i heart macro Sunday

While looking for a suitable subject this week, I happened upon something the dogs must have taken into the yard when I wasn't looking.

It looks like he's hiding.  :)

The kiddo and I also found something special this week--a Huntress action figure.  We had a good time taking a few pictures.

For more macro goodness, check out Studio Waterstone

More Beaded Beads

I was excited to receive my October issue of Beadwork Magazine because it featured the last in a series of five beaded beads.

The Dewdrop Beaded Bead is designed by Cindy Holsclaw.  It's a cute beaded bead that uses tila beads and two sizes of drop beads.

I made this version without the drop beads.

These are cute little beads and I love how the tila beads are framed by the seed beads.  If you would like to see more of Cindy's designs, check out her store, Bead Origami.  I've had my eye on this pattern for several months now.

These were the last two beads needed for me to start work on my piece for Beadwork's Beaded Bead Contest.

The other beads are "Seeing Stars," designed by Melinda Barta, the "Cube Cluster Beaded Bead," designed by Gwen Fisher, "Stargazer Beaded Bead," designed by Florence Turnour  and the "Treasure Trove Beaded Bead," designed by Cynthia Newcomer Daniel.  These beads were published in the past four issues of Beadwork.

Here are my versions of all five beaded beads.  Can you guess what I have in mind for them?

Kalmbach Bead Soup Party - the soup

For my Beadin' Path challenge reveal, click here.

To celebrate the release of Lori Anderson's book, Bead Soup, Kalmbach Publishing is hosting its own bead soup party.  I entered for a chance to receive a bead soup from one of the generous shops working with Kalmbach for this event.

I never, ever, not in a million years, expected to receive this in the mail.

When I saw the envelope, I ran into the house and showed my husband.  He looked at the envelope and back at me with a puzzled look on his face.  He clearly doesn't understand "bead soup."

My soup is from Advantage Beads, which, I noticed, is located in Wichita, KS.  We live a bit north of Wichita, but it's nice to know there's a great bead store waiting for me if I ever make it down there.

As a rule, I love anything pink and anything sparkly.  This soup hit both of those.  When the kiddo saw the soup, her eyes grew wide.  That's my girl.  Pink and sparkly stop her dead in her tracks.

Please check back in October to see what came of the soup.

i heart macro Sunday

For my Beadin' Path challenge reveal, click here.

I only have a few pictures for you this week.

This one looks like a small bouquet.

I love the soft purples in this one.

For more macro goodness, check out Studio Waterstone

Beadin' Path Beading Challenge

Toward the end of August, Lorelei announced her Beadin' Path Beading Challenge.  She worked with The Beadin' Path and came up with a sampling of lucite beads, lucite chain, focals and even a few findings.

The colors are fun and the style is funky.  Lorelei told us to "think COLOR .. think CHUNKY .. think FUNKY .. think FUN!"

I wouldn't have put these colors together on my own, but I decided to take the challenge.  I even had a few ideas in my head as I ordered the kit.

Of course, all those ideas flew away when I received the beads.  I took the red beads and started making Infinity Prisms from a pattern by Gwen Fisher and Florence Turnour of Bead Infinitum.

I added a bit of orange and black to the red beads

I had intended to use one of the black lucite flowers, but while scouring my stash, I found these large copper beads.  It was meant to be.

After making all of the red beaded beads, the blue buttons called to me.  I used them as the center of a few flowers.

I made two necklaces using these flowers.  The first combines the blue cylinders, Marsha Neal silk, steel wire and a connector from Staci Louise Artisan Accents.

I *love* the finished piece.

The second uses a few more Staci Louise components.

I wanted to use the blue links, but after a bit of trial and error, I discovered that I liked a few beaded links better.

After some thought, I decided that I *needed* to tackle those lucite fowers.  Those flowers motivated me to join this challenge, so they had to be used.  I tried a few different things and finally settled on something simple.

When I first saw the blue links, I wanted to add a few beaded links of my own to the chain.

The final product, finished with silk from  Marsha Neal:

I'm not so sure about the silver clasp, but I didn't have time to bead something.

Lorelei, thank you so much for the challenge.  I had a great time.  :)

Please take time to visit Lorelei's blog to see what everyone else did with these awesome beads.

Beading Babes Project 6 - long version

Karyn chose an impressive four projects this time around.  I should warn you, with four projects (and my ramblings), this post will be rather long.  If you would rather see only the finished projects, check out this short and sweet post.

Our first project was Retro Daisies, designed by Janice Chatham, and published in the April 2012 issue of Bead and Button.

This is yet another project I wouldn't have started without our Beading Babes group.  The bracelet is very cute, but the combination of cross stitch and brick stitch around the components would have driven me away.

As much as I don't like making multiple components, the daisies worked up quickly and were easy to make in front of the television.  (My husband and I had been watching back episodes of Eureka when I made these.)

The base of the bracelet also worked up quickly.  I had to make the base a bit longer than called for in the pattern because I used size 15 seed beads instead of charlottes.  I whipped up an extra few flower components and I was in business.

I made the base long enough to overlap about a half inch and sewed on a snap.  I like the way the snap is hidden in the bracelet.

Our second project was the Ripple Effect Cuff, designed by Sherry Serafini, and published in the June 2011 issue of Beadwork Magazine.

I was really excited to try this because I had never tried bead embroidery before.  I started looking for a cabochon and found this awesome daisy by Tracee Dock, of The Classic Bead.  (You should really check out Tracee's etsy shop, by the way.  Her work is amazing.)

I cut out my bead backing, found my adhesive, closed my eyes for a minute, and dove in.  I really liked the embroidery flowed together and really set off the cabochon.

