Knitting nancy WIP

I don't blog much right now due to work etc, but that doesn't mean I'm completely abandoning any creative pursuits. Here's one example of what I've been dabbling with the last weeks. After seeing many pretty hexafish rubber band bracelets, I of cause had to give it a try. Using my old knitting nancy (the old-fashioned kind made from a thread spool and some nails) rather than any new, plastic rainbow loom -- no need to spend money on stuff like that when you can make similar tool very easily using stuff from around the house.

Anyway, this is my try at a simple technique. I've also done a double foxtail chain using a crochet needle and, based solely on this pic (no, not the video, the piccy), a three-colour chain on my newest -- and messiest looking -- knitting nancy made from a small plastic wire spool.

It's a bit of a tight squeeze, a slightly larger hole would've been better as I worry that the rubber bands will wear against the wood. It's filed smooth, but still... As long as you're not using more rubber bands, making thicker weaves, it works. Just barely, but it works.

Here's a view from above. Should've taken a photo when working with three colours  (one row of each) as it makes a very pretty pattern while you're working.

Glow-in-the-dark bead fun

As I've mentioned before I've got a childish fascination with glow-in-the-dark beads. And after having seen this project, I came to think of GITD Hama beads and what if I could use that technique and those beads for something... The lightbulb moment came months ago, but it was just yesterday that I got some cheap beads and was ready to realise my idea. And here's the result.

The beads are cut and then put on the thin cables, one bead for each light. The result is a "double" light garland that is either lit up by the LED lights or glows in the dark (as long as the bead "charge" lasts). I couldn't get any pics of what it looks like in the dark so I made this illustration based on one of the photos:

Nice, huh? My very own little night sky. Now, if I could only charge the beads enough for the "stars" to shine a little longer so I could enjoy it a bit more every night...

(Just remembered: this isn't my first indoor night sky project: when my sis and I had to repaint the corridor between our bedrooms, we painted a silhouette landscape and used glow-in-the-dark paint to illuminate the sky with stars. We used real constellations as templates so you can find e.g. Orion and the Big Dipper on the ceiling and walls, but not in the right place in corelation to one another.)

UPDATE: There's a step-by-step tut at my other blog available now. You'll find it here.

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Talking about home decór projects, why not take a look on my new makeshift lampshade? It really is just something I threw together, something to make the lightbulb feel less naked and austere until I can come up with an idea of a proper lampshade. One that doesn't include fluffy pale pink tulle because I may be a romantic but I don't like girly pink and frilly stuff like that.

If you take a really dark photo it can look quite spooky:

Flower embroidery

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.

"Lampwork" beads

I was looking though my bead and jewellery photo file on the computer as I need to erase old photos to have room for the new when I found this pic, which I've never shown ayone before.

Not very pretty perhaps, but can you see what it is? It's coloured glue gun glue that I played around with one day when I was bored. Sort of making my own hot glue lampwork beads. I did one or two using the actual glue gun, but then I switched to just melting the glue sticks over a candle. The blue beads in the back have patterns in red. Let me tell you -- it's not easy making little stars/flowers on a glue bead using stringy hot glue!

Is hot glue a good bead making material? Not really. The beads feel almost like rubber beads, but with a somewhat sticky surface even after it's been drying for days. It's also difficult to control the glue once it starts melting. It's stringy and messy. Though, I suspect it's not easy to work with glass rods either as a newbie... So far from ideal, but useful enough to kill a slow afternoon.

And why on earth did I get the idea to do this in the first place? I suspect it was a combination of having watch lampwork tutorials -- using glass -- on YouTube and looking at African plastic bead bracelets. The kind of beads that are made by hand using recycled plastic that's heated over a flame or other heat source and wound around a mandrel to form it. Hot glue is sort of a plastic. (But if I'm going to make any plastic lampwork beads in the future, I'll definitely use recycled plastic and not soft, sticky glue.)

November harmony bracelet

This is a simple bracelet I made for a beading contest at the Swedish bead shop Sirlig. The theme for the contest was harmony and I got some last minute inspiration this weekend when I ventured outdoors to photograph all the lovely yellow leaves (I'll show those pics another day).



Late October and early November is a quiet and subtle time in nature. The fog dull sounds and sights as well as dim the sun light. The colours fade and there is cold moisture everywhere: fine drops in the air that condensates on leaves and stems. Nature is preparing for the winter sleep. It is like the cold drops of fog drain the colours from the last flowers, leaving the petals bleak and transparent. Still, yellow and orange leaves cling to the trees and litter the ground, but it's the paleness of the world that dominate your senses. There is a special feeling when you walk through a wild garden or forest on a Sunday afternoon in this weather and in this season. There is harmony in the quiet day, void of any sounds natural or manmade, but also a certain melancholy. It is a farewell, but also a retreat. A time for rest and recovery.


