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Last week’s mini collar was a complete success, and a very welcome one as well. A spot of illness totally ruined my timetable, so it was fortunate that this collar turned out just right, and I was already finished stitching it before things got derailed. With a new week beginning, I can use the start of a new collar to help me get back on track. The design process for this collar was a lot more

My beading trays look much the same this week as they have for the past month or so. I’m making good progress on this week’s mini collar, using some of the greens I experimented with for a recent bead color challenge. I’m very happy with how this collar is coming along, although it is pretty tame compared to some of the previous projects that held a few surprises. I think for the next piece, I’m

One of the best things about making your own jewelry is the ability to make it versatile and even interactive. It can be as simple as designing three necklaces to be layered together, or making a variety of focals to pair with a favorite rope stitch. Once you’ve finished making a piece, the real adventure is in how much fun you can have wearing it. In Convertible Crystal Jewelry,author and

This week’s mini collar was a bit of a whim. When I opened my tray of daggers and drop beads to plan the next design in the challenge, I was once again a bit overwhelmed by how many choices I have. Although I have months to work through and try them all, deciding each week where to go next isn’t always that easy. Eventually my gaze fell on the last 5 jet black daggers from a strand that I picked

Now that we’ve covered all of the essential basics of working with peyote stitch, we’re moving on to some of the more exciting variations available for this versatile stitch. We’ve already tried out circular peyote by working skip-a-bead-add-a-bead in the round, so the next logical step is to go 3-D with the marvelously meditative tubular peyote. Basic tubular peyote looks a lot like tubular

This week my bead tray looks like all kinds of progress. I’m about an hour away from completing a new mini collar for the challenge, incorporating the last 5 jet black daggers from a strand that has been serving me for some time now. It will be sad to see them go, but also nice to finally finish off the strand and not have them floating around any longer. I was also able to get a few more fringes

Today I’m in the mood for a little jewelry eye-candy, and nothing beats polymer clay when you want to feel a little creative awe. Really great polymer clay designs are like a combination of sculpting and painting, yet they’re so much more than either of those things. There are lots of essential techniques that look amazing when done well, such as canes; there are also many unexpected ways to

While working on the often-earthy Greek and Roman projects for Ancient Worlds Modern Beads, I ended up accumulating more shades of green seed beads than I would normally ever use. Since then most of them have been untouched in my stash, waiting for another Geb-inspired design or something that would require a lot of green. For this week’s color ideas, I thought it would be both inspiring and

For this week’s mini collar, I couldn’t resist using one of the palette ideas to go with a quartet of pretty glass petal drops in marbled blue that we explored last week. The combination of transparent ruby and gel sol pink just needed a little bit of Montana blue sapphire for backup, and I had everything I needed for a cute collar. For this piece, I worked out a new palette with angled rows of

At the beginning of 2016, I made a goal to wear every piece of jewelry in my stash of handmade pieces at least once. It was a tricky challenge for many reasons, such as the fact that I often get dressed in a rush and don’t have time to carefully pick a piece that matches my outfit, and most of the time I’m wearing a work uniform that covers up my jewelry anyway. Then there’s the occasional piece

I am very happy to report that this week’s mini collar is already finished, and we’re only halfway through the week! This means that I’ll be able to make a little progress on the blue coconut necklace, but probably not enough to finish it just yet. Adding the fringe is extremely time consuming, especially when they just keep getting longer as I go. I would like to get as far as adding the daggers

I think many beaders want to believe that if we owned bead stores, we would have never-ending inspiration every day. And most bead store owners would tell you that when you run your own brick and mortar business, you don’t have time to bead. The truth is, no matter how well stocked we are, gaps in inspiration can happen at any time. Sometimes we just run out of ideas, or out of creative energy. I

Although the new mini collar challenge has had a few timing mishaps, it has certainly helped me to achieve my main goal of finding new inspiration in old beads. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had any room in my budget for bead shopping, so finding ways to use what I have is pretty important. Since starting the challenge, I haven’t had much cause to think about what I could do if I only had

The latest collar in my weekly challenge is technically last week’s, but since it’s only Sunday I’m going to say that it’s still pretty much on time. Although I haven’t yet added the button, the collar is otherwise complete and turned out fairly well. It took a little longer than I would have liked, and that’s entirely my fault. I decided to use some old black and white seed beads, rather than

This stunning, seed-bead heavy netting project is not for the faint-hearted beader. If you’re already familiar with netting, then you’ll love the tricky increases and decreases used to create the star shaped outer edge in this collar. The traditional edging on the inner portion of the necklace is cinched together at the very end to create a smooth finish. The extra step makes a complicated

For this week’s bead color ideas, I wanted to explore some possibilities for a curious quartet of beads from my drops and daggers stash. Some time ago I picked up four blue marble petal drops because they were on sale, and I thought they might make for interesting accents. Inevitably, they’ve been sitting in my stash ever since. Four beads can sometimes be just the right amount for a project, but

I’m just getting ready to start this week’s mini collar, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. After finishing last week’s collar, I had to get going on this one right away to keep up with the challenge schedule, so I basically just flipped open my tray of assorted drop beads and grabbed the first thing I laid eyes on (that wasn’t too similar to beads I’ve already used

It’s funny how easy it is to derail carefully laid plains. My new blog and beading agenda has been working perfectly for some time now, and everything has been chugging along. Last week I lucked out with six shifts at my day job, which would have been easy to work around thanks to the agenda, but I also got hit with a cold that sapped any leftover energy I might have had, so we’re a bit behind.