One finished one finished?

I finished my Magic the Gathering cuff. I also figured out the name of the card I used for it: Recumbent Bliss. (Illus. Todd Lockwood)



Anywho, as I said before, I used roughly 20+/- different seed beads including 15/0, 13/0, Delica, rocailles, charlottes, cubes, triangles, drops, etc. 4 CZ stones, some labradorite beads, a sliding bar clasp etc.



I beaded the whole thing on black stiff felt with Fireline, and then backed it with a piece of soft black leather.




The second piece I have made draws heavily from Laura McCabe's embellished beadweaving.

It uses her pagoda forms, as well as partial instructions from her April Showers necklace instructions. The focal is all mine though, well the artwork is by Ron Spears, but the beading is all mine by golly!



I used a basic swamp card, in resin. I beaded around it with varying shades of greens, blues, turquise, grey and a hint of firey red, you know, for zest. All of that is attached to white felt(because I didn't realize I had a whole big chunk of black in my bead bag. Silly place for it if you ask me...) And that is attached to soft leather.



The pagoda forms, and the rings and rods are made using the same colors, and there is also some multicolored fringe.


I'm not sure if I'm done with this piece. I think it needs more "fluff" on the strap by the other fluff. The strap just seems a little too, well, little.

What say you studio audience? Should I fluff it or let it be?

Also, as an aside, I love Laura's McCabe's work. I am the first to admit, I'm a McCabe junkie, but she likes to find weird, difficult to obtain stuff. I guess that makes her works more special, but it's kinda irritating at the same time. Also, the April Showers necklace instructions for the strap don't say what size beads to use. The quantities for two different sizes are in the materials list but if one isn't weighing their beads, how does one know when one has used x grams of 11/0 Japanese seed beads? But maybe I'm just illiterate or something, but I re-read that section a half dozen times and still couldn't decide which she meant. In the end I used 15/0 under the pagodas and fringe and 11/0 in the main part of the necklace.

Also, I passed my PE! I am now a Professional Engineer. And I have a stamp. And an embosser with a seal on it. MY seal! My very own seal! I seriously almost peed my pants when I got the congratulations letter stating that I had passed, and that I could buy my seal and register it in the state of West ByGod Virginia!

New Stuff!

I may be a glutton for punishment...

My mom asked me if I wanted to try my hand at piecing a quilt top for her. It was the least I could do since she quilted my top for me. I said I would give it a go. It took me 10 hours on Saturday to complete a single block. OM-friggin-G. Why did I do this to myself? Anyone?

Although, it is a pretty bitchin block...It is aptly called Storm at Sea



This a quarter of another in progress. All the major stuff is done, I just need to join the four quarters and its ready for a new home...



This is a cuff that I finished beading Saturday after I became thoroughly frustrated with the Storm. It isn't finished, as it isn't backed and is just kinda sitting there on the felt stabilizer, but it is very nearly done.

It uses about a billion (actually about 20) different seed beads including 15/o, 11/o, delicas, Toho treasures, cubes, triangles, hex cuts, etc...

The focal is a Magic the Gathering resin cab I made. Don't ask what card it used to be, because I haven't the foggiest.


There are also labradorite rectangles and 4 cubic zirconia stones. The CZ came from a friend of my mother's who was cleaning out some of her stuff. Apparently she used to sell jewelry, and asked my mom if I knew anyone who made jewelry. My mom mentioned me and now I have a sack full of CZ, imitation sapphire, ruby, emerald, etc. in little brown envelopes. I'll post more thoroughly about those in the future.


This is a bracelet I made while playing around with RAW. I can't remember where the inspiration came from as I printed it out a long long time ago, but the final result differs significantly from the inspo.


This one was a bit of a pain in the ass, as it were. I don't do RAW regularly, so it was good to stretch my boundaries.


I like the colors, they are so vibrant and summerlike, but I'm not sure how I feel about the bracelet. Well, it was an excercise, and I accomplished what I set out to do, which was to play with RAW.

Raspberry magic

Remember those cabs made from Magic Cards I posted about a week ago? Well, I made something from some of them. Initially, I wanted to make another Laura McCabe ball, but, the cabs said no, they wanted to do something else.

I wrapped them in 11/0s, 15/0s and delicas, alternating a lovely raspberry color and grey tones, and a deep transparent plum and grey. I like the effect of the contrast between murky and HERE-I-AM color. The pink and purple also pull their colors from the cabs, which is nice.

The cabs had something of a lip at the base, not much, but enough that a ring of beads to encircle just above the lip wouldn't stretch over the lip for a secure closure. An increase on the third round of pinks solved that, and gave a really cool squared circle effect.

I also learned a new stitch, which I used for the necklace. Friends, may I introduce Dutch Spiral? It is actually a pretty easy stitch, one you get past the first two rounds. I didn't do any of the increases the tutorial mentions excepting the ones in the second round. I can see myself using this one again soon. The necklace is made from 11/0s in purple and pink, matte grey Delicas, black 15/0s and silver lined purple 15/0s.

I like the effect of the spiral tubes, with the cabs, and a few jet crystals thrown in. I'm pleased with it. I'm not so pleased with the way the pink is showing up as purpley in these photos. It's more of a Crayola Hot Magenta, than the weird purple you see here.

The joys of warm resin!

A long time ago, when I was younger and still looking for my place in the world, I attempted to fit in at the local card and comic book shop. Square peg, round hole. There was definitely some "Oh my gods and overlords, there's a girl in the card shop FLAVEN!" going on. I played Magic the Gathering, not well, but I tried.

I was enamored by the black cards. They had rats. I liked rats. Apparently, the mono-black card scheme that I played exclusively had its limitations. I was not good at Magic. Perhaps my deck just wasn't good.

I begrudgingly sold my cards, and moved on with my life.

While packing for my move last year, I found a few packs of cards that had not made the journey to the card shop. Well, they weren't worth anything, and they didn't take up much room, so I kept them.

I had a hankering the other day to create some resin cabs for my bead work. Those cards sure had some pretty pictures on them...Thats right nerds! I have defiled several magic cards! Mwahahahaa! Really, they were just 4 basic lands, swamps...not foreign, foil, or rare, its cool, don't light sabre me...but if I ever find a beta black lotus, I will SO make a cab out of it, out of spite! HA!

So out came my 2 part resin, popsicle sticks, cups, etc, and I startd my adventure. I poured the entire cab with one go, with room temperature resin. BIG MISTAKE(S)
The bubbles completely obscure the images. The top 2 are from Magic Cards, the bottom are a couple acrylic flowers I got on clearance at Pat Catans a week or so ago.

Crap...So I started over. I warmed my resin bottles in warm-hot water, until they were warm to the touch. I swirled the products around in the bottles, then warmed a touch longer.

Then I mixed slowly and carefully, avoiding bubbles at all cost. I only filled the selected molds halfway, let cure, then filled the rest of the way, and carefully placed my cutouts, trying to remove all bubbles as I went. Much better eh?

This is a photo of the flower cab against the light. They flowers take on a true sublety that I really kinda dig.

I think my next resin adventure with Magic Cards will be a Power Nine tile-style bracelet.