real challenge, I didn't do it with the expectation of getting an easy autumn-inspired palette to work with.

To prepare for this palette, I did two things: first, I tried the colours in different proportions in Photo Filtre to see how I was going to arrange the colours. That's my doodles above. You can see how I actually ended up with a design similar to the doodles, even it that wasn't my idea at the time. Then I sought additional inspiration at Multicolr Search Lab, working with not just the colours but also the proportions that I wanted to use. I like that tool: not only can you choose colours, but also the proportions of each colour you want in the pictures it finds for you. This is the mosaic of photos I used for my inspiration.

And here is -- finally -- the result of my long preparation and design process:

I knew pretty early one it was going to include seed beads: I'm a "colour junkie" who loves to buy seeds in every possible colour and finish so it was most likely in my seed bead stash I would find colours matching the palette. As mentioned before, I've also recenly rekindled my love for embroidery so it was an easy choice to make when I began sketching: it would be needlework and bead embroidery on ribbon. I've got a lot of satin ribbon as it's easy to find in many different colours -- though, turquoise and yellow ribbons were lacking in my stash. (And so was also a proper stabilizer, which made the ribbon pucker much more that I'd like...) Bought ribbon, forgot to buy fusible web.

From there, the actual design kind of grew of itself, evolving around what beads beads in the stash I could find in the right colours. I often end up modelling a challenge design around the beads at hand, but generally I prefer to design first and get the beads later. I did a few different sketches, but in the end it became something rather similar to my initial doodles. Though with one vine instead of two.

I have used all the colours in the palette (in one nuance or another), but the apricot seed beads used in the flower centres and buds looked very yellow once stitched and photographed, which is a bit unfortunate. While the colour palette is the same as in the image, it looks very different. Not just because there is much more turquoise in the bracelet. The transparent beads let some of the turquoise shine through, altering the perceived colour not least in the flowers.

The yellow ribbon was so bright and perfect for the challenge palette, it felt bad not to use it so I ended up adding it as backing. So what's lacking in terms of yellow on the front, is more than well made up for on the back.

(The clasp is temporary: it's too heavy for the bracelet, but it's a pretty clasp so it'll stay until I find a better one.)

As for techniques, the vines is stitched in whipped back stitch and the leaves are lazy daisies stitched around beads (yes, I added the beads before the detached chain stitches, not the other way around which is more common). The edges are back stitched with 15/0 transparent turquoise blue beads and yellow thread to add an extra touch of yellow to the front. It was also done because I couldn't decide what colour to use for the beaded edge (once deciding just stitching something with the buttonhole thread used for the vines wasn't going to be working as intended) and once I was halfway done I regretted going with the bleak blue beads. But at that point it would be too much work to undo it all.

Synthetic satin isn't the best fabric to bead or embroider on, but I still do it. It would, how ever, been a good thing to stabilize the ribbon before beginning. Unfortunately I didn't, which is too bad as it probably would've made it easier to keep the ribbon flat and smooth. In some heavily beaded designs it doesn't matter so much if this happens, but here it's pretty visible.

While I'm pleased that I could make something with a palette that was challenging for me, I'm (as usual) less pleased with my result. I can see so many flaws in it: the clasp is too heavy, the ribbon is puckering too much, the overall design feels lacking in some element etc etc. But, yeah, I think it's ok. I like the colours and enjoyed stitching it. And that's perhaps what's most important about a challenge.

Now, don't miss all the other participants in this blog hop! You can find the full list of participants on Erin's blog. *edited to add: and now also here below*

Read more »

After the storm

2011-11-29T19:23:00.000+01:00

So here's a couple of pics of how it looked yesterday when I inspected what the storm Berit (or the advent storm as they called it in the papers) had done. Not as bad as Gudrun, but still some damages. Apparently the gusts reached hurricane strenght at times so it was a big storm. Well, after seeing all the photos in the paper, there's just one thing to say: I live near the sea, not by the sea and that makes a lot of difference -- not fun living right by the coast when something like this hits!

As I wrote yesterday it could've been (much) worse. The part of porch railing that fell was a bit murky so while I didn't expect to see that, it wasn't strange that it happened. And now there's a shortcut when you want to go sit on the porch, not having to go all the way to the steps.

The miniture wind mill my dad got as a birthday present years ago blew down too. My sis discovered that in the middle of the night and salvaged the wooden railing, which had by some reason survived in one piece. The wings are really bent though, but nothing is in pieces so it should be easy to repair.

I did find some metal scraps that had been tossed around, but that's our own fault for not making sure it was all indoors (the person accumulating the scraps outdoors is still ill and had not been outdoors, the rest of us didn't think about it because we weren't there).

All the trees survived. Haven't checked the grove, though, but all in all it looks ok. I think many of the dead twigs and branches blew down earlier this year so there wasn't much left to fall, save the whole tree. So, thankfully, most everything survived the storm.

{If you want some pics of what it looked like in Skåne after the storm, here's plenty of them in the local newspaper, check out their website here, here and here. And probably a few more articles today. Like all the work to restore walkways, mend houses and remove fallen trees.}

The greenhouse

2011-11-28T17:09:00.000+01:00

Feels like I haven't shown any photos from the garden or forest or anything in ages so here's a pic of our small greenhouse, which I just played a little with on Picnik.com. I took it back in September on a foggy day so it was pretty dark and moody as it was. I made it darker by adding textures, soft focus, altering the colours slightly and adding a dark frame.

The greenhouses did survive the storm and generally it could've been (much) worse, but on side of the porch railing fell (the wood was a bit murky) and the miniture wind mill my dad got as a birthday present years ago blew down. The power did flicker a few times, but we never lost -- I'm so glad we have a great local power company that abandon much of the overhead power lines years ago! If you want some pics from the storm, here's plenty of them in the local newspaper, check out their website here, here and here.

I've got a pic of the far end of the old henhouse next to the greenhouse too. Sorry about the noise -- my camera don't handle poor light as good as i used to do (and even new, it's a model that doesn't perform well in dim light). With all the trees, it can get pretty dark down there were I was standing, even in early afternoons. Hope I didn't make it too dark. I wanted it dark and almost spooky, but not so dark you can't see the trees... I guess the photo would be better if I cleaned the noise -- Neat Image is a great software for that -- but apparently I was too lazy to do that. So not as pleased with this one as with the greenhouse. But it's ok at least.

-- and some tulle too!

2011-11-27T19:25:00.000+01:00

Double posts today again. I mentioned in my previous post today that I didn't just buy some cheap taffeta, but also some tulle. Originally I bought one piece of black and one piece of (what I thought was) white tulle, thinking I'd have a go at making these lovely flowers. The white tulle turned out to be baby pink -- the light in the shop and the properties of the tulle itself fooled me. So now I have to bleach or colour that tulle before I can do anything with it.

Getting back to the craft shop a few weeks later when passing by Väla, I also bought some shiny grey "bridal tulle", which is much finer than the stiff tulle I bought first. No idea what I'll make of the leftovers from the flower making, but I did do a few tests this week, trying to figure out the best way to embroider, bead and embellish tulle. These photos show the results of my little tests and doodles.

The colours aren't that great, but that's of cause due to the fact I just used was I found nearby. All of this will be ripped up so the tulle can be used for my projects later. Therefore I didn't bother to make the stitches neat and tidy or to think about the colour choices.

One of the first thing I did was to thread some novelty yarn, Red Heart Aurica, through the holes in the black tulle, thinking the style of the yarn would fit well as I would space my running stitches so that the coloured sections would all end up on the same side.

Thinking that my space-dyed bouclé yarn worked well when weaving it into a chain, I thought it might work with tulle too. Killing two birds with one stone, I decided I'd try to hem an edge using the yarn. I ended up making three rows of darning stitch, which probably would look better if the stitched section was longer.

I also tried one of my favourite stitches, feather stitch (kråkspark). As the tulle is a see-through net rather than an opaque fabric, you will see the "back" of the stitches through it. In this case, that makes the feather stitch look like leaves on a vine.

As you can see, I also had to bead a bit. All in all, there are three different beading techniques. The red fire-polished are stitched using running stitch. To fasten the beads and keep them in line, I then stitched through all of them a second time (not stitching into the tulle). Click on the first pics in this post for a close-up where you see exactly how the beads were stitched.

The green beads are stitched using tambour beading (sometimes called bead couture). As the tulle has such large holes, I could use a fine crochet needle rather than a tambour needle. Lesson learned: this probably works better if you use a hoop with a fixture so your hands are free to work with the beads on the thread and the needle.

The third technique used, which I did on the finer "bridal tulle", is just the good old back stitch. One of my most used bead embroidery stitches.

...and that's it. That's how far I've come, exploring tulle. Well, I have also cut a few pieces and layered in a collage (you can get some nice effects in colour and texture when layering tulle), but that isn't finished and won't be until I come up with an actual image to create.

Footnote: Seeing how hard it can be to gauge size from photos, below is a pic of the two tulles used with a ruler placed on them. The scale is centimetres.

Well, now I'm getting back to my needles, threads and beads. But not to keep working with my tulle. I have a much more urgent project that I need to finish first. I'll show it on Nov. 30th when it's time for the 2nd Annual Challenge of Color blog hop, hosted by Erin of Tresori Trovati. [I chose to work with... yellow!]

Taffeta

2011-11-27T19:24:00.000+01:00

The good news: After days of cold, dark grey weather we got some sun and blue sky this afternoon
The bad news: ...because of the stormy weather. There's a class 3 weather warning (= warning for "very extreme weather with great dangers for the public", though it's nothing like a house-flattening hurricane or tornado or anything) here today -- bumped up from the measly class 1 yesterday -- so I've stayed indoors. Hopefully it won't ruin too much. [I just heard a small branch or something hit the roof and the power flickered just recently.]

The good news: after several falls and incidents my camera still works. I love it!
The bad news: I just discovered a chip in the lens today... [thankfully it doesn't seem to ruin my photos though -- lucky, seeing how I couldn't afford getting a new camera.]

But we should end with some good news. More good news would probably be that I've been pretty good at my disciplined penny-pinching so I have decided I can afford buying a couple of books and some ribbons. Yay! Recently I also bought half a metre of tulle and synthetic taffeta too so hopefully my future miniscule shopping spree will provide me with inspiration to do something with the fabric. So far the only thing I've done -- apart from oogling it -- is to take these photos.

Taffeta is woven using different colours in the warp and wheft, which create this lovely shimmering effect. In this case, the fabric is made using turquoise blue and milk chocolate brown threads. You can see this clearly in the pic below with the close-up of the cut edge. I really like the colours both apart and blended as in this piece of cloth.

