Fashion Colorworks 2011

Hi guys!

Now I can finally tell what I've been doing lately... That is making four pieces for the Fashion Colorworks contest. Among all online beading contest I do appreciate it the most. Why?
- There is a great competition from the Russian beaders who otherwise are shy to enter interenational contests.
- Pieces are more wearable than the ones made for the Bead Dreams.
- Organizers are very friendly and supporting.
- Three international jurors are scoring the pool of entries.
- Popular vote is allowed, but it is a separate nomination.

So, this year I made four pieces. Two in collaboration with Mona Baroody, a great lampwork artist from the U.S. (blog, Etsy store). Together we came up with an idea to make something phylosophically feminine -> life started in the ocean, than came to earth... water ... origin of life... meaning of life... ribbons of life... Yes, the collection is called Ribbons of Life. And there are four pieces in it, all called by names of ancient female deities: Gaia, Thetys, Demeter and Artemis. All four are made in totally different techniques, but united by the theme of ribbons and femininity (no, we do not do weeds; we just got the artistic sort of mind).

Well, three of the pieces did not make it to the final :((( But Gaia did (I know it deserves better pictures, but so far this is the only one I got).


Gaia was made almost from the scratch during the three-day FACETT beading convention in Stockholm. I was sitting in a huge room filled with female beaders, we all were sitting and creating something of our own. And talking.

I knew that I am making the piece for the Fashion Colorworks that should incorporate three colors: Russet, Coral Rose and Blue Curacao. I bought the focal on e-bay just for this piece, since that turquoise cab got all three colors in it.


And then I went to the bead shops that participated in the convention and picked up the beads that matched best to the stuff I was making at a particular moment.


And then, during the same convention I took a lampwork class from Tove Egholt and made an ugly orange bead. It is in that necklace too!

As well as couple of Tove's, looking a bit more professionally ;)


So, there I am sitting and making my necklace. And looking around. What an amazing group of people it was! Only women. Many with chronical ilnesses, different sorts of cancers, broken bodies, bleeding souls, but SURVIVORS. Strong personalities that have transformed their problems into the creative energy. Gathered in the same room and making amazingly beautiful things. This necklace is inspired by them, beaders of FACETT'2011.

(Gaia in progress, FACETT'2011. Picture by Lina Bingmert)

Also, it got signatures of Carin Riese, Misan, Charina-Pitepärlan and Maria, who directed my hand when I could not decide where the next bead should go. Huge thanks to them for the company! And to Kerstin, KEO, Lena, Mina and Marja-Liisa, my bead-friends from Uppsala for their support.


Now Gaia is amongst the finalists of the Fashion Colorworks ´2011. Here you can cast the vote for the People's Choice Award: http://www.mylovelybeads.com/contest/displayFinalListRu_new.php. This year's entries are A M A Z I N G. It is a great honor to be among the finalists.

Hugs,
Olga

Symbiosis or the Love Story

Hi ppl!

My computer is compiling and I got some time to spare for blogging.

Introduction
Today we will talk about the Love Story. And the story of making the Symbiosis.

On one hand, it is about the love story of a friend and and an office-mate of mine - Su-lin, who got recently married (applause here, thx). On the other hand, since I already am happily married, it is about the love story between myself and my beautiful new iPhone 4 (looooove).

Su-lin was kind enough to allow me to make her bridal necklace. She's a sci-fi fan, and a microbiologist (otherwise she would not survive me as an office-mate). I had approximately one week time.

After having a brainstorm, we decided that the necklace should be very simple in front, but get gradually crazy on the back. The wedding gown left the back open, and, as everybody knows, the couple's back is the part that all the spectators are usually looking at during the entire ceremony.

The aim of the project was to make a necklace that was: i) assymmetrical; ii) sci-fi, and iii) look like mold. I called it phylosophically: Symbiosis.

Materials and Methods
Swarovski 4439 20mm Square Ring Crystal CAL V SI
Swarovski 5310 simplicity cut beads 6 mm White Opal and White Alabaster
Swarovski 5328 Xilion bicones 3 and 4 mm Crystal, Crystal AB, Moon Shadow, White Opal, White Alabaster
Miyuki Delicas 11/0 and 15/0 Metallic Dk White Gold 24 Karat Plated
Miyuki Delica 11/0 Transparent Crystal
Seed bead soup 11/0 whites - opals - transparents (Toho and Miyuki)
Czech charlottes 13/0 and 15/0 Transparent Crystal plane & AB
Fireline 4 lb test
Needles Pony # 12 and John James #13
Lighter
Scissors

Photography
Due to the camera malfunction, all pictures were taken by iPhone 4 (loooove) (Figs 1 and 2).

