Gone Crazy

Ok, ok.  I can hear all of you guys going..yeah, so what else is new?  We KNEW she was crazy.  :D

So, in my dementia, I got crazy making earrings.  :D I love these wishbone ones.  I'm going to call them Wishing For Springtime.  :)  The copper squiggles are my all time favorite.  I got these from reading up on Double Happiness shop.  The owner Margot has some seriously wonderful stuff!  I got all inspired by her stuff so I thought I'd make one similar to hers then branch out and make my own designs.  What do you all think?  Springtime is right around the corner.  Unless Mr. Ground Hog has other ideas.  ;D

Under Arrest

Fooled you, hunh?  I was just going to say, if I have any more fun with this russian spiral, they'll come arrest me.  :)  Here's the latest pinkness for your viewing pleasure.  :D

A Plague of Too Small Bracelets

A pox on me!  What is the matter that I keep winding up with too small bracelets?  Ok, the first time it was B&B's fault but this time it's MY fault!  Waaaaahhhhhh! I love this bracelet and wanted to keep it.  Sigh.......  And it's only a little bit too small, too.  Good thing I have girlfriends with smaller wrists than mine.  :)  Altho, I think I'll put it on my ArtFire shop.  It's cool, don't you think?  My first attempt at ndebele herringbone.  WHO can pronounce that word correctly?  Someone please tell me how to say it?  I keep thinking it sounds like someone from Boston saying, "under belly".  :D

A Fun Commission

Because my friend Pammie taught me how to bead, I'm having a great time!  At Christmas I made a bronze and gold necklace like the one shown here.  My neighbor wanted one just like it for her daughter only in silver and black.  Here it is.  None of the cones I had fit so I beaded over some plain ones and I'm happy I did!  What do you guys think?

A Small Rant

Hah!  I rarely rant here but I'm pissed.  Oiks.  As you all know, I love my wine but I don't try to write a beading tute while I'm drinking it!  :(  Matter of fact, screwed up beading tutes drive me to imbibe!  :D Any excuse.  ;D

ok, You beaders will know the answer to this question.  Does anyone at magazine offices actually proof/edit the tutorials BEFORE they are published?

Obviously not, which is why I'm ranting.  But why not?  I don't get it.  Do they do it on purpose so you can't actually make the project?

Here is my current mistake.  It looks great.  But wait.  The directions said it was going to be a 7 inch bracelet.  Great.  That will be perfect.  I follow their screwed up directions and count the rows so I have the exact number the tute says I should have.  I even count 3 times to make sure.  The end result is SIX inches!  Now, I have skinny wrists but this is too small even for me.  ( shhh, I don't wanna hear about why I didn't measure it, ok?)  I was trusting the directions to be correct.  I guess I'm stupid to do that but...why?  Why make an entire tutorial that is flat out wrong?  And this can't be some typist merely making typing mistakes, it is the person who wrote the tute saying the wrong thing.  WHY?  If they don't want you to make a bracelet from their tute, why make the tute?  I have seen this over and over.  It happens in the clay world all the time, too.  Yep, I can hear all you clayers going....YEAH!!!!!  :)

Ok, I have a girlfriend who is very small boned and this will fit her perfectly.  Happy Birthday, Pat.  :)  But....

Back to directions. Not only was the length off by one full inch (add an inch to the end of your nose to see just how big one inch really is) but for many parts, the directions were so garbled as to be incomprehensible and, in some places, flat out unworkable.   Why does this happen?  This is probably the 8th time I have tried to follow directions in a magazine only to find that they have left out parts, made the photos totally backwards or completely different from the words or just had their 5 year old write the directions.  These are not just a dropped word here and there but entire paragraphs of simply wrong directions.

I ripped this bracelet apart about 6 times trying to follow the words.  When I just looked at the photos, it was ok and I just got there on my own.  You experienced beaders have run into this, right?  Or so they just put out one screwed up magazine and make sure I get it?  Oiks.  :(

Ok, my rant is done.  But, just for my peace of mind, does anyone have a good reason why this happens over and over?  Now, I better go have a glass to get me through the horror of it all.  :D

Playing With Wire

A long time ago I made these faux amber beads which I called my "moestones".  The necklace I made sold but I had one bead left over. This is what I did with it. I had so much fun making every single link and coil.  The earrings were made separately then one day I realized they went perfectly with the necklace.  What do you all think?

Addendum

I tried 3 times to tell you that the cool swirlies in my necklace below were made by my niece Col but it wouldn't "take".  :(

Kathi's Chunky Funkies

And so, it came to pass that one fine day the ever popular Kathi was madly creating fun earrings.  Then she decided to write a tute!  But she needed a beta tester.  WHY isn't it alpha tester?  I wanna be alpha!!!  Wait, I got side tracked.

Anyhow, being at least as nuts as Kathi is, I was just the person.  :)  So, I made a pair of earrings which I sent to Kathi.  Then, from the scraps, I made this set.  I think it came out cool.  I LOVE wire work!

And, you guys can all go to Kathi's site>>>>over there>>>>she's Dragonsglass... and buy her tute when it comes out, after the magazine is published.  No, I don't know when.  Sometime in this incarnation, tho.  ;)  But you can always contact KAthi.  No matter what anyone says, she's really cool.  :D  ::::ducks, runs , and howls with laughter:::::...

Need Help!

Ok,  Beaders, I have NO idea what to do with this.  What should I do for the necklace part?  I don't want to overwhelm with pink (ya think???)  Like it's not already exceedingly pink.  :)  I was thinking maybe a black rope with a little pink?  It's about 2 3/4 inches long with the fringe.   Input please!

The Finished Product

It only took me hours and hours to make all these jump rings and figure 8 links but I did it!  I lightly hammered them and strung them with some same color Swarovski rounds.  Came out nice, no?

Trying New Things

And so, I decided to try herringbone stitch.  Again.  :(  This time it came out nice, methinks.  What do you think of this bracelet?  I took Sue Sloan's tute and modified it a bit for my own taste.

Then I did this wire work from another tute from a lovely Asian woman whose name I wrote down and can't find.  :(  I will have to go look through magazines to see where I saw her tute.  Again, I modified mine but the basic design is hers.  Yay!  I found it! Her name is Aliya Shafqat.  The wire gods are smiling upon me.  :)

Beading Frenzy

Happy New Year to all of you!  Here it is the Twoth of January.  ;D  And speaking of that, I have to get a crown because I broke a tooth.  ;(  And we will NOT say whose fault this is lest she suffer from major guilt and enjoy it!  :D

And so... I decided to try my hand at some fun spiral ropes.  Here are two for the tooth of January!