With a bit of imagination, I almost think some of these photos reminds me of abstract landscape pictures. A moody grey sky against the brown earth. Or perhaps a blurred autumn forest against the horizon.

Now, if I could only think of something fun to do with it... Perhaps sew flat ribbons and/or rouleau for bracelets and necklaces? Stitch it on some bead embroidery backing for a beaded cuff? Or just embroider a picture on it -- not everything I buy have to become jewellery. Guess it could make pretty jewellery pouches or something too. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them too.

Catching up...

2011-11-26T17:27:00.001+01:00

I've been feeling a bit tired and under the weather lately and this week I've felt like I've been hopelessly behind and not had the energy to keep à jour. That means I know I've got e-mails I haven't replied to yet even though I should've, I've read (or skimmed through to be honest) blog posts I've wanted to comment on but never did, challenges that ought to be finished but aren't yet. And so on.

Anyway, I'm trying to focus now and will try to make an effort to write to those I should, work on my latest project (I'm hopeless at that start stage, really) and apply for some more jobs. Do something a bit more constructive than adding a new pinboard to my Pinterest -- "had to" add a Ribbon, Yarn and Embroidery Thread board -- and just generally be online doing nothing useful and turning off the computer to go to bed. So if you've been waiting to hear from me: I haven't forgot you and will write back soon. I've read everything -- mails and comments -- so it's just the "getting back" part I'm behind with.

PS! Tomorrow I'll show a few pics of what I've been dabbling with this week. Hopefully. [Then I really should work on some other pics I've been meaning to post months ago -- but let's not think about that for now. It'll only mean more bad conscience if I don't have the time/energy/motivation to do it next week.]

Bumble bee earrings

2011-11-21T18:11:00.000+01:00

Double posts today. I found this photo of a pair of earrings I made a few months back. Made for a bee themed challenge and at the time I didn't have any bee related beads or other components -- and I wanted it to be a literal interpretation of the theme, not just using honey coloured beads or something as a symbol for bees. So what to do?

I gave in to my childish side and crafted these two fat bees (more bumble bees than honey bees). Using velveteen beads, dark yellow embroidery floss, butterflies cut from a ribbon, glue and some additional findings, I made this pair of children's earrings. A stash-busting last minute idea.

My ears aren't pierced so I've got different types of clip-ons, screwbacks and cuffs in my stash. These rings are a type of "clip-ons" for those occassions when you want something less clumsy. Super-easy to use and probably very easy to make yourself. Which is something I intend to try someday soon. (Read more about different clip-on earring findings here.)

Ick -- first try at polymer clay

2011-11-21T17:58:00.001+01:00

First, I should add that these aren't new. The pictures are new, though, and I don't think I've shown my polyclay beads and pendants to anyone before. Why that is, is pretty obvious: I do have a hate-love relationship with all sorts of clay, which I've written about before, and this was my first time working with polymer clay. The only clays I've worked with before have been saltdough and modelling clay as a kid and then dabbling with ceramic clay in art class in school as pre-teen and teenager a couple of times.

I'm no natural clayer. More a painter than a sculptor when it comes to creating. I like to work on a canvas, be it painting on an actual canvas, embroidering on cloth or weaving beads on a thread. While it most certainly can be dimensional, not least my beadweaving, it's not about moulding a material or chiselling away bits and pieces of it. I draw with threads and beads or piece beads together like it was Lego, I shape but I don't mould and manipulate like you do with clay. But sometimes I'm inspired to work with it nonetheless. It has its uses and there are many interesting techniques to try.

The beads above are made after instructions by Irene Semanchuk-Dean in the book Making Beautiful Beads. She calls the Inside-out beads if I'm not mistaken, which explains pretty well how they're made. It's a rather fun and very simple technique, perfect for clay newbies and kids. Like children's inkblot paintings, but in 3D.

As you can see, I haven't mastered the technique for smoothing out the edges and seams where the different clay pieces meet. One thing I did learn, on the other hand, is not to use white clay unless you're 100 % sure the work surface is clean. If there is just one pin-size speck of darker clay or one tiny glitter particle it will end up on the white clay... D'oh!

I also used ultrafine glitters, metallic powder, liquid Fimo and copper foil on some of the pieces. You can only see the foil and silver powder here as I wasn't pleased with the other pieces. Too fugly to show...

The cat pendant and silver charm have stamped images. There was probably a good reason for adding the pawprint to the kitty image, but I wish I hadn't. Other than that, I'm pleased with the colour I mixed for it (using chocolate brown, white and a smidge of yellow, I think) and the chocolate brown frame. I also like the finish I got using Fimo silver powder.

The copper crackle cabochon is one of the pieces I was pleased with. Sure, it's a bit uneven, but I really like crackle effects -- and this one was so easy to do. Normally, instructions call for a pasta machine, but I just used an acrylic roller.

~~I will add another, bigger pic of the cab later. That photo shows off the copper foil better, but I couldn't add it now as the photo is on another computer.~~ *photo added*

So there you have it, my first venture into the world of polyclay. I haven't touched it since -- and that was perhaps two year ago I made those. Clay probably isn't my thing. And now other clays have become more interesting in my eyes. Clays that don't require oven baking and clays that also work as adhesives. So why even bring all this up then? Well, I guess it's because of this. Pehaps I should give pc another chance? (Though I confess that a resin clay challenge or hop would've been much more exciting and inspiring for me personally.)

Bead blog recap weeks 45-46

2011-11-18T21:00:00.000+01:00

Once again, here's a summary of two more weeks of posts at my other blog, Manekis Pärlblogg, with themes ranging from crackled pendants and hinges to projects for your serger and new challenges/hops.

Read more »

Recipe: 3 x chocolate sauce

2011-11-17T21:10:00.000+01:00

[I have no useful photo, sorry. But, hey, it's chocolate
sauce -- you all know what that looks like, right? To
tempt you, I insert a pic of my chocolate cream instead]

Internet is dangerous: you can sit down to check one thing and then when you look up again it's hours later. One thing leads to the other. While I can spend hours looking at jewellery and beads, one thing that really captures me is recipes. I can suddenly get an idea for something I'd like to bake -- I bake and make desserts rather than cook -- and go off searching for fitting recipes at Google, Matklubben, Pinterest etc. Especially the latter two can make me forget time and space. And sometimes when I don't look for recipes, I'm inspired to share some of my favourites here on the blog. Like I'm doing today.

Hope you enjoy them!

I like chocolate. If you didn't already know that (perhaps from looking at the list of recipes on this blog). When I don't have any delicious chocolate ice cream -- like Berte Glass Kladdkaka -- and have to make due with vanilla or pear, I of cause have to add chocolate sauce instead. As a kid, mom would make a nice sauce with cream, cocoa powder, butter and sugar, but nowadays I prefer chocolate-based recipes.

Note: Different countries have different types of cream. By whipping cream I mean what we in Sweden call vispgrädde, a thick cream with 40 % fat. Two of the recipes below are from UK and aussie books, translated into Swedish. What type of cream was used in the original recipes, I don't know.

Creamy chocolate sauce

A lovely, rich sauce! Use your favourite quality chocolate: a recipe is never better than the chocolate used. I prefer making it with Odense 36 % milk chocolate. Next time I make this, I'm thinking about adding some Nötcreme. Or why not try to add a spoonful of peanut butter or Nutella?

180 grammes chocolate (white, milk, dark, flavoured)
15 grammes unsalted butter
6 tablespoons whipping cream
(3 tablespoons golden syrup if using dark chocolate)
2-3 pinches vanilla sugar

1. Break or chop the chocolate in pieces.

2. Put all ingredients but the vanilla sugar in a heat resistant bowl (e.g. steel or glass) and place over a sauce pan with simmering water. Don't let the water boil: the steam can ruin the chocolate if it touches it and the chocolate can react badly to being melted too fast.

3. Stir every now and then until the chocolate melts and the sauce is fully mixed.

4. Add the vanilla and serve -- the sauce should be eaten whilst warm as the sauce will harden when it cools down.

Yields about 3 dl sauce.

Snickers sauce

If you love Snickers and milk chocolate, this is the sauce for your ice cream. This one is really heavy and sweet so you only need a small amount for each portion. Even if you just love chocolate sauce, I suggest not doing too much of it the first time.

4 Snickers bar
2/3 dl milk
1 3/4 dl whipping cream
100 grammes milk chocolate

1. Chop the Snickers bars and chocolate into pieces.

2. On low heat, stir the Snickers in a sauce pan with the milk and cream until the candy bars are melted. Add the chocolate and keep stirring until they too are fully melted.

3. Let the sauce cool slightly and serve lukewarm.

Yields about 5½ dl sauce.

Klasse Kock's chocolate fudge sauce

Klasse Kock (kock = chef) was a character in the TV advent calendar one year. He shared recipes suitable for younger cooks and later some of those recipes and many more were published in books. One of them was called Klasse Kocks godisbok. My sis bought that book and this sauce, called Cool Kolasås, became a favourite. You can probably use a few drops of vanilla extract instead of vanilla sugar if the latter isn't available where you live.

1 dl sugar
½ dl golden syrup
1 dl whipping cream
50 grammes butter
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

1. Mix all of the ingredients except the vanilla sugar in a sauce pan.

2. Let it boil gently at medium heat for 10-30 minutes. Stir every now and then.

3. Add the vanilla sugar and stir well.

4. Serve warm or cold. (Don't boil too long if planning on serving the sauce cold: the sauce hardens a lot when it cools down).

Tips: in the original recipe, the sauce should be boiled for 30 min., but my experience is that the sauce will be too hard if boiling that long. Depending on how fast the sauce thickens, you might want to let it boil for just 10-15 minutes. Keep in mind the sauce will harden when cool if you boil for too long.

PS! My own "Pinterest collection" of recipes can be found here. Warning: lots of chocolate and peanut butter!

Autumn leaves

2011-11-13T16:52:00.000+01:00

It's Sunday and I'm as usually spending the weekend writing a week's worth of posts for my other blog so today will be more pictures than words. As it's (still) autumn I thought the colours and theme in these old photos was fitting.

This is a handmade boro glass cab surrounded by hessonite garnet chip beads. Like a lot of beaders, I'm not a big fan of chips, but I like how they can feel like autumn leaves sometimes. So I figured they might look good with an autumnal cab like this one. This is how far my ideas for this cab has come.

