Autumn Harvest Free Form Necklace

I know it has been quite sometime since I posted anything new, please forgive me. I have been busy beading away but I have also been dealing with some medical issues. I have several leg problems one of which is Lympadema. It has been acting up like never before. It causes severe swelling, then I get blisters, they in turn rupture and me legs weep. The key to dealing with it is to keep the swelling down. For the past 4 or 5 months I can't seem to get it under control. Any way that is why I haven't been on here. I am still able to bead and I have still continued to teach classes occasionally but that is about all I am able to do. I have to try to keep my legs elevated as much as possible.

Any way here is a free form necklace I completed several weeks ago. I have never been very good with free form but I loved the carnelian leaf and wanted to try my hand once again at free form peyote. I am very pleased with the results. So much so that I am going to try my hand at teaching the way I made this piece.

Bead Challenge

The Bead Society of Central Florida which I am a proud member of had their 3rd bead challange on July 14th, 2009. There were 4 categories Bead Weaving, Bead Stringing, Wire Work and Non-Wearables. I am thrilled to let you all know that I placed 1st in the Bead Weaving Category and received BEST OF SHOW. Our inspiration for the challange was a picture (see previous post). The thing that caught my eye in the picture was the colors! Next was the bare trees. My fringe represents the branches of the trees with the buds at the tip of each branch. Flowers because of the several small plants, plus I just know that a meadow would certainly have "Wild Flowers." I used a beautiful polymer clay bead by "Klew" that my cousin (who is also a bead weaver) gave me for my birthday a few years back. I am very pleased with the way my "Serene Garden Bouquet" turned out. I started working on this back in April and was really going to town with it but then I had some health issues and didn't bead much on it until July. I was working away on it the day of the challange and I managed to finish it 4 hours before I had to leave for the judging.

Here in hot humid Florida it is just too hot to be outdoors so I have been getting alot of beading done the past week. Until next time Bead Happy!

My Latest

Here it is only the middle of June and here in Orlando the weather feels like it is August! It is just too hot to be outside much so I have been beading up a a storm here in the comfort of the Air conditioning. I have been working on several commissioned pieces and finally finished this one. I used Coral gemstone leaves and some 4 mm coral round beads to embellish it along with the flowers made with 11/0 and 15/0 seed beads. The second piece is almost finished so maybe today I will get it completed.

In between I have been working on a challange piece. I belong to the Bead Society of Central Florida and we are having our 3rd bead challange. This one has been a challange too. This picture called "Serene Purle Lake" was to be our inspiration. I have been working on it for the past 2 1/2 months with our deadline being July 14th and I am no where finishing it. I keep telling myself that I work best under pressure and I will get it done!

In the mean time I have numerous ideas in my head for new projects but I don't dare start anything new until I finish up some of the ones I have started.

7/5/09 Here is a better picture of the necklace..the color is better and show a little more detail.

Icicles in Florida

This is a piece that a friend commissioned me to make for her. She wanted an Icicles Necklace full with plenty of sparkle. This was really hard to photograph and the colors are not true. I used 60 grams of a lustery silver grey bead for the main color accented with metallic silver beads for the tips of each fringe. Plus on some of the fringes are 3 mm czech firepolish in a crystal/silver finish, a total of 300 of them. The picture picks up pink for some reason but there is no pink in it. She loves it and that makes me extremely happy!