I wanted to try and capture this mood in my bracelet, using only the beads I have in my stash (and the few hours left before the contest deadline). I used greenish opal glass beads with a picasso finish as a symbol for the watery aspect, the cold drops of water that cover everything and saturate the air. The beads are knotted using pale green silk. To that I added a matte acrylic flower i dusty teal and a pale yellow-green acrylic leaf. Reminiscent of the last, fading flowers. The clasp is hidden behind the flower.

It was difficult to get a good picture of the oval beads. The opal glass is mottled, mixing swirls of translucent with more transparent glass. It almost looks like two different colours of beads when it's not. And I fear that detracts a bit from the harmonious feeling I wanted to convey. But I hope you still think it looks nice.

Reinventing the wheel -- or at least a tyre

I bought these two gunmetal "cog" beads thinking they looked like drums in a belt and pulley system. Thought I might use them suspended with some sort of belt (perhaps even a möbius belt for added "authenticity". But so far I haven't used them as I couldn't decide on a functioning design. Yesterday I flipped through some old jewellery-making mags and thought I'd abandon that whole idea and istead use it for another type of kinetic jewellery -- I so want to make some kinetic jewellery -- inspired by the rolling pendant in Jean Whittington's project Masterpiece in Motion.

Now, this is where I tend to get undecided: I've got two different ideas for the same supplies -- and I don't have any extras! If I make the one thing, I can't make the other. (Right now I'm having this exact problem with a few brass flowers as well...) As the pulley system idea came first and would utilize both beads, I opted to test that first. As I didn't have anything else to use as a makeshift belt just to see how it'd look with the wheel-like beads, I pulled out my box with rubber o-rings that dad gave me.

This is when something happens. I soon abandon my "design test" as I see something new in the beads when they are surrounded by the o-rings. They aren't drums, they are wheel rims. Add rubber and I've got a tyre. How could I not see that before? Not even when arranging the first pic I took of these beads (see top photo above), which I did days and weeks earlier. Now rims are all I can see.

My first wheel is the small one, made from the 10 mm bead and with only one rubber ring. It looks a bit like a fat bicycle wheel, the kind you have on children's bikes (but with a car's rim). Or perhaps something from an old-fashioned narrow-wheeled car (or tractor). For the larger 12 mm bead I use two rings so they'll cover the width of the recessed surface between the raised edges. That also looks a bit more like a car tyre as the rubber looks "flatter". But with a groove in the middle where the two rings meet -- can I call that part of the tread pattern?


So... I'm not very fond of cars, don't even have a driver's licence, but I seem to have accidentally "invented" a wheel. But perhaps it's no surprise, given I'm used to seeing tyres and rims in my dad's workshop. And have seen that since I was a kid. So the shape, feel, weight, smell etc of these is something I know very well.

Think I've stumbled upon something I could sell as jewellery for the guys (and the not as many female "petrol heads")? Not on photo, but I did string the larger wheel on a cord just to see what it'd look like as a pendant and I think it was kind of nice. At least if you like cars.

Old, but new -- when the child within is choosing what beads to buy

As a kid I did of cause love playing with my Nabbi/Hama beads, making all sorts of patterns on the plastic pegboards and then letting mom or the teachers at pre-school iron them. Most of all I think I made hearts and stars. And like most kids I also made simple necklaces and bracelets by stringing the beads on twine. (I used to chew them sometimes too: this was before I was old enough to buy chewing gum whenever I wanted.)

Then I grew older and put such childish things behind me. Sometimes I looked at the beads, but mostly as a slightly nostalgic note, not with any interest to work with the beads again. Well, that dragon-shaped pegboard was fun.

Fast forward to a few years ago. I'm into beads and active on the bead forums online when I encounter Emo, a woman who didn't outgrow the love for these plastic cylinder beads but instead became an expert on mastering not just the classic flat ironed bead technique but making bead "paintings" as well as 3D figures. At the time I would perhaps enjoy and admire her work, but I didn't feel that interested in trying it myself. Well, that PhotoPearls stuff perhaps, but not going back to creating ironed beadwork. So I did feel a little tempted, I must confess.


That's how I feel for a couple of years. What happens then is that Hama releases a mini version of the beads (earlier, they sold the standard "midi" size beads as well as maxi sized beads for younger children). These plastic beads are just 2,5 mm and much more the same size as the glass seed and cylinder beads I love. Just half the size of the 5 mm midi beads. The small size means you can make smaller motifs as well as creating motifs with finer details. That was what finally made me buy a package. I could no longer resist the temptation. Tiny hama beads, well, that intrigued me.

Still haven't actually made anything with the beads though...