It's almost like a flower, a chrysanthemum of some sort, in that flat cab. Love it!

And the winner is...

2011-11-11T21:12:00.000+01:00

Today is 11-11-11. That means it's finally time to reveal the winner of my giveaway. But before I do that I just wanted to thank you all for your lovely feedback and your congratulations. I really enjoyed reading all the nice things you took the time to write. Thank you so much!

And now for the winner. Congratulations...

Skye!

It seems my little bead mix will be travelling to Canada if I'm not mistaken. Skye, I hope you will like it and be sure to let me know your address as soon as you have time.

Once again, congrats to Skye and a big thank you to all the rest of you for participating! Have a great weekend!

Winter beads: opal apollo Toho Hybrids

2011-11-10T18:33:00.000+01:00

I love seed beads. In all their different shapes, sizes and finishes. One of my favourite types are the Toho Supernova Hybrids, seeds from Japanese quality brand Toho that have been custom coated in the Czech Republic by an American importer. There by combining the even sizes and big holes of the Japanese beads with the fantastic Czech finishes.

I don't have that many colours of the hybrids, though, as these beads aren't cheap. And some finishes are more -- much more -- expensive than others (that also includes e.g. Toho's own marbled gilded finishes). The last colour I bought for my little Hybrids stash must have been the opal apollo gold. Frosted or not (I've got both), it feels like a good winter colour. Not colours I normally use so they will also work as a kind of personal colour challenge. [But it'll have to wait as I'm working on this colour challenge at the moment. I picked bright, sunny yellow in a moment of bravery -- challenge in deed...]

Apollo gold -- aka capri gold -- has been a favourite bead finish of mine for years. On clear crystal it looks like copper (see the beads in the front in the top photo), but on other colours and when frosted (used on matte beads) it can look more golden. As with many finishes it also alters the perceived colour of the glass. Like in these magatamas, which are acutally a milky white, but coated they seem blueish.

I'm thinking they might be good for a christmas project. Christmas as in a project to delve into during the holidays, not a christmas themed project. Hope there'll be some snow by then because that'll really set the mood, working with these colours. [Shouldn't have said that: now there's a christmas song stuck on repeat in my head...]

Still haven't chosen any colours to go with it. I will probably either stick with neutrals, focusing on the hybrids and just adding more golden matte metallics, browns etc, or add a little colour such as a nice not too cutesy dusty/antique pink. We'll have to see. Since it's the colour that I fell for, I don't want to use it as merely accent or drown it in an elaborate colour scheme. Just a simple, clean winter design. Inspired by nature, of cause.

Well, we'll just see what happens in December. Right now I'm still focusing on autumn colours. And freezing a bit so I'm in no mood to work with cold colours even if I didn't have another project in need of my attention.

PS! Don't forget it's the last day of the giveaway today as I'll pick the winner tomorrow. I will accept entries up until the drawing, though, so you'll probably have until noon CET tomorrow to comment for your chance to win.

Recipe: Super-simple white chocolate fudge

2011-11-07T15:27:00.000+01:00

It's a grey Monday so why not brighten up the day with some chocolate? For more chocolate, check out my other recipes too.

This easy-to-make treat is somewhere between a chewy chocolate truffle and soft fudge. In the original recipe, which I found here, chopped gummi bears are added. I've never used that myself. The first time I made this fudge, I added dried blueberries in half and kept the rest plain. Once I added shredded coconut (as seen in the pic above). Next time I'll probably add lemon flavouring and perhaps also some liquorice. In other words: stick with the plain recipe or just add anything you like. Chocolate morsels, nuts, nougat -- anything.

340 gram white chocolate
1½ dl sweetened condensed milk (≈ ½ jar)
½ pinch salt
¼ teaspoon vanilla sugar

1. Line a 20 x 20 cm pan with baking paper.

2. Chop the chocolate and melt in a glass bowl in a water bath. (The water should simmer, but not boil.)

3. Stir in the condensed milk and salt.

4. Add vanilla sugar and any additional ingredients of your choice. Stir well.

5. Pour into the pan and let cool in the fridge for about 2 hours.

6. Cut the fudge into squares using a knife or scissors.

The fudge will last up to two weeks if stored cold and covered.

Tip #1: I know vanilla sugar isn't common worldwide -- the same way vanilla extract isn't common in Sweden. You can easily make your own [it's pretty much vanilla seeds or vanilla aroma mixed with powdered sugar] or substitute with vanilla extract. You can't always substitute the two, but in this case it should be fine. One teaspoon vanilla sugar equals one pinch of vanilla extract, according to Dr. Oetker.

Tip #2: You can also melt the chocolate in your microwave oven, there is a risk the chocolate will cool before the batter is completely mixed. Don't add all the condensed milk at one time as it will cool the chocolate too fast, but once added work quickly so the chocolate doesn't harden before all the ingredients are added.

WIP: Feather stitch bracelet

2011-11-06T18:57:00.001+01:00

Feather stitch (kråkspark) is one of my favourite embroidery stitches. This is however the first time I've tried my hands at beaded feather stitch. What finally made me get around to this project today was my decision to write about this technique in my other blog (due to be published this Tuesday).

Here you can see the pitfalls of working in poor light -- and not focusing that much on the beads you pick up... I've used my beloved marbled Toho seed beads, but it's just that some of the beads are less marbled and much greener than the rest. A natural variation that isn't that much of a problem in beadwoven designs, but here I think it just sticks out. But I'm not going to rip it up so I better learn to like it!

The bracelet in made from a reversible 10 mm wide satin ribbon with one olive side and one chocolate brown. I then let that colour scheme choose the colour of the thread and beads for me. The reason I use synthetic satin ribbons for many of my bracelets is simple: it's so easy to find in different widths and colours. You can find them in bead shops, craft and scrapbooking shops, haberdasheries, fabric stores etc. I prefer ribbon to fabric as I don't have to hem the edges but just the ends when making bracelets.

This is still a WIP mostly because I'm not sure what kind of clasp I want to use fot it. Nothing too heavy, of cause. Perhaps just a small snap fastener. It's very descreet and lightweight. Or a small hook and clasp. Will have to think about that while looking for my snaps.

Bead blog recap weeks 43-44

2011-11-05T19:22:00.001+01:00

It's once again time for a recap of the last two weeks of writing at Manekis Pärlblogg. This time you'll find the usually monthly update on current bead or jewellery-making challenges as well as how-tos for making carved wooden hearts, double hair combs, lampwork cabochons, metal blank journals and more.

Read more »

It's time: The Birthday Giveaway

2011-11-03T00:01:00.046+01:00

I've been saying for a long time that I want to do a giveaway. I've won several giveaways over the year so I feel it's only right to give some back. Besides, it's just as much fun to give as it is to get. As today is my 30th birthday, it felt like a good day to do this.

For this giveaway I focused on doing something personal. This isn't a big giveaway, nor does it include expensive and exclusive things. Instead I wanted to add some things found or made (i.e. etched or tumbled) by me to the store bought beads. Here's a list of everything the lucky winner will get:

Dyed freshwater pearls ("dancing" nuggets)
Bronze tags
Old Swedish copper coin
Bronze coloured plastic sequins
Mother-of-pearl bead with motif etched by me
Onyx pendant with butterfly motif etched by me
Hand-painted (not by me) faux pearls
Sea glass from the Bjäre coast
Tumbled grey flintstone from Bjäre
Crackled agate leaf pendant (as seen in this post)
Tumbled glass pebble

I hope you like it. There might even be a little extra bonus if the winner wants it, I'm not sure yet (it'll be yarn or cord related). As it is right now, I don't sell anthing I tumble or etch so this is an unique opportunity for you to get your hands on some of my beads and pendants. Do click on the pictures for a better view. If you have any questions about it, please feel free to e-mail me.

If you want a chance to win this giveaway just write a comment answering this question:

Give me some positive feedback: say something you like about my blog.

It can be a detail you like, your general impression, something about the layout or the content, anything. It doesn't matter if you're visiting the blog for the first time or are a long time follower, I'd love to hear what you think.

You can also say something about my other blog, Manekis Pärlblogg, if you prefer that. (Constructive negative feedback is also useful, but hey, it's my birthday after all so let's just focus on the positive today.)

Bonus point: If you are a follower (of Wild roses and blackberries or Manekis Pärlblogg) and/or share this giveaway on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, forum etc you may add a comment saying so for an additional chance to win. Why? Followers because it makes me happy to see that people like the blog and followers are a visual reminder of that. Sharing because I believe in "the more, the merrier" -- and maybe by doing so you'll give me new readers and followers. Please note, you may only add one extra comments per person, no matter if you both follow and share or share multiple times.

You have one week from today to enter this giveaway. I will draw a winner and publish the name on Nov. 11th.

Good luck!

To oil or not to oil

2011-11-02T18:25:00.000+01:00

I've vinegar etched a few more MOP beads this weekend and today I wanted to see what would happen if I oiled one of them. Sometimes the etched matte surface looks great, other times the contrast between motif and etched background feels too harsh. Remembering that I'd read about treating seashells with mineral oil to bring out colours and add a subtle shine, I dabbed a few drops on one of the less successful beads and rubbed it into the shell.

The image is slightly less visible than it was before being oiled, but I think it turned out nicely.
This image wasn't the best to begin with, I should add. (I forgot to take a "before" picture so all you can compare with is the unoiled bead at the top of the post, sorry.) This bead is freshly oiled. I'm not sure how much it will change once the oil has really soaked in and dried. If it does change significally, I'll update this post and let you know.

I'll probably be a good method for some of my etchings, especially when the matte background feels too "dry" or white. But other will probably not need any oil. Not for aesthetic purposes at least. Another option I haven't tried is to lacquer the shell. Many MOP pendants and beads I've seen lately have been lacquered, which gives them more of a shine, but I'm not sure how a lacquer or sealant will affect the etched and unetched areas.

Earring findings for non-pierced ears -- an overview

2011-11-01T20:45:00.002+01:00

Last week I wrote about some of my clip-on earrings and mentioned how I don't see clip-on design ideas very often, save on japanese jewellery-making websites. It's like everyone assumes that people either have pierced ears or, if they don't, they aren't interested in wearing earrings. The late might be the case for some, but not for everyone as there can be many reasons for a person not to pierce her ears -- and I also believe some of those not wearing earrings would change their minds about clip-ons if they saw the different findings available today. Clip-ons don't have to be chunky, painful earlobe crushers. Some are very dainty and "earlobe-friendly". And if you don't like any types of clip-ons, why not give in to the ear cuff trend?

