More bead embroidery

Today is not as gray as yesterday, and I've finally managed to take some pictures.

This gorgeous fossile ammonite is from Morocco, bought from StarDust in Stockholm. Pendant is a custom order for a friend of my mother in law. It had to be very simple.

I've bought these blue cabs in Sala, a small gem-shop near the local silvermine. If I am not totally wrong, it is a dross - mass of impurities that appear when melting metall ore. I loved the idea of using it in jewelry! The cuff is called Polar Ice, you can guess why ;)


Finally - a pendant with carnelian, Autumn. And again, Czech seed beads in all their glory!

Love affair: me and Russian gems

I've just finished another pendant with a stone from Valentina's shop.
This time, it is marvelous Russian jasper. It started talking to me not more than a week ago, asking for ivory, pearls and furs. Imagine that!

The inspiration for it came from two sources. The pendant itsef is inspired by the book of fairytales of people of Northern Russia that I bought to my sons. But the technical part of making it got inspiration from beadwork of a talented Russian artist Guzell Bakeeva, a piece of bead embroidery on fur.

I called it Due North. Well, the timing is not perfect, perhaps (lagom till sommaren). But hey - when stones start talking to you, it's impossible to just ignore it!



And yes, it is not supposed to be symmetric or straight!

P.S. I have used a small bit of a Fair Trade reindeer (caribou) pelt, produced by Saami-people in North of Sweden.

More Russian Fairytales

This pendant is made for the Smyckestillbehör competition. Together with other entries, it is listed in their blog. Everybody is welcome to have a look and leave thier comments on any of the entering creations before the 20th of April.

The inspiration for this necklace comes from fairytales of Pavel Bozhov, a famous Russian writer. Born in Ural (as my mother), he was writing about the hidden treasuries of this remarkable part of Russia: the mines rich with gems and precious metals and people rich with talent.

The story tells about a skillful miner that wanted to make a flower of stone that would have come alive. The poor guy had some set-backs on his way and made several beta-versions before coming up with his final creation, the angel's trumpet inspired stone flower. Well, I will pick the white Angel's flower some other time.

For now - the pendant is made with Charoite, a rare stone with rich natural lilac color. It is mined only in one place on entire planet - on the banks of river Chara in Yakutia region in north of Russia.






Take care!

Australian Bushfires

I love Australia. I had an honor to spend two months in Perth, as a visiting researcher at the University of Western Australia. And I am honored to call several Australians my friends.

First, I did not pay attention to the news about the bushfire in Victoria. It's a natural thing, happens every summer and promotes vegetation. Australian nature is used to that.

And than I heared about the death toll. People got no warning. Winds made the fire to spread with a speed of a car on a highway. Terrible.

Fellow Etsians have opened a charity shop: OzBushfireAppeal. I could not find anything cloe enough to my heart to buy, I do not like buying stuff that will never be used. That's why, I've decided to make a donation. I hope it will be accepted.

Carnelian Sunset:


and Victoria.

Brad, PJ, Ja-On, Nicolin, Siva, Nura, Titik - I miss u, guys!

P.S.
Bought a .pdf with coiling instructions. I know exactly what to make with its help! ;)

Do stones talk to you?

Couple of weeks ago, I had an honor to meet in person three Swedish beaders whom I respect a lot: Misan, Asanda and Karton (who does not have her own homepage yet, but some examples of her work can be seen here, here and here). It was an amazing day spent chatting, laughing, sharing ideas and beading. Misan, Karton and myself did some talking awaiting for Asanda to arrive, and one of the things that came up during our conversation was: how do we find our inspiration, especially when working with large stone cabochons. All three of us said almost in one voice - the stone tells us how it would like to have it. It is amazing, we seem to listen to the wishes of the stone about the bezel design!

One of the results of our creative meeting with the ladies was trying out new media for bead embroidery. My Blooming mosses is a direct follow-up of that.

This green turquoise cabochon wanted to have bronze-colored beads around it. I did not mind.




So, do stones, and other beads talk to you as well? I know that they do talk to Swanee and I love that conversation! :)