Sugar Rush!

Well this is nearly the end of the year, so time for just one more blog post...

Just before Christmas, I thought I was pretty much beaded out, from making gifts and items for fairs...Then Nancy Dale produced a Christmas Cracker of a tutorial for an embroidered/freeform cuff, and I couldn't resist! Immediately the pdf landed in my inbox, I was mixing soup and selecting focals, I chose a lovely piece of etched dichroic glass which looked like opal, by Silvermoonlyn as the central item and this is the soup mix:

I also had a couple of vintage glass square cabs with an opal effect so they became the secondary focals, and I began by fixing them to some of Nicole's bead backing in pink. The bead embroidery extends a little way, to allow the anchoring of freeform.

Bezelling the squares was a bit tricky and I fudged the first one, but the second worked better and I got everything connected. I then raced away with the freeforming, and by Christmas Eve I was finished (although I might add more dimension later).

I named the piece 'Kingdom of Sweets' after the fantasy land in the Nutcracker ballet, the colours were sugary pinks and lilacs for the most part with the odd accent in copper and orange. I was pleased with the overall shape which is reminiscent of a wrapped candy or a cracker, all consistent with the confectionery theme.

 I recommend the 'Atlantis Cuff' tutorial to anyone who would like to try freeform peyote/RAW. It was a lot of fun to make, and although every piece will be different, there is plenty of guidance and support to help you achieve a satisfying end result!

Thank you for reading and commenting over the last year! Hoping you all have a happy and healthy new year 2013!



Cuff fun

Cuff style bracelets have long been a favourite project, as they give me plenty of space for design play. I managed to get some lightweight aluminium cuff blanks from Fantasybeading on Etsy, and decided to make a slightly different cuff.

I had a gorgeous patinated brass butterfly and thought it would make a lovely centrepiece, and some pressed glass leaves in a similar colour. Initially I thought I'd embroider around the butterfly, but it looked really nice against a scrap of old gold Ultrasuede, so decided to keep it simple. Because of the 3-D nature of the blank, I first 'filled' the body cavity with a rolled piece of Ultrasuede glued in position. I let that dry, then glued it down to the piece of Ultrasuede. I didn't want to rely on glue to hold everything in place, so I stitched strands of tiny size 15 seedbeads in several of the grooves on the butterfly to anchor it more securely. I then stitched  a few Czech rondelles and Swarovski sequins/lochrosen in a curve on either side of the centrepiece, and attached the leaf beads (as these had two holes I could keep them firmly in position with a couple of stitches). Finally I stitched the gold piece to the backing, with which I had covered the cuff inner surface. I held the stitched piece in position with small squares of 'PeelnStick' double sided tape from Thermoweb and finished the edges with brick stiched triangle beads, in aqua I/C gold.

Sometimes, less is more, and I am really pleased with this cuff prototype, it is light and would be nice to wear through Spring and Summer. What do you think? And what other stampings could I use for this kind of cuff?
Heres the side view, a few sequins go a long way!