As promised, here is my introduction to some of the clip-on earring findings and ear cuffs available today. It is by no means an exhaustive listing, but rather showing some of the options you can use. For some findings, I don't have any photos of my own so I will be referring to a few bead shops that I know have a wide variety of the findings I'm writing about.

First out is of cause our old friend:

Clip-ons

The classic clip-on earrings are probably the type most people think of when talking about earring findings for non-pierced ears. Wellknown for often being painful to wear as they press hard against the earlobe in order not to fall off. There are ways to alleviate the problem. First, some clip-ons are designs as the pair above with holes you can fit rubber cushions into. Second, there's a little tool called Comfee Key you can use to tighten or loosen the tension. You can find it e.g. at B'Sue Boutiques.

These clip-ons come in different versions. Some are big and chunky, others are more dainty. They can have a flat pad for you to glue on flatbacks and other components on, be fitted with settings for stones, have beadable perforated discs (aka mesh screens, sieves), have loops for bead dangles etc. Some are especially made for being soldered. For examples of different designs, see Jan's Jewels and Perles & Co. Below is an example of a slightly unusual old silver clip-on model.

Clip-ons are available in precious metals and plated basemetal.

Adjustable clip-ons

These are pretty much just a variation of the clip-ons above. Because they have a folded "tab" on the back, you can easily adjust the tension of the earrings by bending the pad back or forth. It is not recommended that you do this too much as it can weaken the metal. When worn, they can look similar to leverback earrings, making it less obvious it's clip-ons. I have seen them being referred to as "pierced look" because of this.

They can come with a loop, as in the picture, pad, cup-and-peg or cup. See examples at Fire Mountain Gems and Rings & Things.

Screw-back earrings

Screw-back earrings are my old favourites. I first saw them in some vintage costume jewellery as a kid and they were such a great option to the trendy 1980's clip-ons I had at the time. Best thing about screw-backs is that it is easy to adjust the tension -- no tools needed (great for jewellery buyers who don't have tools at hand) and you can do it over and over without weakening the structure.

Screw-backs come in two versions: with or without hinges. Hinges are useful if you have thick earlobes as you don't have to "push" the earring onto the ear. Unhinged versions are useful as they don't have a mechanism that can sheave or break down. Apart from this variation in design, there are several different models to choose between. Findings with loops, as the earrings on the left in the photo above, are the most common, but the screw-backs can also be fitted with pads (for glueing on flatbacks etc), cup and peg for half-drilled pearls and beads or stone settings. Some also have decorative fronts like the violet earrings in my photo. Just check out all the different versions at Jan's Jewels.

Hoops with spring closure

This type of clip-ons can often be seen in Japanese beading designs. They look very similar to hoop earrings, making them perfect for people who what a "pierced look". They come in different sizes and colours/platings (including pink!) and some have a loop at the bottom for adding dangles. I've used these as a base for wire-wrapping as well as for just dangling beads off. Only downside to this design is that the spring gives a rather loose tension, meaning the earring will fall off if you add beads or components that are too heavy. Stick with lightweight beads and simple designs is my advice.

More than once I've been asked were to find these elusive clip-on hoops. In the US these are sold by e.g. Fire Mountain Gems. In Sweden by Smyckestillbehor.se (Panduro used to have them too; some of their retailers might still have a few in stock if you're lucky).

Open hoops

Now, these are the simplified version of the hoop clip-ons above. As there is no mechanism these are much cheaper -- and it should'nt be too hard to make them yourself at home. They come in different sizes and colours (silver- or goldplate). Just as the hoops above they work best with simple, lightweight designs. You can't really adjust the gap much, though, so the fit might not be perfect depending on how thick your earlobes are.

DIY clip-ons

As clip-ons usually work using hinges and springs, it's not as easy to make your own clip-on earring findings as, say, earwires. I have seen two wirework clip-on designs, though. Check out Wrapture and WigJig. Some DIY ear cuffs (see below) could probably be used in a similar fashion.

Magnet earrings

I've never used these. The principle is simple: each earring consists of two magnets, placed on either side of the earlobe. The magnet in the front has a flatback, image or other component glued to it. These are often sold as "perfect for kids", more small children should never play with magnet as they can cause problems if swallowed. Use magnets that are suitable for earrings: some supermagnets are so strong they will be as painful as the good old clip-ons. Tips for how to make magnet earrings stick better can be found on eHow.

Ear cuffs

These are the classic old ear cuffs that you can use as is or combine with piercing earrings (many times connected with thin chains as in this tutorial). Cuffs are worn by people who have pierced ears as well as those without as they aren't necessarily a substitute for piercing earrings. Cuffs are clamped to the helix (= edge of the ear), not dangling from the earlobe.

You can buy them readymade (as in the photo) or make your own from wire or metal strips. There are many tutorials for making your own ear cuffs, from the most simple unadorned rings to richely embellished cuffs covering much of the helix. Embellished ear cuffs are sometimes called ear vines (also used for a kind of piercing earrings) or ear wraps. A few suggestions if you are looking for tuts: Jewelrylessons.com, The Beading Gem's Journal and BellaOnline.

The cuff in the photo has a small hole for adding dangles or connecting to an earring.

"Around the ear" cuffs/ear wraps

These have been trendy this season. Just like the cuffs above they are called either cuffs or wraps, though wraps and vines are also used for similar designs for pierced ears. "Behind-the-ear" cuffs can also be called bohemian wraps. Unlike the smaller cuffs that clamp on to the edge of the ear, these are positioned behind the ear and can -- depending on design -- look similar to piercing earrings. Sometimes they are especially designed for either the right or leaf ear (as with the cuff in the photo).

They can be bought readymade or you can make them yourself. Tutorial can be found at e.g. WigJig [I used that tutorial -- but without the aid of a jig -- for these ear cuffs], Semi and JewelryLessons.com. If forging your own earrings, this style of ear wraps can be used to make some seriously cool earrings. Just check out these dragons!

Apparently, this type of earrings were used even in Ancient times. In the big Hollywood movie Alexander, Angelina Jolie's character wore several different models like these bead earrings and these metal earrings. The jewellery used in the movie is supposed to be historically accurate, I've been told.

As the ear cuffs wrap around the ear, do they work if you wear glasses? Yes, I think it works as they sit tight against the ear (especially if they are costume made for your ears) unlike the glasses. Just don't use/make a cuff that is too thick.

That's the end of my little introduction to "non-piercing earrings". Do you think I missed something? Did you learn something new? Please feel free to comment, adding your own tips and ideas as well as general feedback. If you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them. I'm not anywhere near an expert in the field, but I like to try different clip-ons and cuffs so hopefully I can be of some help.

If I had a birthday wishlist...

2011-10-31T18:47:00.000+01:00

...I know one thing I'd put at the top (apart from money to buy beads): a Paperblanks journal. Unlined of cause: I always prefer to both write and sketch on unlined paper. They are so gorgeous. Expensive, but gorgeous. If you haven't seen or heard about them you really ought to check them out. Last time my sis and I went to a book shop that carries these, we spent ages just drooling over them and touching them. We didn't really have the money to buy any so after a while we had to pull ourselves away from the shelf before succumbing to the urge to purchase one or two or...

But here's the thing: I also know that when I buy an "eye candy" journal or notebook I desire, I don't dare using it because then it will be all "spent up". It's like with special beads, I want to save them for something special -- and end up never daring to use them. Just having them sit there waiting for the perfect idea, worthy of these special things, and never really believing that what I do at the moment is special enough. Using them for something mundane would be sacrilege! Still, I covet those journals so bad. And I do think I've learnt to accept that notebooks are meant to be used, no matter how special or trivial the notes are. It's not desecration to write on a pristine, white page of an expensive notebook -- even if it almost feels that way sometimes. I'm using them, which is what they were made for. It's silly to buy a notebook and then buy some more cheap ones as I can't write in the expensive one...

(And, no, I don't write a personal journal. I want the book as a sketch book and to jot down ideas and texts for stories etc.)

So I do hope I get at least a little money from my parents and grandma so I can buy one without feeling guilty for not saving the money for more important things. I know a lot of stuff that I probably should prioritize over a luxury journal, but sometimes you need something beautiful to brighten up your day.

But something I also really hope to be able to buy soon is books. I love reading books, both fiction and non-fiction (history, science, cultural geography, beading, jewellery making, embroidery etc). If you're curious, part of my vast wish list can be found here. It's pretty much focusing on how-to books rather than fiction (so very little fantasy) and because it's a british shop, there are no Swedish titles. My unabridged book wishlist is many times longer. In fact, it's not even one complete list, but comprised of book reviews I cut out of mags and papers, bookmarks on my browser and the Book Depository wishlist -- so not even I know how many books there's really on it! (The one below is: not a cheap embroidery technique to learn, but I really like some of the modern goldwork. Feels luxurious to work with threads like that too.)

I'm not expecting to get a lot of presents or money for my birthday, but I'm hoping it'll be enough to buy a book or two -- and hopefully a journal too. Knowing myself, though, I think it's much more likely I buy books and supplies than a journal, no matter how many years I've wanted one, as beads and books feel more useful than a blank journal. But if I ever get a real job and real income one day, I know a Paperblanks journal will be one of the first things I'll buy.

PS! Yes, I stole those photos of the Paperblanks website. Hope they don't mind it too much... That's actually not the journal/notebook I've been oogling the most, but I love the colours of the books in the Romantic Sensibility collection.

Crackle paint cabochons

2011-10-30T17:31:00.000+01:00

I've had some crackle medium standing on a shelf for ages. Or at least it feels like that. I bought it just a week or so before reading about a cheaper crackling technique that uses ordinary white glue instead of crackle medium, which can be pretty pricey sometimes. Typical. Anyway, this weekend I finally got around to trying it and these are my very first pieces: two 30 mm wooden discs and two glass pebbles (of the kind used in flower vases etc).

This one is a bit so-so. I tried not to paint over the medium more than once, as recommended, but I think I was too worried about doing it and therefore got a very uneven layer of paint. To the right you can see an unsuccessful attempt to add some colour without blocking out the crackles in the semi-dry paint. Not a smart idea. Better to just paint, allow it to overlap if you have to (and don't do it too much) and then not worry about uneven painting or a few small bare spots. After all, that just add to the old and rustic look.

For both cabs/discs I used a blue base coat, pretty much the only darker colour I have apart from some purple paint. It was really a matter of using what I had at hand. Have to buy some dark brow paint soon as I think it'll make a better base coat, more realistic if nothing else.