My first resin rings

I found a pair of "old" resin rings I've made some time ago. Some of my first tests using epoxy resin and "resin powder", actually. Which would explain the sloppy work -- don't check for resin drops on the outside of the bezels...

Anyway, this first one is a simple ring where I cut out a rose from one of my favourite scrapbook papers. I had -- and have -- no special epoxy resin so I just used the common epoxy glue you can find in the hardware store. Non-yellowing according to the manufacturer. Looking carefully you can see some tiny air bubbles as I didn't know how to get rid of them.


I do prefer epoxy resins especially made for jewellery making, not least since those doesn't begin to cure as fast as epoxies intended as adhesives. But when you want to try something new you make due with what you have. Which was the thought behind the ring below as well.

This ring is made from japanese paper and UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamels). I wanted to try this as I'd just read about JudiKins' Amazing Glaze and thought it'd be fun to try. But I couldn't buy it at the time so what to do? Well, some time ago I'd bought some UTEE as I wanted to make some cool paper beads I'd found instructions for. That didn't happen as I don't own a heat gun, but I had read that you could melt UTEE in a melting pot -- so surely you could melt it in the oven too, as you would with Amazing Glaze?

Melting Amazing Glaze in the oven was fun, but I fear I'm not as steady on hand as I should in order to work with powders like this -- more than once I dropped my rings and bezels on the floor before I even got them into the oven. This ring I dropped directly when taking it from the oven and before the plastic powder had had time to harden...

As you can see in the close-up above the resin also "leaked" through the paper, but that is not as obvious when looking at the ring IRL.



Nowadays I've found another favourite that doesn't require mixing as epoxy does or handling powders and work with multiple "firings" as UTEE does: Gel du Soleil 1-part UV-curing epoxy resin. For some things I can't use it, but for resin bezels like the ones above I love it!

(There's also another brand of UV-curing resin: Lisa Pavelka's Magic Glos, which I haven't tried.)

Primula bracelet

I made this citrus-coloured bracelet as I wanted to think of happy things, back when the days were grey, I felt bad and worried about dad. At at once. I began making it a few weeks ago, but it was just finished last weekend. Seeing it in the pic in front of me right now, I just can't stop thinking about primulas when I see it -- though the shape of the flowers are more like lobelias. So Primula bracelet is the name my until now nameless bracelet will go by on this blog.

For it I've used 78 tiny lucite flowers together with gold-plated findings. I'm normally not a big fan of these type of bracelets, but thought the flowers would be perfect for something like this. If you want instructions, I just published them at my other blog. In Swedish though.

First flower of spring?

Ok, I admit to being slightly obsessed by seeing the first flower of the year around here. I need spring flowers right now. Most of our garden is still covered in snow so while it might be mid-March we still haven't got even one snowdrop. Nor any of the winter aconites that normally blossom already in December. I see signs of spring around here though. Above is a pic of what it looks like near the foundation by the Western wall of our house. Tiny, tiny leaves have begun to sprout.


But no flowers. So I had to make my own.


It's just a sweet white lucite flower on a blackened copper wire (with balled end acting as stamen).

Faux patina and gilded reliefs

Not too long ago I wrote about the colourful "faux patinas" you can paint onto metal components like stampings and filigree in my other blog. While I enjoyed the idea of using oil pastels like Jane Salley at the Objects and Ornaments blog, I think I especially like matte creamy whites on raw brass (see these examples). Very romantic, reminding of white-washed wood. I also have an ornate hook-and-eye, that I really like, which has a similar colour: a matte bronze or brass tone (partially) coated with a matte creme white paint.

I'm noot too pleased with my first try at this, but then again, I didn't use the ideal paint... Will be giving it another try some day.


Colouring or darkening recessed areas can be very effectful, but it can also be said about adding colour to raised areas. The acrylic cameo above was rather boring and I felt uninspired by it. So, being bored, I took out my "gold vax", orginally a product for wood and similar materials. I took some wax on a piece of cloth and rubbed it over the relief flowers, taking special care to make sure the leaves and edges got some colour too. "Gilding" the motif gave a boring cameo a new dimension -- now I actually consider using it!


As I was playing around with my paint anyway, I also gave this cat brooch a faux patina. It's a cheap plated brooch, that I got and which had now started to tarnish. A lot. Instead of trying to polish the plating -- no idea about materials used -- I gave it a black colour-wash. The black was polished off so it only remained in the recessed areas, the same areas affected by the tarnish. This also enhanced the features better than before when it was all a shiny white metal. Not my best result, but better than originally.


PS! All these methods normally need a coat of spray laquer or similar to keep the paint from coming off too easily when used. On metal, a base coat of laquer or primer may need to be used or the paint won't adhere well to the metal.