Treasury Tuesday Makes Me Dance!

Ok, so I felt like making a belly dance treasury. I decided to step out of the FAETeam box again and just make a treasury full of whoever I felt like featuring. I did put fellow FAE Mermaiden in there, because every dancer needs at least one of her chiffon roses. I have two and they are LOVELY. I will have to get more, to match my other costumes. The two I have are, big surprise, green, but I do occasionally wear other colors when I dance.

This particular treasury was inspired when I saw the silver hair pin and silver bindi in my suggested items feed on Etsy. They just went perfectly together, and I knew there were plenty of items in my favorite belly dance shops that would go with them. I played "Monochrome" by Collide to help inspire me.

I was also included in a Treasury, which was made before Tuesday, but I'm going to include it in this post because it's so pretty:

Tribal Magic

My husband actually found this cool pendant on a shopping trip. I just had to have it! It looks sort of like a pentagram, but the lines don't actually form a star. Still very strange and occult looking. I used some black lava, fired agate, and faceted glass beads to make it into a nice Gothic Tribal necklace. I call it Black Magic and it's currently available in my Etsy shop.

I'm having so much fun designing tribal necklaces, it's giving me a chance to use a lot more stone beads. When I was primarily doing beadwoven pieces, I had to use stones sparingly, and only small ones, or run the risk of them damaging the thread. The stones in this piece came from a couple different Rings & Things bead shows. I used almost all the lava in this one, but there's plenty more fired agate waiting to be used in other designs.

My Muse, on Different Backgrounds

So. I think this was my second embroidered piece ever. It's so old that it's done on awful cheap fabric store suede cloth instead of real Ultrasuede. I embroidered it, but then never finished it, however I did decide that when it was finished, it would be called "A Portrait of My Muse." So during gem show, I stitched on a quick bail so that I would have something "new" and shiny to wear for the Swarovski party. I also wore it to Wild Wild West Con this weekend.

The vintage matte black glass cameo is surrounded by embroidery and peyote stitch done in Delicas, hex-cut Delicas, size 15 seed beads, and of course a border of lots and lots of jet Swarovski crystals. I wear it on my basic black herringbone cord.

I photographed it on all three of my wooden necklace displays (I bought two new ones during gem show!) to see how I liked them. Above is the basic natural color, a nice, clean neutral that seems to work well with all colors.
This is more of a dark ebony color. I bought it primarily to use with lighter-colored jewelry. I think this image is nicely dramatic, with the black backdrop and the ebony display and the black necklace, but it would make a pretty muddy thumbnail.
This cherry color is very rich and the black pops nicely against it! I think I like it better than the natural color for black jewelry.

The new necklace displays, as well as some teak earring displays, will start to make their way into the listing pictures over at Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs soon. You know, once I actually make some new jewelry!

By the way, Wild Wild West Con was a lot of fun! At some point this week I'll post photos of my costumes, complete with links to some of the vendors who I buy costume components from!

Wings of the Morrigan, Progress Post 4

It's been a long time since I posted about Wings of the Morrigan, mostly because I've been too busy to really work on it. This is where I'm at currently. Unfortunately, I have to once again shelve it for a bit so I can work on custom orders and new stock for my shop.

So far this necklace includes:
-1 Black Kyanite specimen
-2 Swarovski Elements Pegasus Pendants
-1 Color of Czech size 11 seed beads
-Many Colors of Japanese size 11 seed beads, including permanent galvanized and hybrids.
-1 Color of Japanese size 15 seed beads
-1 Color of size 15 Charlottes
-8 Flat-backed freshwater pearls
-3mm Swarovski crystal bicones in Crystal Silver Night
-2mm Swarovski crystals rounds in Black Diamond.

Disclaimer: FTC regulations require me to mention that the Pegasus pendants in this necklace were provided for promotional consideration by Artbeads.com.

Shop news!

Today I listed Blue Heart, a spiral bracelet in my shop.

And today is the last full day to use coupon code loveandsparkles for 15% off anything at Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs. I'll shut it off when I get up tomorrow, so you can also use it tomorrow morning -- I'm a late sleeper!

Wings of the Morrigan, Progress Post 3

Most of this new beading was done on Saturday. I beaded a lot on Saturday. Then I got sick and I haven't really beaded since. We can also thank whichever one of my pets bumped my beading palette, mixing the beads up and spilling some of them on the couch. I haven't sorted that mess out yet.