I also tried to paint some glass pebbles. Here, I didn't use any base coat. Instead I painted the medium directly on the glass and then painted it over with acrylic paints. Beige on the amber yellow cab and the same blue as above on the clear cab.

I tried to add another layer of paint in a contrasting colour to darken the cracks on a third, green cab (not pictured). Didn't work very well. Perhaps I should've let the first layers of paint dry longer, making sure there's not even a drop of moisture left. Well, you live and you learn...

Have no idea what to do with these cabs. They were test pieces, but it would still be nice to use them in my jewellery.

I'm also planning on doing a few pieces that are only partially crackled, e.g. adding the crackling as a frame around an image or painting. Not exactly sure what I want to do, but playing with crackle medium is fun so I will experiment some more with it.

Flower earrings -- and a plea for "clip-on" design ideas

2011-10-26T17:57:00.001+02:00

It's funny how memory works. I was sure I had published a pic of these earrings on the blog. I don't make many earrings (apart for a couple for my grandma these are about it) so I remember this pair well. And I was pretty sure they were somewhere on the blog. Just couldn't find them. So eventually, I just looked up another photo of them on a forum, where I knew I'd also shown them off. A so-so photo, but I wanted to blog about these. Still not sure I had mistaken myself, I started writing thise post. One thing lead to the other and I needed a photo of my other clip-on rings. What do you know... What I couldn't find just searching the blog headlines on the Blogger dashboard, I found in my blog photo album. It was right there, next to the rings I wanted to insert. I just didn't think they were in this blog post so I never even read through it when I came to it in the list of posts with the earring label!

Why all this hassle? There's nothing spectacular about the earrings really. Well, first off I just wanted to show them as I love the flower beads so if I didn't have an old post to refer to I had to write a new one. The reason I even began to think about the earrings was this post at Art Bead Scene Blog. If you don't want to follow the link: it's about a new blog focusing on daily earring inspiration.

My input was really just to lobby for "non-pierced" earring designs. With the exception of Japanese beading and jewellery-making websites, I rarely see any projects like that. It's like everyone assumes that people either have pierced ears or, if they don't, they aren't interested in wearing earrings. The late might be the case for some, but not for everyone -- and I also believe some of those not wearing earrings would change their minds about clip-ons if they saw the different findings available today.

But let's first get back to my flower earrings:

I like this type of clip-ons as they doesn't squeeze the earlobe as those horrible chunky clip-ons I had as a kid in the 80's. And they look like "real" earrings/creols. Unfortunately, you can't put anything heavy on them or they'll fall off, but for simple, light-weight earrings they are one of my favourite choices. I do have these too (se pic below), which are similar but without the spring and therefore much cheaper.

Because I don't have pierced ears, I'm not in the habit of wearing earrings -- pierced, clip-ons or cuffs -- but sometimes I feel like making a pair. Add to that the fact that I'm a collector so once I discovered there were different kinds of earring findings for us without pierced ears, I almost began to collect them. Below is an old photo I took for my other blog when writing about "non-piercing" earrings. It doesn't include cuffs, but shows some of the clip-ons I have. The big ones actually belong to my sis and are supposed to have beadable sieves (mesh, perforated discs) attached to the front.

I'm sometimes thinking of making a new, revised post presenting different type of clip-on findings and cuffs (the classic ones and the "round-the-ear" versions). For some, clip-ons still mean the painful chunky earlobe crushers they remember from 25 years ago, but now it's easy to find many different soloutions to ear hooks and studs. The more people are aware of the alternatives, the more I think they would be interested in clip-on and cuff earrings.

Would you like to see a post on these earring findings or on clip-on earrings in general written by someone without pierced ears? I'd be happy to write it, showing different options, DIY clip-on findings and suggestions for designers wanting to make earrings for us "non-pierced" jewellery buyers. I'm no expert, but I'll do my best to help if you have any questions.

Poetic fog and quotes

2011-10-24T16:22:00.001+02:00

I keep saving a lot of photos on the computer, thinking I want to show them off on the blog, but often I don't get around to edit them and after a while it just feels misplaced. For example showing summer photos in September. I have said I'm going to do three "remember summer" posts this autumn because there are a few things I really wish I had time to write about at the time.

Right now it's a batch of photos I took in the last days of September that bugs me. It was one of those foggy days you get when a cold and chilly weather suddenly changes and you know that tomorrow it will all be so different, sunny and warm. Fog adds such a mysterious veil to the landscape and softens everything. I know some of the photos I took look good on the camera display, but not in full size. Still, I really hope there are some photos good enough to publish here. So far I've only edited a couple of them, as you can see here. Not the best, but not the worst either.

That photo inspired me to do this (as I'd already softened the focus on that one, cheating a little, but not so much it altered the original mood of the photo):

The quote is from Hamlet (there is a small, almost invisible credit to Shakespeare in the pic). I found it on this lampwork bead, which I more or less fell in love with (the front, not the back, sorry).

It was kind of along the same way as another quote I've been contemplating for some time now:

Without going in too much on my personal life and why I've spent the last two years dreading my 30th birthday (which is just a little more than a week away by now), I can say this quote -- which I stumbled upon my chance in a magazine -- really struck a cord with me. Must admit to not knowing who Joseph Campbell is, but at least he has said some good things it seems.

See, since I began studying and choosing what I wanted to learn more about, I've not had a big plan about how I wanted my future to turn out, but I knew I wanted to work with the issues I felt so passionate about: environment and planning (samhällsplanering). Since the day I stepped out of the university world into the real world, the adult world, I haven't gotten a chance to do so. That hurts me, makes me feel so sad. One of the reasons I don't sell my jewellery is actually related to this in a weird way. I have this idealist in me that want to dedicate my life to the big things, to create a sustainable development, and I don't want to be side tracked by less important things. I think I feared that by focusing on my beading and putting my energy into making that my business (that's one of the things I've studied, by the way, business administration) I would turn my back to the one thing I really want to work with. Since I don't seem to be able to get a job in the field, I have to rethink my whole purpose in life. Or at least that's how it feels. I'm at a turning point. 30 years old without a job, lover, own home or money (but a nice big loan after six years at uni). That sucks. And I have to do something because it can't go on like this. It's just that I feel like I have to give up a dream, an education -- a part of me. I know there will be other dreams if I just let them in, but there are so many things I hate to let go of. I don't want that to be my only way of getting out of the deep, black hole I'm in. But I have to do something. I've slowly begun to -- if not accept it so at least realise it might be what I have to do. Because my life can't continue as it's done these last years. I wish you could just pause life, make everything just stand still and stop time. To give me a moment to really think about what I want and must do without being stressed by the clocking ticking and minutes, days, years of my life just floating by and be gone, never coming back again but lost forever. And it was at that point I saw that quote.

Bead blog recap weeks 41-42

2011-10-23T21:39:00.000+02:00

Time for another recap of what I've been writing these last two weeks over at my other blog, Manekis Pärlblogg. This time the subjects include Plasti Dip (as jewellery material), new products from the US and Czech Republic, contests and bunting necklace projects. The post that excites me the most? Of cause it's the new Twin beads from Preciosa Ornela (see photo above and check out these pics).

Read more »

Went shopping again

2011-10-19T22:29:00.001+02:00

Yes, I know I'm on a tight budget and shouldn't shop, but you just can't pass up an opportunity to get to buy a handmade gräddbulle (as I mentioned here). Gräddbullerian and Accessorize are by far my two favourite shops among all the new ones at Väla (sorry, Bites & Bottles). Apart from gräddbullar, the only thing I was thinking of buying was a bottle of gesso and some stickers so I can make more MOP etchings. But then of cause I had to go by Pressbyrån and check out all the mags. They don't seem to carry any of the beading or jewellery making mags anymore, but I can find other craft magazines and creative reading. This time I picked up an issue of Hemslöjd.

I discovered Hemslöjden, the magazine that has now become Hemslöjd, more or less by accident. I was given a whole bunch of back issues by a woman that was moving to a new home. Keep or donate to charity she said. I read them and kept them all. Even if I hesitated at first. Could this really be for me?

To understand why I felt like that, you have to understand both what hemslöjd means and the age in which I grew up.

Read more »

Iron-on transfer on leather

2011-10-17T18:44:00.000+02:00

Those of you that have read my blog for some time know that I don't just publish photos of things that turned out well. This is one example of something that didn't turn out as well as I'd liked. But something that did give me valuable experience for the next time I want to try it.

I wanted to try the image tranfer technique for leather, which Sherri Haab describes in her book Designer Style Jewelry. She uses iron-on transfer paper for dark fabric. I didn't have that and wanted to have the leather show through in the background so I tried it with "regular" t-shirt transfer papers (e.g. for white/lightly coloured fabric). Tip: Black text doesn't show up well on dark purple backgrounds...

Note: If using transfer paper for white fabric, you will get a shiny film between the coloured areas. See photo above and how the film ends next to the first and last letter, creating a visible seam or edge. Solution is to trim as much as you can around the image or cover all the leather with the transfer paper so it gets evenly shiny. Or just not see it as a problem. This is not an issue with papers for dark fabric as all white areas are transferred to the leather, giving it an even, opaque finish. While cheaper, I don't recommend papers for white fabric to begin with -- unless you are ok with the edges.

First thing I learned was that my choice of leather was bad. I used this thick painted lace as it was intended for a contest where I had to use this product. Not good: the iron almost melted the paint in places. Normally leather is dyed or stained, but this wasn't which probably made it a bad choice. Not sure if it was the painted surface or the leather itself that also made the transfer slide when I rubbed it with the hot iron. Lesson to myself: apply iron from above, pressing and lifting to heat section by section. Do not "rub" back and forth as when ironing clothes. Not even a little.

Second problem can be blamed on the instructions. The book said to refer to the paper manufacturer's instructions, but these didn't mention what heat setting to choose (only to choose a setting appropirate for the t-shirt -- which of cause comes with care symbols unlike the leather). I don't know what heat is ok for leather and still hot enough to transfer the image. So I just set it somewhere in the middle or just below the middle. At one point I heated the leather so much it hardened and curled. D'oh!

I did probably over half a dozen transfers and the one you see in the first photo (top of post) is the only one that's anywhere near neat and clean. Most annoying part: when making a bracelet with two transfers, the first one being turning out very nice, the second totally messed up. Grrr!

But I'm not giving up. I still believe in this technique and to show that it can indeed be successful, I took a photo of some leather "tiles" my sis have made.

