2 Inchies in One, and a Gift for a Friend

I missed last weeks post because I got a bit of a stomach bug.  Actually, the whole house got the stomach bug!  It was not a pretty site at all.  LOL. 

So last week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme was Weapon. I really loved all the great ideas that everyone came up with.  So diverse and creative! 

The first thought that came to my mind was an arrow and a bulls eye.  I do like how it came out, with one exception.  I also like the patriotic theme I used by adding red, white and blue, along with brown Delicas for the arrow.  Hope you like it.

The one part that I don't like is that I had a knot where I added the new thread and it made the bead stick sideways; you can see it in the upper right corner.  Not a fan but I could not get it to lay nice no matter how many times I pushed, pulled and begged, lol. 

This weeks theme is X-Axis.  Wow that brought back a lot of college math that I vowed to never remember! LOL  I like what I came up with.  I used 4 colors of delicas, although they are hard to see in the light of the picture.  I think I captured the theme perfectly. 

This week I also finished a project for a friend.  She loves, I mean LOVES snowmen.  She has them all over her house.  One such snowman was an antique snowman that her brother gave her in the late 70's.  It was accidentally knocked over by her son's girlfriend's son.  She was really upset.  I don't blame her. 

About 2 weeks ago she told me that it was almost her birthday actually she mentioned it about 5 times LOL.  So I got the idea to design a snowman for her.  In the end I designed and beaded the snowman around a 1 inch dowel. Using tubular peyote.  I used 10 colors of delicas and got it all done within 2 weeks.  She loved it and was not expecting it at all.  I gave it to her with 2 small items from the Dollar tree.  she was so tickled to get them that she did not even notice the beaded snowman, until I told her to look for it!  LOL  Hope you like it.

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the rest of the awesome designs, and thanks for dropping by, I love to see your comments very much. 

An Inchie and a Bead Rant

Sorry this is late this week.  I have been feverishly working on my ornaments, well actually, I kinda stopped doing that and decided to work on a special project for a friend.  But I have been working on it cuz it is her birthday next week and I want to get this done before then.  Wish me luck. LOL

Over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Wheat.  My design was not too difficult, I just designed the whispy part of the wheat blowing in the wind.  The issue is that I thought it would be awesome to add silk delica beads. 

Where was my brain????  For those who don't know about these beautiful beads, let me tell you.  They are so pretty.  When they first came out i bought a bit of every color i could find.  Check them out.

See what I mean?    But these little glass beauties are secretly evil!  LOL  They have very sharp edges.  The first time I ever used them I cut my thread 4-5 times so I gave up.  This is the first time I have used them since I ordered them a few years ago.  Holding my breath and cursing the whole time! 

Now don't get me wrong, I love all beads and know it isn't the beads fault (maybe I am in denial?).  But I don't think I will be using these ever again.  I have never been so stressed out by an inch of beading this much before. 

This is what my thread looks like after I got done doing an inch of beadwork.  

It is hard to see but it is frayed badly.  For those wondering, this is Fireline.  Beaders like to use Fireline, which is a fishing line because it is braided, non-biodegradable, and strong.  The great thing about Fireline is that since it is braided the needle wont penetrate the thread while you are passing through beads.  This is really important when (not "if") you make a mistake and have to take it apart.  If the thread goes through itself then taking something apart is almost impossible.  

Now that I have gone through all issues I went though to make this inchie I think I should show off the pretty little evil beauty LOL.

On this inchie I used 2 colors, a opaque terra cotta bead and the crystal silk bead.  See the sheen of the silk beads?  Isn't it pretty? 

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the great work of all of the other inchie artist.

Just wanted to say thank you for everyone who leaves a comment.  I love them all so much.  I also wanted to say thanks to all the Veterans who did what they did so we can do what we do.  God bless them all & if you have a Veteran in your family, thank them for me. 

Violet Inchie

Hello everyone, this week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is Violet.  I thought about doing the color but I really wanted to make a flower the size of an inch.  How cute that would be. 

I looked all over the web; which is the closest I can get to a flower without killing it; for a great picture of a violet.  I just could not find a good looking picture that would translate into something that looked good in beads.

But I finally found a great looking picture, well at least it was a picture that I liked the color differences in it.  Here is the original picture.

 So, working with this I thought I had a great design.  My pattern uses 7 different colors; 2 each of greens, yellows, and purples along with a cream color.  I of course used my delicas.  I love my delicas lol. 

