clair074

After all of the miscellaneous projects that I had on the go during the last few weeks of Christmas, my bead tray feels sort of empty this week. I’m just finishing up the rope base for a new PDF project, which I started at the beginning of December, and had to shelve for assorted other designs. I'm loving the palette of black, cobalt, and lime - although I've nearly used up all of my opaque

The craziness of Christmas week is finally behind us, and there are only a few days left of 2015! It’s hard to believe that we’re about to begin another year on Inspirational Beading. There are some amazing inspirations and lots of new tutorials on the way – 2016 is going to be a great year for beading! Two weeks ago we had our final giveaway of the year, with a full suite of beading tutorials

I have a whole list of new inspirations, projects, and tutorials to work on, but for the moment they’re all on hold while I complete a bead embroidered Christmas present. I’m having a really great time working on this project, which is going to be a pouch for art supplies when it’s complete. When I sat down to work on this piece, I had absolutely no idea what it was going to look like, or what

With all of the holiday inspirations and gifting projects in my workspace right now, I’m feeling in a very merry mood! For this month’s giveaway, I wanted to do something special for my amazing readers. I have some new plans coming up for my line of PDF beading tutorials, so I decided to get the ball rolling with a great big tutorial giveaway. Two lucky readers will receive my complete

This week I’m wrapping up my first attempt at recreating a charm necklace with just beads. I wanted a light and slinky beaded chain, so I went with a single strand of right angle weave, then added some accent bead dangles. Although I often add accents as a separate piece, for this design I’d really like the ‘charms’ to be attached, so I tried weaving them in with additional RAW clusters. This

I was recently screening beading videos for my Excellent Beading Tutorials Playlist when I spotted a thumbnail for a wrap bracelet project that I couldn’t resist. I was pleased to find that the tutorial itself was actually really excellent – one of the best I’ve seen – but it was really the materials that intrigued me. The instructor was using the most marvelous palette of multicolored glass

The bead color trio series has been around on Inspirational Beading for a long time, and to keep fresh ideas coming, I’ve changed up the inspiration method many times. Lately I’ve been starting with a single accent bead, then building three palettes around them. For this month’s palettes, I wanted to try out some holiday colors, but I couldn’t decide on just one accent to start with. Instead, I

Whether you like to make all of your own holiday accessories and gifts, or just deck your halls with beads, you just can’t have too many Christmasy tutorials and project ideas! This year I found a few new inspirations that look totally do-able. These are my favorites. Almost any sewing project can be tweaked with the addition of a few beads! This easy and adorable ornament project from Bugs

Back when The Phantom Menace was in theatres, I went to see the movie more times than I care to admit now. After about my third viewing, I was basically going to catch the 2 second glimpse of Aurra Sing – a then-anonymous background character watching the pod race. Lots of fans were just as intrigued, and after much demand, she was given a complete background and started showing up in comics,

My bead tray is a bit of a mess right now as I jump from one project to the next. I disassembled the components from the diagonal SuperDuo tutorial, but I haven’t yet sorted or put them away. This week I’m working on a few new tutorial prototypes, including a fringed earring design with a little herringbone twist. I’m far too excited about this project to stop and clean up! So far the design is

There are many different types of beading threads available, and each of us has our favorites. Just like seed bead brands, every brand of beading thread has its own unique qualities that can affect not just the beadwork itself, but also how we work with it. I wanted to experiment with a variety of threads to see just how different they are. The comparison would not be a competition to see which

One of the best things about dressing for the holidays is getting the chance to wear kitschy things like ugly Christmas sweaters and incredibly literal jewelry. Though there’s something sort of wonderful about Christmas light earrings and charm bracelets – especially ones that light up – edible inspirations have to be the best. Luckily for beadweavers, there are a lot of stitches and bead shapes

December is always a very hectic month, and I can usually tell when things are getting to that tipping point when I start to prefer easy and familiar things. I usually re-read favorite books, as they’re a much better escape than something new. In my workspace, I crave familiar materials and techniques. This month, I’m looking at some old favorites and a few standbys. Lately I’ve really been in

My bead tray looks a little crowded this week as I juggle one ongoing project and get ready to put the finishing touches on my next geek-inspired piece. The swatch of culled-bead RAW is coming along very nicely, although I’m a little worried about the curve that it seems to be developing. It probably won’t matter much, considering what I plan to create with it once all of the rows are complete,