(Cats on the photos are: Figge, Mimi and Rostan, followed by Randi and Isse below.)

Much better than most of my flops. The slightly grainy appearance says more about her (and my) camera and print out than the transfer method. She also had the same problem with the image distorting when ironing it less than meticulously.

Looks pretty ok -- until you focus on Randa's head!

I'm not trying to deter anyone from trying this. In fact, it's a great method if you are careful and know what you are doing. I don't know that many transfer methods for leather so I can't compare this with other techniques, though. Just be prepared that the first transfer might not be as good as you hoped. But when it works, when you lean what the pitfalls are, it looks good!

What will happen with the "dreaming of dragon" transfer I showed initially? When I get good scissors for cutting heavy leather, I'll trim the edges, punch a hole in each and use as focal/connector in a bracelet. At least that's my plan at the moment.

When you challenge yourself

2011-10-15T20:05:00.001+02:00

Double posts today. If you're looking for sari ribbon you'll find it by scrolling down a bit, just after the mauled french wired ribbon. Or by clicking here.

So... Do you see what's in the picture above? It's black pipe cleaners, AKA chenille stems. A common craft supply, not least used by kids. So what am I doing with them? I have no idea. No idea at all. But I know it will be jewellery.

It began as it often does by me challenging myself to use some unusual or unorthodox material for my jewellery. In this case, using a very common craft supply for adult jewellery seemed like a challenge that would push me outside my comfort zone. The plan is to do real jewellery, that is: something that can be worn without looking like a masquerade piece or something your kid made you wear. I'm not talking about making crown jewels with it, but it should be wearable and tasteful.

The first hurdle was buying the supplies when on a fixed, very tight budget. They don't cost much each, but you can only buy them in bundles of at least 25 but up to 100 stems. And if you want mixed colours to avoid having to buy several packages of each colour, you get an assortment. Read: not one of the packages in the craft store had a colour mix I was pleased with. Too many of colours I don't want and too little or none of the colours I'd planned on buying. I had an idea, inspired by something I saw online, but in the end I couldn't get the right colour for it. So I went with black, figuring it's a classic, elegant colour. Surely that would make my challenge that much easier?

Well, I don't know about that. So far I haven't had even one good or even somewhat good idea since I had to scrap my inital necklace idea. (Thought I kind of like these.) I've seen pipe cleaners wrapped in ribbon or cloth and than of cause makes them look classier and more useful, but according to my challenge rules, they have to be visible. Even it it would just be an accent like e.g. in these butterflies.

Maybe I have gone in over my head here. It feels that way. But I won't give up -- and that's partially why I'm blogging about this: now that someone else know about the challenge, I can't chicken out. Right? Maybe I'm worrying too much that I'll look tacky or childish. Maybe I should just do something and then decide if it was a good idea or not. Well, when I come up with a good enough idea and create jewellery I'm not too embarrassed to show, I'll be sure to blog about it.

Speaking of ribbon...

2011-10-15T19:31:00.000+02:00

This is my tiny stash of lovely, shimmering french wired ribbon in different ombré colours. It's woven with one colour in the weft and then the warp consists of threads toning from one hue to another, giving it not just that colour shifting you know from e.g. dupioni silk, but also a colourchange from one edge to the other. It's that shifting that makes the ribbon look stiped in a photo when you scale it down as I've done above (click on it to see it in original size).

Granted, it's a bit too shiny for my taste perhaps, but the colours are lovely. And used the right way, of cause I like shimmer too.

Like with so many of my supplies I just never use these. Why? Partially because they're special and I therefore want to save them for a special project, but also because I keep thinking that if I use them I will have nothing left. I know it's not the last ombré french wired ribbon on earth, but there are so many other things I want to buy and save up money for that it might as well be. I know it's irrational, but keep in mind that I don't sell what I though and thus never get an income to finance restocking. As it really is a tiny stash I cannot make more than one flower of each colour, adding to my indecisivenes. When I do decide and cut the ribbon, there's no going back. Then I can't change my mind anymore. So in the end I never "dare" use it, I keep my little bundle of ribbons like a treasure in a treasure chest.

Execpt for one of the ribbons... Somehow it had fallen out of the bag I store them in -- and I didn't notice at all! Probably months after than happened my sis found it under some newspapers. Of cause the cats had found it. Of cause they had decided it was their new best toy. Oh, just look at it! All mangled and perforated by naughty kitten claws (yes, I blame the kittens rather than the adult cats). I think there is a short stip that's relatively unharmed in the middle of the roll, but not really long enough to make anything from. At least not a flower.

Oh well, it's my fault. Can't deny that. I'm the only one that has opened that bag so it can only have been me who dropped it on the floor. And once there, how is a cat to know it's not a toy? Can't really blame them for not knowing the difference between what's ok to play with and what's not. That's how I feel now, not how I felt when my sis showed me the ribbon. I can assure you of that!

Sari Ribbon Party Blog Hop

2011-10-14T06:00:00.020+02:00

Due to computer issues (the headache inducing kind) I'm writing this in the middle of the night. I hope the fact it's past my bedtime won't make this post too difficult to read.

I like cords and ribbon, but I've never used the sari ribbon I've seen so many other do beautiful jewellery with. So when I read about the Sari ribbon blog party, hosted by Brenda Sue Lansdowne (of B'Sue Boutiques) I thought it was a good incentive to try it myself. I also challenged myself further by choosing to work with a colour I don't normally use. A colour far from the earthtones I'm so fond of.

This is my third hop in less than a month, which meant I didn't have much time to work with the ribbon. I mostly do bead weaving and embroidery at the moment, but that was out of the question this time. As so often when I'm working with something new I tried to keep it simple, getting to know the material rather than go for some grand design I didn't know if it'd work out in the end. Working with what I had at home also added som limitations.

And these three added another obstacle to the whole thing. Especially Julle and Jisse quickly learned that sari ribbon is just so much fun to chew, run off with, catching in the air and just generally play with. At one point, Jisse (the boy in the middle) was hanging from my skirt trying to catch the ribbon I was holding (I was standing up at the moment). Cute, I guess, but awfully irritating when I was racing against the clock yesterday. Well, I guess I should just be glad not all of our eleven cats took the same interest in my new ribbon stash....

I planned several different things, but in the end it boiled down to two finished pieces. For my first necklace, I found the perfect dark heather freshwater pearls to go with the ribbon. When I check colours to see if they match, I often twist the ribbon, cord or bead strands around each other. In this case that became the inspiration for the finished design. I simply stitched a strand of pearls to the ribbon and twisted it, leaving some ribbon on each side for tying in the neck (preferrably with a prettier bow than mine).

I might redo this one as I think the ribbon it too tightly twisted and it looks like the pearls are wrapped around the ribbon rather than the two -- ribbon and pearl strand -- being twisted together as it looks when I first tested the technique.

Pretty soon I knew I'd probably want to make a ribbon flower (check out the blog label ribbon flowers and you'll see why). This was not my original plan. I wanted to do a "loop" flower, but in the end I settled for a smaller flower in a technique known as continuous u-gather. The flower was stitched to a filigree in russian goldplate and then a flower in the same plate was added to the centre, held in place by a fire-polished bead.

The chain is just temporary: I didn't have any in the right colour to match the filigree and because it's so delicate I didn't have any cord or ribbon that seemed to fit.

The flower is a bit uneven, which I probably can blame the kitties for, but I hope it doesn't look too uneven. I can't say that hot pink and gold is a favourite colour combo, but it is eyecatching and very different from what I usually do so it was a fun combo to work with. A happy and warm combo.

All in all, I made two designs that I never would've thought I'd make, had you asked me the day I signed up for the blog hop. Ideas got scrapped, components had to be returned to the stash as they didn't work out, ribbon got mauled by the cats. And in the end I came up with something created by the work process itself in a way. Something I hope you like or might even be inspired by, even if they are simple designs hastily made in the last minute.

Will I be working more with sari ribbon in the future? Most likely, though from now on I'll probably wait for the really good ideas as I don't have a deadline hovering over me. I'm an "ideas first" kind of person, finding it hard to work with kits or choosing materials before choosing my project idea. But I know that sooner or later I do get an idea for the materials I've accumulated. Until then I'll just work with something else (right now embroidery, I think). Sari ribbon sure has potential to inspire me.

Before you go, I just wanted to add that you might want to stick around: I'm planning to do a giveaway in the beginning of November, which you perhaps would be interested in. Ok, now go and check out all the other talanted party people in this hop:

Vickie Wills

http://www.jewelrybyvee.blogspot.com/

Susan Kennedy
http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com

Michelle Mach
http://www.michellemach.com/blog/

Michelle Lee Hardy
http://fireflyvisions.blogspot.com/

Ruth Crawford
http://www.home-with-ruth.blogspot.com

Hilary Frye, FryeStyle
http://fryestyle.blogspot.com/

Diana P.
http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com

Brenda Sue Lansdowne, B'sue Boutiques
http://www.bsueboutiques.typepad.com/

Elizabeth Owens-Dwy
http://www.clarityofpurplesage.blogspot.com

Connie Rios-Relyea
http://www.JewelsDesignsCreativeCorner.wordpress.com/

Jennifer Justman
http://soulsfiredesigns.blogspot.com/

Deb Davis
http://www.naturaltreasuresbydeb.blogspot.com

Beanzie
http://www.thevintageheartcharmbracelets.com/the-vintage-heart-charm-b/

Cathie Carroll
http://www.cathiecarroll.com/

Rosemary Cowit
http://www.gemrosedesigns.blogspot.com/

Georgene Lockwood
http://sylvanavintagedesigns.wordpress.com/

Cathy Buckley
http://cathybuckleycatsmeow.blogspot.com

Harry Wood
http://www.oscarcrow.blogspot.com

Sonya Stille
http://dreaminofbeads.blogspot.com

Mary Deis
http://mdeis.blogspot.com/

Heather Goldsmith
http://asibeadit.blogspot.com/

Susan Rouleau
http://mountainshadowstudio.blogspot.com

Terry Matusyk
http://pinkchapeau.wordpress.com

Pam Chesbro
http://afortunatesoul.blogspot.com/

Mary Shannon Hicks
http://uptwnsh-fallingintothesky.blogspot.com/

Janice Everett
http://JLynnJewels.blogspot.com

Davinia
http://www.daviniadesign.com

Kristina Johansson, Maneki [You are here]
http://wildrosesandblackberries.blogspot.com

Kris Binsfeld
http://www.cherishdesigns.wordpress.com

Mandy
http://www.beadsforbrains.blogspot.com

Charlene
http://thebeaddreamer.com/blog/

Catherine Jeltes
http://www.galleryzooart.com

Jackie
http://kydojewellery.blogspot.com/

Sharon Palac
http://www.sharonsjewelrygarden.blogspot.com

Deb Beechy
http://beetique56.blogspot.com/

Jean Yates
http://prettykittydogmoonjewelry.blogspot.com/

Patrice Pfeiffer
http://treeseatreasures.blogspot.com/

Dorcas Midkiff
http://wondrousstrangedesigns.blogspot.com/

Lynn Perry Bennett
http://designsbylynnea.blogspot.com

Linzi Alford
http://www.magpieintheskyspoilheaptales.blogspot.com

Deb
http://greenshoot.blogspot.com/

Cynthia Wainscott
http://www.exoticperujewelry.blogspot.com

Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp
http://skyejewels.blogspot.com

Alice Craddick
http://alicesbeadsandbaubles.blogspot.com/

B'sue Boutiques Creative Group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/bsueboutiques/

Have fun!

