Chocolate passion

Today's piece of useless knowledge: did you know that the taste of chocolate partly depends on what sort of microbes were fermenting the beans before roasting? ;)

Anyhow, everybody knows that chocolate is the best remedy for depression. I looooove chocolate in all its expressions and forms. And with a cup of good, strong coffee.
Here is a Chocolate Passion - the necklace that came to life one beautiful sunny afternoon when I just had to make something chocolaty.


It's leaterwork with bead embroidery. Leather of four colors of chocolate + bronze seed beads and some picture jasper cabs and rounds. I backed with soft leather of reindeer.

It's made to fit a lady with a long neck and a perfect posture.

I sold it on the Bead fair in Hamburg in August, to a lovely girl from Sweden :) She looked totally fabulous in it and I am sure my necklace has found a loving home.




Chocolate, anyone? ;)

Brooches

Hi!

See, so far - so good, I am almost at the old speed of one post a week ;)
Wanted to show you some pics of the brooches I've made this summer for my beading class.

I get quite frequently asked if I make any brooches. And the honest answer is "yes, if you ask me to". I just almost never use them myself. But yes, I do make brooches and enjoy making them as well.

I thought I'd make a mini-collection, with one brooch for each Zodiak sign. Here are the first three, the rest is still on the paper :)

Black Lotus - Scorpio:
Martian - Aries:

Dreamy Cluster - Pisces:

Tutorials for Aries and Scorpio are available in Swedish (so far) via Beadmonsters.se. The English versions will appear in my Etsy store after the Christmas.

So long!

Echo of collaboration with Mona

This post will be about a necklace that I made for Mona Baroody, a glass artist from the U.S. who makes some really cool beads. To see some of her work, please visit her Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/monaraebeads. Do not forget to browse the "sold" section as well!
Anyhow, Mona and I have collaborated for the Fashion Colorworks contest this year. Neither of our two collaborative pieces came to finals, but nevertheless it was a great fun to work with her beads! We have decided to swap - I got some gorgeous lampwork beads, and promised to make a necklace to Mona in return.

While working on our project, Mona created a very unusual bead (by mistake, as she claims) :)


First, we planned to include it in the contest design, but then I realised that the aggressive mandatory colors of the contest would kill its beauty. And I made a separate piece, just around it.
Guess it's quite clear that it is one of my typical "ocean" pieces. :) All lampwork in this one are by Mona.

That jellyfish bead is awesome!


Just look at the color blend that Mona gave this focal!

Is it water or what? :)



It was fun and a great pleasure working with you, darling! Big Hug!

Visit Monas shop, buy her beads, you will not regret it.

Disclamer: I did not get any money/beads/commodities/royalty for writing this post. It is my own honest opinion.

The story of Black Magic

Here is a story of one of my favorite commissioned orders, the Black Magic necklace.
To cut a long story short, it was first supposed to be an alternative wedding necklace. But then it was decided that it would "just" be a necklace for a special occasion.

I was given a task to make something big and beautiful, burlesque, vampiric, with black focals and brass ornaments. No problem, I thought.

It took me a bit more than a week. I used onyx cabs, lots of Swarovski (pearls, rivolis, stones, crystals), lucite flowers, ornate brass stampings, lots of different kinds of seed beads and yards and yards of Fireline. The cabs are bezelled with right angle weave. Everything is put together with freeform peyote. This time it is 100% bead weaving, no embroidery at all.

I took this picture at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the day before it was supposed to be posted. Then I played around with a clasp and earrings. When I was finished, the daylight was gone and I took all the pictures under a lamp. The result was sort of cool: the pictures got a vintage look. :) What the heck, I thought, and left them as they were.


Couple of close-ups:


The necklace can be worn as a choker, or as a colliér. I have added a small detail to regulate its length:

and this is just the clasp in the choker-version (sorry for the blurry picture):

Finally, earrings to match:

And the whole thing:


The client is satisfied. That is the main thing, to know that my necklace is going to be loved and taken care of.

Nice week to all of you!

Caught a new bug ;)

Hi guys!

All over the sudden I have decided to test a new medium, polymer clay. World-wide-web offers a wide selection of inspirational pictures and mastec classes on hw to condition clay, blend colors, etc. And I went wild with it.

These are beads that one could call "Children of Ctulhu" (Wikipedia).
That's how they looked like at 01:20 a.m., fresh from the oven:

And here they are under the daylight.

Presenting Shoggoth:

Orchidopus:

ImpUCelyn:


And here are some less scary things, just a necklace with no name so far:






Well, maybe I've enjoyed playing with the clay a bit too much ;) We'll see...

That's it for today, thanks for looking!
Have a nice day, everyone!

Dealing with a back-log

Hi-hi!

Time to take care of a huge back-log. :)
This is a small and elegant piece, which I made while resting from my usual GiGanToMania.
Usually I do not like plastic beads. But there was something in those acrylic roses that made me to fall in love with them. I love the ivory color, and the detail, too.

I have recently discovered the beauty of cyanoacrylate glue, which I now use more often than E-6000. It does not stink nearly as much, and works equally well (so far). This time I used it to glue to a point-end rhinestone to my beadwork. It sits there like a rock!

Also, I used some really nice freshwater pearls for this necklace. You pay some extra bucks, but the effect is stunning. Do not think I'd ever be able to go back to B- ;(

I called it Lada. It is a very-very old Russian female name, a synonym of purity and natural beauty.
That's all for today, folks! And have a very nice week everyone!

Hi again, what's up?!

LOOOOONG time no see!
I'm still around, still beading. This year turned out to be busy. But what a great year it is!
Here is a short summary over the things that happened since my last "serious" post here.

* May - my husband and I went to France for a short break

(Mats and I inside St. Michel cathedral)

(in front of me - Mont St. Michel)

* June - I was working like crazy, learning Linux & genome sequencing. And finishing entries for the Fashion Colorworks (still have to make decent pictures of those!)

(I got to make better pictures, it's a promise!)

* July - all family went for holidays in Latvia. Kids had a blast! And I met Svetlana Sametis (middle), an amazing bead artist!

(picture courtesy Svetlana Sametis, Svetlana and her associate are modelling my necklaces, and I return the favor) :)
* August was busy:
- finished one of the best pieces so far, an alternative wedding design for a really nice gal
(Black Magic, burlesque bridal piece)

- went to Hamburg, had a table at 1st Beader's Best Show (and met some of my readers, and Birgit Bergman, Kerrie Slade, Zoya Gutina, Liudmila Gubinova, and some other great beaders)

(picture courtesy Svetlana Sametis; standing left to right - Verene Grene-Christ, I, Liudmila Gubinova, Nadya Gerber, Birgit Bergman; sitting left to right - Galina Bär, Zoya Gutina, Svetlana Sametis)

- hosted Zoya and George Gutin for several days at our house, it was a great pleasure to finally meet them in person!

(here they are in central Uppsala, accompanied by my mom)

* September - went for a conference in Sapporo, Japan. LOVE that country, must come back.

(canal at Otaru, Hokkaido)

* October - teaching at PUSS Beadshow in Stockholm, sold one really exclusive design to an extraordinary lady. Working my @$$ off with genomics and trying to finish the collection for the Stockholm exhibition later this year.
More pictures to come!

I'll do my best to keep this blog going!

Hugs, everyone :)