Custom order - the last day.

I'm done! :)

It was a fun project. With all latest bead embroidery items (I'll blog about those soon), as well as the embroidery course, I have forgotten how much fun it is to make freeform! It was a very refreshing experience.

Latest addition - right side:


Customer had some points about the color scheme, and I have made some changes.
1. Added some green and yellow beads to the red part, to soften the redness.

2. Added some extra of that gorgeous Jablonex LA Orange mix of orange, yellow an amber around the donut connector and next to the bronze "belt".

That's my clasp solution:

"Clasp on":
"Clasp off":
Pfew! :)

Two "old" pieces that I have forgotten to blog about :(

Well, not exactly forgotten... They have been etnries to two of local Swedish beading competitions.

This is one (Trubute to Coco) was made for the BraPärlor's competition. The entry would have to be made in any technique, but most of the beads in it had to be freshwater pearls. The winner piece was totally stunning, you got to check it out!

I made the pendant using a technique that was totally new for me. It is very similar to Quilling, you just use a braided cord instead for a strip of seed beads. Please have a look here for the description, and make sure to visit the site of Dori Csengeri, the creator of this exciting technique!

A very short disclamer - I could not get the color of those blue 3-cuts right, no matter what I tried! In reality, they are of the same shade of navy-blue as the cord wraped around the cabs.

The second piece is en experiment, inspired by spectacular embellished netted collars by Zoya Gutina. It took the second prize in Zionesse contest #2. The entry had to be made with 80% Miyuki and Jablonex exclusive seed beads and the topic was "New Year". It is called Winter Solstice. As the matter of fact, I was going to bead champagne. That is why I made that 3D freeform embellishment with 15/0 that was supposed to look like the bubbles in the sparkling wine. But when I started making pictures, the necklace started to resemble the sun, I thought. I usually listen to my pieces ;). It has been named "Winter Solstice".




The spring is coming, I can feel it in the water... ;)

Rebellion Monkey

Why monkey? Dunno. It's brown. Many monkeys are brown. See the trend?
Logics is some pretty cool stuff! Glad I am good at it ;)

Last three months I have been doing mainly contest and challenge pieces, as well as some commissions. Excluding perhaps just the Blooming mosses. Know what? I am tired of beading under pressure and/or constraints. Hence - the Monkey the Rebellion.

It is done against all laws of symmetry. I have introduced its focal element here. It has been lying on the shelf next to my beading table staring at me ever since. Until a day before yesterday, when it became talkative. It has coincided with a fever-top, interestingly enough :) And than I knew exactly what to do with it!

PärlPlatsen's Word Challenge - CLOWN

Word challenge is a game played at PärlPlatsen.
This time I got the word "clown" straight in my face. After 10 minutes of a total shock, I got an idea - the clown's wig. Red and orange. Huge. F l u f f y.
At first I wanted to make a bracelet. Than earrings. Finally, I have cut those ideas down to a single pendant.
I've recently got some great Jablonex seed beads in several shades of purple. I love red and purple together, and my husband is the biggest fan of Färjestad hockey team. Purple and orange are the colors of their sponsor, Löfbergs Lila. Well, I have quickly blessied myself with a cross sign, and started beading.

Well, does it look like a clown to you?

Two new bracelets

I have started working again. It was not easy to concentrate on that bloody DNA-stuff after being at home for seven months. It would be certainly easier if my head would not be filled with all those craze bead-design ideas ;) But I am getting there and learning to set up correct priorities again.

Here are couple of my latest "creations". It was a while after I have tried free form brickstitch, and it was about time to pick it up again. Guess it is not difficult to figure out why did I call it My Funny Valentine... Besides colors, my brain was actually playing that jazz composition while I was making it ;) It's on display on Etsy.



After the tribute to St. Valentine's, I've made another bracelet, The Polar Night 2.0, by order of the same friend of mine who got the necklace with black stones from the previous post.

I just love those Jablonex seed beads! The golden ones - permanent finish Tohos.

And now - two tiny sneak-peeks. The first one was inspired by a fabulous necklace I've seen on one of the Russian beading forums. I have contacted the author and asked if I can use her idea, but got no reply whatsoever. Pity. Anyhow, I have no intentions to repeat somebody else's design. Right now I cannot decide what do I want to do with this... Is it going to be a part of a necklace or a bracelet, or perhaps a pendant. I am also meditating on its final shape, style and type of backing and the complementing beadwork, of course ;)


And this is my second sneak-peek - a view of my working table at the moment. This is the materials for my entry for one of the Swedish beading contests that cannot be published before the competition is over. But I am allowed to tease the audience a bit ;)


That's all for now. Stay well!

Beading like there is no tomorrow...

Now, The Beach-challenge is done. I have tried different ideas but settled on this one: a bit kitchy bracelet that got named "After The Storm".