Figure 1. Working table in the process...

Figure 2. By touching the screen you can accidently take a picture of yourself instead of the other thing you have intended to take picture of. (NOTE: the earphones, connected to iPhone 4 (loooove). What a sound!!!)

Front and Back
The base of the collar was woven using the netting stitch. Swarovski square ring mount onto the base using the freeform peyote and white gold plated Delicas (Fig 3).
The back-part was made separately using free-form peyote stitch (Figs 4-6).

Figure 3. Does it look like T-3 for you, or what? ;)

Figure 4: A - Here is how we start growing a mold.

Figure 5: ... and it gets bigger.

Figure 6: Look, professor, I think it is a girl!

Assembly
The front and back parts were pinned onto the velvetine necklace display prior to assembly (Fig 7). The integrity and the exact placement of the back-part was secured by adding bridges of free-form peyote (Fig 8). The clasp was woven using the white gold plated Delica 11/0 and incerted into the mock-up. Free-form was used to link it to the necklace (Fig 9).




Figure 7 (A-D): this is how we make a mock-up. It was not at all that trivial to make it lie, instead of just hanging (the final score was 1:0; after a long battle I won).

Figure 8 A-B: Connecting the front and the back with free-form. The left side was supposed to be taken over by the crystal-white mold.


Figure 9: The clasp is in. The right side is taken over the mutated metallic mold. Note: the white mold is starting to take over the clasp!

Results and dicsussion
Ta-daaaaa!

Figure-too-lazy-to-check-which: taken 1:52 in the morning, hence the blurr. Less than 12 hours to the ceremony ;)
And here is the happy couple - Su-lin and Isak (note the location of the necklace before hugging with the croud)

And this is the back, after the hugging ;)

And once again - CONGRATULATIONS, guys!

Despite a slight occasional migration to the left, the necklace held through the entire ceremony + hugging + dinner. As far as I understand, it was not too uncomfortable.

Conclusions
- iPhone4 (loooove) is an acceptable replacement to an ordinary camera in case of emergency.
- One week is a crazy timeframe for a necklace like this, especially if you are 100% employed and a mother of two. Beaders advised to use it as The Last Reserve for best friends only.
- Note to the croud: be cautions when hugging a bride! The necklace can easily get misplaced.
- Mental note to myself: next time, check all necklaces in a hug-test. I always try to make both sides of the assymetrical necklaces of the same weight, but they sometimes try to get a life of their own.

Acknowledgements:
Su-lin, thank you for your boldness and allowing me to be a part of your Big Day!
Isak, thank you for the opportunity to be at Su-lins wedding ;) Best of luck, guys!
Mats and mum, thanks for taking care of the Rascals while I was making the necklace!

Disclamer:
I was not paid by Apple to blogg about the iPhone. However, I would not mind ;)

What’s Old is New Again!

No Bead Dreams for me this year. But I am in a good company of some really cool rejects. :)

Still busy. Make it too busy. But beading eventually.
This is one of my latest - a piece for the Artbeads Blogging: Eternity Spirals

The challenge this time was "What’s Old is New Again!". Here is a part of the information that the bloggers got: 'For this theme we would like you to seek inspiration from the past by incorporating old, vintage or antique items into your designs and combine them with modern elements such as Swarovski crystals, Glass, Resin, etc. The only requirement for your creations is for each piece to have at least one ‘old’ element. It can be a family heirloom, vintage cameo, an interesting bead, pendant or item you found in an antique shop, an old key, photo or any unique element of the past. You can even re-use an old jewelry piece and ‘borrow’ items from it if you like'.

I though of what people do usually use in such a context... Filigree, vintage stampings, steam-punk findings, pieces of old china, fossils... Just for the sake of originality, I picked an old celtic wooden ornament from this shop section. This pendant has started the theme of the Eternity Spirals that flows through the necklace.

Then, I picked my medium. I learned how to make macramé when I was five or six - my mother could not find a babysitter and I got to follow her on a course (Thanks mom!!!). Last year I made couple of bracelets, earrings and pendants using micromacramé with beads, but nothing fancy. All over the sudden, I just had to knot some thread! So, I went for the Super-lon cord, which can be found here. I really liked this big pack of well-picked colors!

Wood + green cord. What else? Swarovski! Here I picked my favorite Vitrail Mediums.