October rose

2011-10-14T02:35:00.000+02:00

Yay, I finally managed to over come the computer issues and write by blog hop post, which will publish in the morning. Over here it's 02:25 so I really should get into bed. I look forward to the sari ribbon party tomorrow, though I don't look forward to the fact that I have to work some more with the ol' computer. Hopefully it'll be in a good mood. Fingers crossed.

Until the post will appear on the blog (at 6 my time), you can enjoy this rose image I made the other day, using a blurry and noisy photo of a rose blooming in October. Took the photo on one of the first days of the month so I haven't checked if it's survived the cold nights we're having now. Don't know if you can read the text due to my font choice. I just jotted down a short text about it to add a bit of interest in the image. It's in English as it's really annoying trying to write something in Swedish when you can't add three important vowels because the font isn't adapted to the Swedish language. Well, as long as I keep it simple, it less noticable how much more eloquent I am in Swedish than in English.

Now I better turn the computer off so I can get at least a few hours sleep tonight. I believe I've got four hours until sunrise at least.

Good night!

Digital collage II

2011-10-11T22:18:00.000+02:00

I actually made another similar collage before the Harry Martinson one. This one has a text that's very familiar to Swedes: the first verse of Fjäriln vingad syns på Haga by Carl Michael Bellman. This is the 64th song in Fredmans sånger, published in 1791. It has been recorded in English under such titles as On a summer's day in Haga, Haga Butterfly and Haga. The setting is the Haga Park, founded by king Gustav III. Here you find famous buildings such as the Haga Palace, the Chinese Pavilion, Gustav III's Pavilion, the Echo Temple and the Copper Tents.

But let us return to the collage. I had a hard time with the layout here and I'm not that fond of the results. This isn't what I wanted and the density of the font paired with the spacing made it impossible to cover the whole page with the text as originally planned. In the end, I even made a second version by cropping the original image. And now I just realised I forgot to change the Äs and Ås, hence the question marks in the text. Stupid... As with the Harry Martinson image, I didn't intend to make the text clearly visible. I was after the mood of the lovely handwriting, rather than framing a quote for someone to read. The reason I used a quote rather than just write random words was that I wanted a mood to create the image around -- and from a practical point of view, a real text would look more realistic than a nonsense text.

I think I like this one better even if it does look very much like an image cropped from a larger picture. Much tighter composition, putting the text in centre (though that wasn't the plan). Again, not perfect. Far from it. But better, I think. And, oh, if you didn't notice it yourself already: I'm really fond of that tree "sticker" in Picnik.

Digital collage

2011-10-11T21:58:00.000+02:00

I mentioned I wanted to learn more about digital art and collages not too long ago. This is one of my first digital collages since my laptop died a few years ago. Made in Pixlr-o-matic (textured background) and Picnik.com (the rest) -- something that took a bit of time since I'm used to working with layers in PSE, which I can't with this software. It's not great and I can't even call it my first try (though my first try using Picnik for this type of images), but I think it's nice enough to blog about. Showing at I at least try to learn something new.

I've got a few more with quotes, but right now the big issue is that I find it hard to pick out quotes to work with. I've got to find my old compilation of poems and texts I like...

The text in the collage is by Harry Martinson (1904-1978), a poet and writer I really like. He won the Nobel prize in literature in 1974. He grew up in poverty without his parents -- his father died and his mother emigrated to America, leaving him behind. Became a seaman at age 16. Then he became a famous and loved writer, making his debute as poet in 1929. The years after he won the prize, the critizism against him grew harder and harder -- and in the end he comitted suicide by stabbing himself with scissors in a way similar to harakiri. A sad and brutal end to a man whose words I love to read. After his death, the Harry Martison Society (Harry Martinson-Sällskapet) was founded. Amongst other things they reprint his works and have founded two prizes in his memory.

This short essay is titled Försonande rymd ("Redemptive space" ) from the book De tusende dikternas bok (1986). It's been reprinted in Naturessäer by the Harry Martinson Society. I don't know if it has been translated, I'm afraid. As it's almost impossible to read the font -- and I couldn't write å, ä or ö -- I'll publish the text below. First in original, then in my slightly clumsy translation.

Försonande rymd

I en by där jag levde fanns en bonde som jag hatade. Jag hade
beslutat att innan jag lämnade byn kasta en sten i hans ansikte.
En kväll såg jag honom köra hem från arbetet. Jag stod inne
mellan några träd och han såg mig inte. Men plötsligt höll han
in hästen och stanna den kracklande arbetsvagnen.
Han satt länge alldeles stilla. Och efterhand gick det upp
för mig att han lyssnade på själva aftonens tystnad omkring sig;
till den frid som kan höras bara av den ensamma mänskan. Då
smög jag mig bort.

Redemptive space

In a village where I lived, there was a farmer I hated. I had decided
that before I left the village I would throw a stone in his face.
One night, I saw him drive home from work. I was standing behind
some trees and he didn't see me. But suddenly he held his horse
and stopped the cracking work wagon.
He sat still for a long time. And gradually it dawned on me that
he listened to the very silence of the evening around him; to the
peace that can be heard only by the lonely man.
Then I slipped away.

The scene captivated me the first time I read it. Standing like that, alone in a silent evening, is one of the most divine experience you can get. The beauty and harmony in nature at moments like that are hard to put in words. Pair my personal experience of moments like that with the man in the text. Her was this hard man, who probably had treated the young boy badly (I'd probably dislike him to: I've read Martinson's depiction of his childhood and how he was treated by other adults so I'm not just basing it on this text) -- and suddenly we see his secret, soft side. A glimpse that tells us there is much more to this man than he has shown the child. Even our enemies can have sides we like, though we might never see them. But if we do, we might change our opinion about them. As we get to know other sides, get a fuller picture of the personality, we might no longer hate the person we have made our enemy.

I hope you like it. Both the collage (though far from perfect) and the text.

PS! It's just as good the font is hard to read. I misspelled Martinson!!

Book finds -- jewellery inspiration

2011-10-08T17:09:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, my sis and I went down to the village as we both had mail to collect. As we had time and the weather wasn't too bad we also went by the pharmacy and, as it's just around the corner from that shop, the library. Of cause they we selling old books and redundant copies so we got stuck there for a while. Not that many great finds, but I did walk away with a few books. One of them was Jewels of the Pharaohs: Egyptian Jewelry of the Dynastic Period by Cyril Aldred.

I can't say Ancient Egypt is one of my main source of inspiration, but I have found inspiration from there before (even done an egyptian revival-inspired jewellery set once) and a book on jewellery is always a book on jewellery. Even if it is old and have those typical 70's colour photos.

Haven't read it yet, but have flipped through it and found some inspirational -- and impressive -- jewellery. It's not just eye candy: the book covers bead making, jewellery techniques, history, symbolism etc on around 40 pages. You can e.g. learn that a bead maker was called iru weshbet and that it isn't known whether the Egyptians knew how to draw wire.

Flipping through the colour plates, I kept thinking I wanted to see more close-ups of the clasps and bead and that there was a slightly annoying lack of measurements. Because nowadays I don't just want eye candy for inspiration, I want to know how something is made. Techniques, materials, what the back looks like, what details and mechanisms (e.g. clasps, hinges, fasteners). Everything.

This page show one of the pieces that caught my eye, a floral circlet belonging to princess Khnumet who was buried in Dahshur (the crown above it was also hers). It's not something I'd immediately class as egyptian if I hadn't seen it in this book. Seeing it, I keep thinking it might be an inspiration for a piece made in wire crochet, either a circlet or a necklace. You can click on the image for a close-up so you can see more of the details.

Here's another page I quite liked. The top image is of goldsmiths, known as nuby, at work. Below that is two images of male jewellery makers making bead necklaces and collars. The guy below almost seem to have a modern day bead board. Apart from the nuby (goldsmith) and iru weshbet (bead maker), there was also the baba (faience maker) and neshdy (lapidary) involved in the jewellery making. [Googling it, I also found that the skilled collar stringers were known as seti nub.]

So now I have "new" book that includes two of my favourite subjects -- cultural history and jewellery/beads -- to read. Or rather look at as it's mostly pictures. Hopefully, I'll both learn something new and find jewellery inspiration in it.

Bead blog recap weeks 39-40

2011-10-08T16:27:00.000+02:00

A summary of what I've written the last two weeks over at my other blog, Manekis Pärlblogg. From blue slag stone and needlepoint beads to earring contests and beaded candle holders.

Read more »

Very Vintage Challenge

2011-10-04T06:00:00.052+02:00

Today is the day. Time to reveal what we've made for the Very Vintage Challenge, hosted by Michelle Mach. This is a kit challenge where each participant has bought an autumn-themed kit to create with. What makes this kit challenge a bit special was the fact that Michelle not only sold full kits, but also a few "mini kits" with fewer items, but in the same style and on the same theme as the big kits.

I choose the small kit, as you can see above, because I thought it was very cute. My plan was to do something simple with just a few pieces (not really adding to the kit) so that each and every piece could shine. Just look at the pic: it doesn't need much more to make a lovely necklace, right? I also decided early on that I wanted to do something asymmetrical as I'm no good at it. But of cause nothing really went as planned.

First I added a few beads, thinking I'd like them on each side of the branch. Very nice and elegant, no bead dangles except the acrylic leaves (was going to drill a hole at the tip of the brass leaf). And a well balanced asymmetry. It was also important that the branch would be used in a different way from last time I used that component. But for some reason I gave up that idea. Perhaps I couldn't make the pieces fit the way I wanted; I'm not sure exactly why it began to move in a completly different direction.