I was born in Jurmala - little town close to Riga, lying along the beach of the Baltic coast, known for its spa-resorts. We have moved to the capital when I was five, but still were spending summers there. I remember walking on the beach days after first autums storms. Than the sea surface would be calm as a mirror, the air is clear and is smells only like the sea air can do. And than there are piles of sea-weed all the way along the shore. As a kid, I loved to play with those piles and search for treasures. Sometimes, one could find pieces of amber amongst the junk. I think my mom still keeps my colelction of beach findings.

I have faced two personal challenges while making this bracelet. First of all, I am still very uncomfortable with blending colors. Usually, you would see many shades of the same color or two close neighbors in the same piece. Here I blended two different parts of the spectrum, and I liked the result ;)
My second personal challenge was to bead a 3D-freeform peyote. Also a thing that I have never tried before (inspired by art of the fellow EBW team member Dini Alves, actually). This is just a pretty pale first try, but I will surely come back to this technique - it gives such a freedom! Like spreading-your-wings-and-just-letting-it-go sort of feeling!
I will put it in my Etsy shop shortly.



And this is the second piece that I'd like to share with you today - a comission necklace made for a friend of mine. I had some trouble with attaching the cabs to the rope; you see my third solution. I've had some brainstorming with other beaders from PärlPlatsen and got some good critique about what could be improved. The person who ordered it liked the necklace in its current state, though. And it looked quite well around the neck, actually. :)

The large stone is onyx, two smaller one are obsidians.

And this is just a picture to show the Jablonex seed beads in all their glory. Love those!
That's all for today :) Thank you for visiting my blog!

I need YOUR help to identify those stones! Thanks!

This is a freeform peyote bracelet that I made for Etsy and called Arctica. The cabs that are used in it were bought from Firemountain Gems in a half-kilo pack of assorted stones. So far I have two guesses - it might be a sort of white opal mined in Russia under the name kaholong, or it might be a moonstone. The first guess comes from girls from a russian seed-bead site, the other one is a guess of a lapidary artist from a little shop in Stockholm. He even said that the stones are of superb quality and rare to find nowadays. I am a bit doubtful about his guess, since the pack of one pound has costed me only 12 US dollars. What do you say?


Stone Nr1:
Stone Nr2:
Stone Nr3:

And this is just a picture of it on our patio:



Thanks in advance!

Hate making titles for my posts!

I have not done too much beading lately, was busy with some baby-stuff and all the family got sick in a nasty cold, bläää. Otherwise, I could have shown some funny pictures of my ongoing projects, but alas! ;)

I have finished couple of X-mas presents that I am not thinking to show before holidays ;)
And, I have opened a shop on Etsy and put my Witchery on sale. It will take a while before I come up to two items to qualify for joining the Etsy Beadweavers team.

Meanwhile, there is one thing that I would like to show. I am a bit proud of that one...
I wanted to bead flames. I think I was watching too much of Discovery channel - you know, Miami Ink, American Choppers, blah-blah-blah, and Mike LaValle with his amazing paintbrush flamework. I cannot airbrush, but I am learning to bead. That's it, I wanted to try if it was possible to bead flames and I gave it a try.

Overall, there are nine different shades of Jablonex 11/0 in this one (the color changes that yoiu see in the flame-part is not due to the camera). The rope is made of collums of garnet and silver-lined garnet for a cool sparkling effect, note this is my first try with herringbone stitch. The toggle clasp is made in Swarovski bicones, I've picked it up from www.businka-lisa.livejournal.com (Thank You for the wonderful tutorials, Lisa!)


I could not decide which picture was the best, so I have uploaded both of them.


Well, that's all I wanted to show for today (while the little one is taking his powernap).
Take care, ppl!

Experiment: Witchery

I start feeling quite comfortable with peyote stitch. The next project is the result of my crazy experimenting with peyote in its free form. I called it Witchery.


It is inspired partly by Pratchett's Nanny Ogg, partly by the witches in Stardust movie. While making it, I was thinking of an old witch. She was not evil my witch, that's for sure. She was perhaps quite a rich lady one day (rich enough to afford silver Delicas to embellish her gown). One day she was young and perhaps even beautiful. Who knows, maybe she got poor with age, or perhaps she just stopped caring about her look. Freeform peyote has allowed to create a feeling of those torn rugs she was wearing. Original lace is still there in some places, I mimicked it with pewter Ornela beads and some netting as well as accented with Delicas here and there. I have interchanged portions made of fine matte opaque black Tohos (representing velvet, I'd say) with really rough cheep and uneven MingTree seed beads, representing poor attempts of my witch to fix the dress.
The cab in the middle is what remains of her glory. Or, perhaps, all her power is in that stone? ;)
Well, those were my thoughts when I was making the piece.

On the practical side of this project: it took me two days to make the cab setting. I made it over and over again until I was satisfied with the look.


OK, it was a stupid idea to make it in peyote, RAW would be a much better option, I admit it. Live and learn! :)