Those were the basics that I got from the Artbeads. However, something was missing. I badly wanted to get my hands on some raku ceramics. And I found a wonderful Etsy shop of Wondrous Strange Design that got EXACTLY what I needed!
IMHO, all that looks quite well together ;)


This celtic cross ROCKS!

So does the button that I used as a clasp.

This is one of the round raku beads:

And, last but not least, the focal raku pendant, Pale Moon Rising as artist has called it (do not forget that all pictures are clickable for enlargement).

But what about including something REALLY old? Here is one of the wooden beads, all coming from my old broken earrings made of cherry wood:



This is what is left from the project: two wooden connectors and a raku button. I will make another neck piece of those, but later.

Disclamer: Artbeads.com were kind enough to supply me with the Crystals, cord and the wooden components free of charge. However, they did not pay me to write this review. I do genuinely like their products and ENJOY working with that shop.
All other materials have been purchased by the author of the post.
If I see any of my pictures running around in the Would Wide Web without any permission, I will get upset. And you will get bad karma. Why don't you just ask? I do not bite!

Bead Dreams - what the heck...

I figured - what do I have to lose? 30 bucks for two entries? So what, I just sold couple of kits and can afford it!

So, I have entered the Bead Dreams for the first time. Have low ambitions and no expectations, but why not to try, really?

Here is my Laplandia, the first of the Land of the Midnight Sun.

I am seriously addicted to labradorites and all its family - larvikite, spectrolite, etc. Being a scientist, it is difficult to start believing in stone-healing-mumbo-jumbo, but this particular stone is certainly a magic one. At least for me. It makes me calmer, more pieceful and stronger inside. That's why I did not want to embroider those cabs: they are open from behind and are touching the skin.

I wanted to bead the Nordic nature: mosses that reindeer are grazing on, aurora borealis, colors of small lakes among marshes, mist covering the ground and the ever changing skies.

This necklace is very special to me. It took four months to complete, and three of those I was gathering the material. Stones are coming from India, Canada, Finland, Norway and Madagaskar. They were lovingly carved by Russian, Chinese, Indian and Hong Kong lapidarists.
Tiny Swarovki crystalls are shining like small droplets of dew. Even if I will never make it to the finals, I will always love it.

The pictures have been kindly taken by a professional photographer, Dan Pettersson (not a relative of mine) ;). He managed to show the true color of the stones. Please look at the series of four pictures below, and follow the color changes depending on the position of the light source. Note though - we share a copyright, please respect that and do not reproduce the pictures without our permission.


And, finally - this is how it looks like in real life. The neck is borrowed from a fellow beader :)

Wishing BEST OF LUCK to everyone who has entered this year!

Another teaser

Wanna know what's on my working table right now? Oups, I cannot really show it to you - it is an exhibition piece ;)

But I can tease you with couple of small previews!

Have a nice & productive week!

Winter Enchantment

While working on my Song of Songs collection for December, I managed to make couple of new pieces. This is the story of the Artbeads.com-sponsored Winter Enchantment challenge for bloggers.

For me, winter means snow and ice. I spent couple of winters at grandma's in Russia (up to -40°C). This piece is inspired by those winters. And here is the link to visualize my inspiration.
At the same time, I was thinking of Hans Christian Andersen's saga about the Snow Queen. Guess, if ever got married, she'd wear something like this.


The idea of the necklace was simple: to make a choker with almost invisible netted strap, with an ice-flower in the middle and a cascade of frosty branches hanging from it.


Every long branch ends with a rod of natural ice-clear quartz, and every branchlet ends with Swarovski - crystal or pearl. The focal is Swarovski fancy oval 4127. I think I start to develop addiction to this particular type of bead. It is very easy to bezel and it gives amazing effect to the finished piece. The cut of the crystal is perfect. After working just with these large Swarovski elements, I've learned to easily tell them apart from "Chinarovski" and other imitations of Austrian crystal.


I blended severl types of seed beads in it, both Japanese and Czech. Miyuki Delica and Toho as well as most of the Swarovski beads have been supplied by the Artbeads.com.


Thank You goes not just to Artbeads.com, but also to my sister in law, Karin, who has generously allowed to use her as a model ;)

You know, perhaps, how much pain in the back it is to take pictures of completely white beaded jewelry. With another words, it is close to the mission impossible. However, at daylight and under strong sun it turnes out quite Ok.

Disclamer: part of the materials used in this project have been supplied by Artbeads.com free of charge.