When I showed my son the finished product, he did not see anything. Just a bunch of blobs of colors.  :(  But then I asked my daughter and she saw that they were flowers!  :)  Of course, she kinda did hear the conversation that me and my son had so she might have just knew, but the people pleaser in me believes that she "just knew".   Let me know what you think. 

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the great violet art over there. 

Veggie-Tables and Christmas Ornaments

The theme this week over at Every Inchie Monday  is vegetable.  So, of course, with my love of the color orange I had to do a carrot.  It was not until about an hour ago that it dawned on me that with this time of year I should have done a pumpkin.  Oh well, I do like how the carrot came out. 

Also this week I started to work on Christmas Ornaments.  Every year I make Christmas Ornaments for everyone in the family, a few friends and my boss at work.  I also make earrings for some ladies at work.

This week I got 3 ornaments done.  I really love how they are coming out.  Did I mention that I have to make 16 ornaments?!?  Yea, 16!  LOL  Every year I tell myself that I am gonna start making my ornaments earlier than I did last year.  Well, I actually started later this year since last year!  Sheesh.  Well lets hope I can get them done before Christmas gets here! 

For this years ornaments I decided to bead around a wine cork (same as I did last year).  Using 2 hole beads called twins, 11/0 seed beads and crystal cones on the fringe.  I really love how they are coming out.  They do work up pretty fast and I am loving making them.  Especially since Christmas will be here before you know it (56 days to be exact!!!!).

Thanks again for stopping by and don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the vegetables over there, I mean vegetable art work not "vegetables". 

Inchie and Commission work

This week over at Every Inchie Monday the theme is another new word for my vocabulary.  I really like how these last few weeks I have had to go beyond my comfort zone and really dig deep in my design brain. 

This weeks word is Umbra, I had to look it up because at first I thought it was ombre, until I realized that started with an O and not a U.  LOL!  So i went to my trusty Wikipedia.   Seems Umbra is 1 of 3 parts of a shadow.  So my inchie shows that sorta, lol I just did the umbra part of the shadow and not the other 2 since they were not part of the theme.  (I am having issues loading pictures to my blog so I am just gonna have to post links to pictures, sorry about that) Umbra

Also this week I finished 2 more commission pieces.  One is a family tree necklace.  The colors on the tree are birthstones, the top on each side is the daughters birthstones and the 2 under each of those are their children's birthstones.  I then wove the branches up the necklace and added the birthstones alone the length of the branches.  Making them bigger than the ones on the tree.  The ones on the tree represent eggs and the ones on the necklace represent birds.    I really enjoyed designing this one and figuring out the necklace design.

The other commission item I  finished is a beaded key chain with the clients name and her husbands name with a big pink heart between them.  This is the third key chain that I have made.  I really like making them. 

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the great artwork done by the awesome inchie artist and have a blessed and creative week.

Ungual...Whaaa?!?

As I have been trying to get over a cold I was running behind to post my inchie. This weeks theme over at Every Inchie Monday is Ungual.  This is a word I had never heard of.  So many things over at EIM make me think, and this one was definitely one that lived up to that. 

Wikipedia says that Ungual means : of, relating to, or affecting a nail, hoof, or claw. Well, that is part of the definition, the part that I went with.  I really had a hard time thinking of what to do for this.  But in the end I went with a hoofed foot.  

Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out the cool ungual things that the ladies have come up with. 

Thistle This, Bracelet That

I am very happy that this weekend was mostly drama free.  2 little bumps on the road but nothing like the last few weeks!  YAY!!!  lol 

I have been working on a few commission pieces over the last few weeks.  But, my shoulder getting hurt slowed down the work.  I did finally get one of the pieces done, so I am super stoked about that.  Here is a bangle bracelet done in a Cellini spiral in 6 bright opaque colors and 4 different sizes of seed beads.

This week's theme at Every Inchie Monday is Thistle.  What a hard theme!!!  How many of us remember being a kid and running barefoot in the yard then the worse thing in the world happens.  You step on a thistle.  That was what we called them.  I so hated those things.

I also know that thistles are a flower of some kind so I had to research them to see what they looked like. 

Ugly things aren't they, yet pretty at the same time; well kinda pretty lol.  I for sure would not want to step on these things barefooted!  But I used this image for my inchie and I like mine better, it isn't as prickly and way more blobby looking.

On this inchie I used 4 colors of delicas.  I like how this came out.  Don't forget to fly on over to EIM and check out all the thistles that everyone comes up with. Have a blessed and creative day.