My version isn't exactly like Sherry's example.  My cabochon was a bit larger, so I used 8mm honey blue tiger eye discs as the center of my ripples.  The 15 seed beads were, of course, dwarfed by the discs, so I used 11s.

The bracelet ended up a bit bigger than the example.  I tried to compensate by using a different edging technique I found in Jamie Cloud Eakin's Dimensional Bead Embroidery.

I learned a great deal while finishing this bracelet--especially what *not* to do.  I cut the backing a bit short and wasn't able to secure it to the leather in a few places.  The edge beads are a bit too close in a few places (mostly where I started the edging).

I was happy to see that my technique improved as I went along.  If you look closely, you can see a difference between  early and later stitches in both the ripples and the edging.  If I hadn't invested so much time in this bracelet, I'd be tempted to redo it.  Instead, I'm just going to say that the early stitches add "character."  :)

I absolutely love Tracee's pendant and I *adore* the pearl bezel that Sherry designed.

We were all very excited to try a soutache project.  Karyn chose Soutastic Soutache Earrings, designed by Amee McNamara, and published in the June 2012 issue of Bead and Button.

I honestly thought I would be able to sit down and stitch these babies up in an hour.  It's an *earring* project!  As you might have guessed, that didn't really happen.  Soutache is another one of those things that takes practice and patience.

The initial sewing wasn't too bad, but I couldn't figure out how to do the edging and make it look, well, "finished" to my eye.  I put the earrings down for a while and only picked them back up a few days before the deadline.  I re-read the instructions and plunged in.

I have no idea why it took me so long to finish these.  The edging went quickly and looked beautiful.

The earrings were not my style, so I linked them together and added some chain .. instant bracelet.

Our last project was Josephine's Collar, designed by Jill Devon and published in the June 2012 issue of Beadwork Magazine.

This was probably my favorite project in this round.  Bead weaving is my first love and while I enjoyed soutache and embroidery, I was happy to start on the beaded squares and circles in this necklace.

I wish I could say the project went without a hitch, but, like most of my projects, I encountered a slight problem.  The pendant took me a few tries because the bezel was a bit different.  Two sides build up from the same row on the base.  This may not sound like an issue, but it was terribly hard to get my needle through the right beads.  I ended up modifying the order of the rounds to make it work for me.

That said, the rest of the necklace was glitch free.

I really liked adding the ribbon to the beaded components.  The small ring of beads around the ribbon is a genius idea.

I love this necklace.  It really is a show stopper.  I find myself reasoning that it *totally* works with jeans and a t-shirt just so I can wear it from time to time.

I could also envision a simpler version with only a pendant and the silk.  (Actually, I found a smaller helios pendant and will be trying a simpler version soon -- stay tuned.)

If you would like to see even more versions of these projects, please check out Karyn's blog, Releases by Rufydoof for a full list of participants.

Karyn, thank you again for putting this together.  The projects were so much fun and I had a blast trying some new techniques.

Beading Babes Project 6 - short version

Karyn chose an impressive four projects this time around.  Since I have several projects to show you (and you know how wordy I can get), I will keep this post short and move my ramblings and extra pictures to this post.

Our first project was Retro Daisies, designed by Janice Chatham, and published in the April 2012 issue of Bead and Button.

Our second project was the Ripple Effect Cuff, designed by Sherry Serafini, and published in the June 2011 issue of Beadwork Magazine.  I didn't follow the pattern exactly on this one.  I used bigger beads on the ripples and used a different edging technique.

We were all very excited to try a soutache project.  Karyn chose Soutastic Soutache Earrings, designed by Amee McNamara, and published in the June 2012 issue of Bead and Button for our third project.

I finished the earrings, but wasn't sure if I would wear them.  Instead, I linked them together and turned them into a bracelet.

Our last project was Josephine's Collar, designed by Jill Devon and published in the June 2012 issue of Beadwork Magazine.

If you would like to read more about my beading process and see more pictures, check out the longer version of this post here.

If you would like to see even more versions of these projects, please check out Karyn's blog, Releases by Rufydoof for a full list of participants.

Karyn, thank you again for putting this together.  The projects were so much fun and I had a blast trying some new techniques.

i heart macro Sunday

It seems as if the heat has finally let up.  We even saw rain this week.  Yes, really .. rain!

The kiddo and I were able to take her grandparents to the arboretum for an afternoon.  The kiddo loved showing Grandma and Grandpa her favorite spots and was equally excited to point out a few butterflies hovering around a flower.  I was excited that these particular butterflies wanted to pose for me.

For more macro goodness, check out Studio Waterstone

i heart macro Sunday

For my Challenge of Travel post, click here.

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend a family wedding at the Overlook Farm in Clarskville, Missouri.

The entire wedding was outside .. in August .. during one of the hottest summers I can remember.  Someone smiled on us, though, and the weather was perfect.

The wedding took place in one of the three houses on the farm.  This house had a beautiful flower garden in the back.  You could see the effects of such a hot, dry summer on some of the flowers.

Other flowers fared a bit better.

The flower garden housed a few iron trellises that were covered in vines.

Exiting the garden, we were treated to fresh lemonade - perfect for such a nice day.

Did you notice that the lemonade was served in mason jars?  That was a bit of a theme.

The ceremony was, of course, beautiful and the bride was stunning.  The groom wasn't to be outdone, though.

I *love* those shoes.

After the ceremony, we were ferried to a second house for the reception.

I had never attended an outdoor wedding and had no idea how beautiful one could be, especially as the sun began to go down and the candles seemed to glow.

This was one of my all time favorite weddings and I am so thankful to have been included in such a special day.

Oh .. and did I mention PIE!  (How did they know strawberry rhubarb was my favorite?)

For more macro goodness, check out Studio Waterstone