I gave up the round pendant, which I wanted to use as a clasp, for another idea I got. Then I wanted to add a few more flowers on top of the red ones I'd selected for my original idea. Before I know it, I'd added several pieces and come up with a design I wouldn't normally work with as I don't like "cha-cha style" jewellery (rassel as we say in Sweden). And whether or not I'd added too many pieces considering the rules of the challenge, well, I totally forgot about it being a kit challenge once I'd begun! (Hope I didn't bend the rules -- and the whole idea of a kit challenge -- too much...)

Ok, enough talk and trying to build up suspense. You want to see it, right?

Can you spot the clasp before I point it out?

I kind of cheated myself out of the asymmetry "ultimatum", didn't I? Adding beads like this, it's almost always asymmetric to some degree, but you don't see it as well do to the number of beads. As you can see I've added quite a lot to the kit -- would you believe me if I say I just realised that last night? D'oh. There's several czech glass beads in different colours as well as a few tiny fire-polished drops and two rough-cut czech rounds. I also added a chain and a Vintaj leaf charm by the branch component. I did not use the round charm from the kit.

The leaf charm wasn't added as mere embellishment. If you haven't already figured it out, it's the clasp. I bent it and made a hook clasp in the same way I did with my barn swallow focal.

One detail I forgot to get a good pic of is how the beaded chain on the right is attached to the branch. Just like with the leaf and flower pendant, I made a loop on the middle of a piece of wire, trimmed the ends and crimped it onto the dapped branch. Sort of like a staple or claw.

Adding the two round-ish beads to the end of ech beaded section was really just something I did because the chain was soldered and I had to shorten it. That's why I prefer open links (if they're sturdy enough). Also had some idea about making a more defined transition from beaded to unbeaded chain.

This is a short necklace. I don't have a photo of worn, I'm afraid, but I did take a photo of it hanging. This one shows what the necklace would look like worn -- if it had been long. I kind of like it -- even if you can see that that loop on the left isn't properly closed... But it has nothing to do with how the necklace actually lies around your neck.

So... Am I happy with the results? Well, kind of. I finished on time despite knowing I can find it hard to work with kits (still I can't say no to a kit challenge!). And I like the colours. This style of jewellery isn't really my cup of tea, though, so perhaps I'd preferred to string the beads. Perhaps even add a few tiny beads in between the dangles to make it more like the "in progress" pic below. Or add the beads to twisted wire for a more "airy" design and interesting texture. And as for the final result, I'm still wondering if I did the right thing by adding a chain and not beads as initially intended. What do you think? Keep the chain or go with my small dark brown square wooden beads instead? Or both?

Another "in progress" pic below: at this point (measuring the length of the beaded sections) it looks like a neat lariat necklace:

Well, I might sound negative, but those who know we knows that's my style. Never really satisified, finding faults and always looking for ways to improve things. So in the end I'm probably more pleased than it sounds like. And I'm really glad I signed up for this challenge. So a big thank you, Michelle, for creating an inspiring and beautiful kit to work with!

Before you go, I just wanted to mention that you might want to come back again soon. I've decided to host a birthday giveaway next month (Nov 3rd) and already next week (Oct 14th) I'm participating in another hop, the Sari Ribbon Blog Party, hosted by Brenda Sue Landsdowne (B'Sue). That said, now, don't miss all the other participants in this fun Very Vintage challenge today:

Andrew: The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton

Cat: Boo Beads

Chris: beadjewelry.net

Cilla: Tell Your Girlfriends

Cyndi: Beading Arts

Cynthia: Cynth's Blog

Dawn: Morning Glory Beading

Donetta: Simply Gorgeous

Heather: As I Bead It

Holly: SilverRose Designs

Kate: We Can Make That at Home

Kristina: Wild Roses and Blackberries (You are here!)

Lauren: Laurel Moon Jewelry & Beads

Linda: Lutka & Co

Lisa: Lucid Mood Studio

Lola: Bead Lola Bead

Mary: MLH Jewelry

Melinda: Melinda Orr Metal & Clay Jewelry Designs

Michelle H.: Firefly Visions

Michelle M. (hostess): Beads & Books

Salla: Blog by Salla

Shannon: Falling into the Sky

Shay: Shaiha's Ramblings

Shel: MiShel Designs

Shirley: Beads and Bread

Stephanie: Pixybug Designs

Tari: Pearl and Pebbles

Terry: Pink Chapeau Vintage Jewelry

Tracy: The Bead Junkie

Have fun hopping -- and thanks for visiting!

The cornflower picture

2011-10-03T17:49:00.000+02:00

Some of you might have noticed that I've made a few small changes to the blog. I've added new pages for my free tutorials, recipes and jigsaw puzzles, making them much easier to find. I've also tried to add a personalized favicon. For some reason it worked on my other blog, but as far as I can see not on this one. (If you can see a favicon other than the Blogger B, I'd love to know about it.)

I've used the same image for the favicon as for my Blogger profile. I don't think I've said anything about the background of that image, though, despite mentioning that I would when I made the change. So here it is, the story behind the cornflower photo -- and the "original" photo I created the image from:

It all began a summer afternoon when I wanted to take some photos of my sister's multi-coloured cornflowers. It was a lovely light outside so it felt like the right moment to get some pics. I'd just recently taken a few photos indoors and it wasn't until after the first photo I realised I hadn't changed the white balance settings. That's why the colours are a bit strange. It's not edited afterwards. It's the result of me forgetting to reset the camera. I love the effect!

So that explains the colours, but not the cropping. Because I did of cause not miss half the flower when I took the pics. The inspiration for the artsy cropping came from the editing software I was using at the time, Picasa. When you want to crop an image in Picasa, the software gives you several suggested cuts if you don't want to choose yourself. One way the software wanted to crop my photo intrigued me so I used it. That's the photo you see just above this paragraph.

I had struggled with a picture of a flower and background in colours I loved, but with a composition that was just so plain. This way I could focus on the things I liked about the photo. I just had to learn that you don't have to fit the whole object in the image. It can look nice this way too. But I'm not sure I would've seen this solution without the suggestions created by the software. That's the one feature I miss about not using Picasa anymore.

Later, I wanted to add a new image to my Blogger profile. No matter how much I loved my dragon, I felt another image might say more about me and my style than the black and blue sweetie. For my profile image, I needed a square pic so I just cropped the top half of the original image and changed the resolution. As a bad last move, I also added a texture. So reduntant with a photo like this one, but it's the way it is now.

Someday I'll make that pic into a pendant (if the resolution isn't too bad for printing). I think it'd make a nice focal in a necklace.

By the way...
Speaking of blog changes, I'm thinking about making a new banner for my other blog. Mainly because I want something more bead or jewellery related. I'm not a fan of fairies and choose the image I'm using now more because of the colours. And I want something more personal, by mer for my work, than some free clipart I found online years ago. If you have any suggestions -- or want to save my fairy -- I'd love to hear it.

The lilac bracelet

2011-09-29T16:49:00.000+02:00

I'm blogging a lot this week (blogging and hopping has pretty much been the theme of the week so far). This is a bracelet I came to think of when I saw someone had linked to my mini tut on Pinterest. Don't think I've shown it before. So I just wanted to write a little about it as it was one of those designs where I just went with a whim.

This is one of those "what if...?" designs. It's based on the basic "berries and vines" design, which I've done a few variations of before (it's in the link). For this variation I wondered what would happen if I added not one picot per section, as in my orange bracelet, but one picot on each and every seed bead. A bit fiddly to get some of the beads to fit, but this is how it eventually turned out.

A close-up:

I was keeping my fingers crossed that the bracelet would be just the right length so I could finish with a pink bead, not breaking up the pattern. And it was. The clasp is a simple bead-and-loop clasp, making it blend in with the rest of the bracelet.

It got its name from the fact that the lavender seed beads remind me of lilac blossom somehow. The colours where really a case of using what I had at hand. While I like a muted palette and romantic colours, I don't think I would've worked with this palette in this way otherwise.

It's a pretty chunky and heavy bracelet, but I think it's ok. Could probably develop the design idea more, but for a first test of my idea, I'm pleased with it.

I love photo editing software

2011-09-28T15:39:00.000+02:00

If you've followed this blog for some time, you know I like to play around with my photos and images in general. I don't show that many altered images, but if nothing else there was the BSBP preview where I had some fun with the pirate textures on Picnik. And perhaps you've seen in my blog roll that I enjoy reading Kim Klassen's blog (love textures).

One of the things I'd love to learn more about is digital art, creating images on the computer using my photos. When I began studying magazines on digital photography, in preparation for choosing and buying my first digital camera, I came to learn many things about using photo editing software. And I like playing around with my good old version (v. 2) of Photoshop Elements that I got when I bought my laptop. But these last years I've not had the opportunity to spend time doing that. For one reason, my laptop died so I've been without a computer of my own since then.

My favourite photo editing software is still PSE. I really liked using it to make digital collages, artistic editing of photos (read: e.g. using clone tool to remove whole portions of a pic), adding textures and layering images. Now I don't have access to PSE so I have to make due with other software for the time being. Lately I've mostly been using the free version of Picnik after a reading about it on Heather Powers' (Humblebeads) blog. But recently, I read about another fun little free software for adding textures and frames: Pixlr-o-matic. Don't remember who it was that blogged about it, I'm afraid. Anyway, I love all sorts of software for playing around with my photos so I had to give it a try. And this time I actually saved one of the results.

Above is the altered image, below the "original" (but cropped and adjusted) photo. Not a great photo. Tried in vain to capture the colours as they appeared in real life, but that door looks just ugly in the photo (that's why I wish the clone tool was free on Picnik)...

By the way, this is not exactly a complete list of all the photo editing software I have or use. If you're interested I can list them, mentioning such useful stuff like Neat Image (noise reducer) and IrfanView (resizing, cropping, batch conversions, light adjustments etc), but this post was more about Pixlr-o-matic than about photo editing in general. I probably have mentioned it all in an earlier post. Or was in a comment on someone else's blog? Anyway, if you want to have fun with your photos: why not give Pixlr-o-matic a try? It's nothing like creating with, say, PSE, but it's fun and very easy. There's even a frame with a skull you can use (I'm talking to you, sis!).

Horse chestnut leaf

2011-09-26T16:42:00.002+02:00

Just a little picture as I wanted to say I've added some more photos to my previous post with the close-ups of the crackling and peeling paint.