Margie and Me Mosaic of Color Challenge

I worked on a beaded bead tutorial for my Mosaic of Color challenge piece.  For loads of details hop over to La Bella Joya.  This week's challenge was to use either the color palette or the feel of the theme inspiration:

I tried to get a little of each in my beads.  I wanted to include the cobalt and a hint of green, but everything started to get a little crazy with too many colors.  I do a bit better when I work with a limited palette.  Maybe I just like playing with shape and texture?  I really love to wear many colors, but like to work with as few as possible.

These beaded beads started on 10mm stone rounds.  The pattern tutorial is by Quimeras de Náyades and can be found at her Etsy.  If you look at the bead she shows you will wonder why my beaded beads look different.  No, it rally is the pattern I used, but I added an extra layer of beads to each vertices in the dodecahedron.  Quimeras shows this in the tutorial, but not in the pictures.

Wild Raspberry

Slightly larger than the 12mm in the background and not yet in a piece of jewelry

Blue Moon

honestly, you can't see the thread with the naked eye...beaded balls are best shot with macro and not super macro!

The moon faced charm hangs at the back

this is beaded on a 10mm bead and is about 12 mm across

Bead Soup Reveal

I joined the Bead Soup Party a bit hesitantly because I am mostly just a dabbler who only sells when people approach me and ask about something I'm wearing.  However, I jumped in to give myself a challenge and to push myself to learn a few new things.  My partner is Marcie Abney from La Bella Joya, and as she pointed out in a post, we are strangely suited for each other - we both seed bead and we are both Spanish teachers.  Marcie sent a bead soup package in a fantastic colorway.  I took my cue from the copper clasp and got to work with pliers, hammer, and patina. 

I have been on a quest to learn to make very simple beaded beads and this provided the perfect opportunity.  I stitched up a beaded bead using circular peyote to cover a wooden ball and I made an octahedron from 4mm beads and seed beads.  Coming home from a dog walk one morning, I found a length of heavy gauge copper wire in the street in front of my house and decided to use it instead of searching for copper washers as I had planned.  From the wire I made hammered loops.  I also made the copper jump rings used to form the little bit of chain I used.  All this was subjected to patina gel from Cool Tools and tumbled.  In the necklace there is also a bead I made from a stack of pale green buttons.  All these pieces were assembled to show off the pretty resin pendant made by Marcie.

Some copper work, the octahedron bead, the stack o'buttons bead

That octahedron beaded bead sure looks like a World Cup tribute bead!

Here are today's partiers: 

14. Jen, Jen Judd Rocks

15. Kella, Me But a Little More In Depth

16. Emanda, Artemisia Studio

17. Marie, Skye Jewels

18. Loretta, Designs By Loretta

19. Stacy, Sissy and Jack's

20. Joanna, Filcowe

21. Diane, Diane Hawkey

22. Marianna, Pretty Shiny Things

23. Anna, The Laughing Raven

24. Marcie, La Bella Joya

25. Lois, You have just read this one
You have just read this one
26. Jayne, Mama's Got To Doodle

Thanks Lori for a great experience.  What fun I've had preparing and looking around at all the talented beaders blog.

Blue Moon Beaded Bead

Today is the first day of the rest of vacation.  How glorious!  The little boys let me sleep until almost 7 AM (I think the fact that the birds are quiet because it is rather overcast and drizzly outside fooled them into letting me sleep.  I am thankful for small favors and precious moments of sleep.  Yesterday, Saturday, was still an up-at-5-AM because I needed to make the big drive to the graduation ceremony.  Although it got into the 90's by 10 AM, while the faculty was laid out in neat rows on the football field side lines we were treated to a slight breeze and cooler temps for much of the pomp and circumstance.  I had even selected my outfit to most effectively hide the sweat stains one gets when sitting on a folding chair under the blazing heat of the Georgia sun.  Perhaps the whole circus was less painful this year because I actually remembered to bring a pillow for my back and a great wide brimmed hat to wear.  Despite my grumbling I do enjoy seeing the graduates and it was actually pretty awesome to see our 80%+ graduation rate walk across the stage.  Exceedingly impressive considering ten years ago it was 49.1%.

Last week I worked on my first beaded bead.  I used tubular peyote stitch with 15/0 beads on a wooden ball which I drilled myself.  I still have a long way to go to perfect the beaded bead, but I started to get some nice patterning spreading out across the bead.  I started in the middle and worked my way to each end.  Perhaps if I had a pattern for the decreases I would have a little better patterning with fewer gaps.  Also, I realized the need to cull the beads for the too-bigs which tend to stick out. From the picture, you can see how uneven these little guys are.  They are supposed to be Japanese, but who knows.

Blue Moon Beaded Bead

Ignore the little silver tassel at the bottom - I wired it on with aluminum wire in about 5 minutes so I could wear it on a crazy beaded necklace.  It went with my outfit, but I really need to stop trying to make my jewelry as I leave the house.  I definitely need to find a new dangle for the end of this or use some proper silver wire.