But anyway, about the new beading. Because of the rough, organic shape of the central focal, I've been drawn towards rounded shapes and flowing lines in this collar. On Saturday, I took a meandering path up one side of the collar, like a stream of ink flowing around silver stones. The stones in the stream are actually gorgeous flat-backed pearls.
This close-up isn't really good, but it gives a sense of the detail.

So far this necklace includes:
-1 Black Kyanite specimen
-2 Swarovski Elements Pegasus Pendants
-1 Color of Czech size 11 seed beads
-4 Colors of Japanese size 11 seed beads, including permanent galvanized.
-1 Color of Japanese size 15 seed beads
-1 Color of size 15 Charlottes
-4 Flat-backed freshwater pearls

Want to support my beading habit? Please visit my shop Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs.

Disclaimer: FTC regulations require me to mention that the Pegasus pendants in this necklace were provided for promotional consideration by Artbeads.com.

Still making tribal jewelry

My tribal designs don't really seem to sell. The sad truth seems to be that tribal dancers don't really splurge on jewelry unless it's vintage Afghani silver or something awesome like that. Modern handmade jewelry, even if it's one of a kind, doesn't seem to be in the budget. But I'm going to keep creating and hoping, because my muse is inspired by tribal costuming and I like having an excuse to buy cool inlaid beads and kuchi pendants and all that good stuff.

Fusion Orchid has inlaid beads and a Thai silver orchid. I have had this orchid for years. It's so beautiful, but I was never really sure what I wanted to do with it. I think it looks good in this necklace, and it strikes me as very tribal, because I love to wear fake orchids in my hair when I dance. Who knows, if it hasn't sold by the 18th, I might wear it for my recital!

For more handmade tribal jewelry, you can of course visit my shop Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs. Even if you've blown your costuming budget on pants (I sure did!), you can still drool and daydream ;) And don't forget that if you do decide to buy something, you can use code discountme for 20% off. Yay!

Wings of the Morrigan, Progress Post 2

The problem with doing black bead embroidery on black felt is that it's hard to photograph the progress. But this is where I'm at! And this is where you can start to see that I have decided not to make this necklace symmetrical. Balanced, yes, but not entirely symmetrical. It would have been boring to do the exact same thing on both sides!

I hope to get a lot more work done on this project over the holiday weekend. I don't have a lot of big plans -- small family gathering at my house, no Black Friday shopping, a little work on my business Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs, and lots of dance practice. But that leaves plenty of time for beading.

So far this necklace includes:
-1 Black Kyanite specimen
-2 Swarovski Elements Pegasus Pendants
-1 Color of Czech size 11 seed beads
-4 Colors of Japanese size 11 seed beads, including permanent galvanized.
-1 Color of Japanese size 15 seed beads

Disclaimer: FTC Regulations require me to tell you when I get beads for free. I got the Pegasus pendants from Artbeads.com and I already reviewed them last year, but I am making a disclaimer just in case. They were free. I like them. Happy, FTC?

Wings of the Morrigan, Progress Post 1

This project is long overdue -- I got the Swarovski Pegasus pendants as part of the Artbeads.com Beads for Bloggers program last September, and the central piece of black kyanite at the neat little metaphysical gift shop in Squaw Village during the Tahoe Bead Retreat last October. After purchasing the kyanite, and seeing it with the pegasus wings, I knew it had to be part of my first bead embroidered collar. Then I procrastinated. For over a year.

Well, no more putting it off! I want to wear Wings of the Morrigan to the Swarovski party at the gem show this year, which means that I have less than 3 months to finish. The past two years, I've put off my gem show necklace project to the last minute, finishing it during the show. This time I'm giving myself more time, because it's a huge project and I want to do it right.

So I researched how to make a collar, and on Friday night I drew my outline (which I'll probably adhere to only loosely) and glued down the focals. Yesterday and today were spent outlining the focals with backstitch. The kyanite was really tricky. In the past I've always embroidered around nice round and oval objects -- this piece is a real challenge because not only is it big, but I'm working with weird shapes. Of course, from a design standpoint, that was the easy part. Now I have to decide how to fill in the rest of the space!

This project is going to involve a lot of different types of beads. Each progress post will include a list of beads/objects added so far.
-1 Black Kyanite specimen
-2 Swarovski Elements Pegasus Pendants
-1 Color of Czech size 11 seed beads
-3 Colors of Japanese size 11 seed beads, including permanent galvanized.

Future progress pictures will be nicer, as I'll take them at the same time that I photograph new items, with all my nice photo stuff, but I wanted to start recording this before I got too far into it!

Exciting new stone beads!

As planned, today I trekked up to Mesa for the Rings & Things bead show. I still find it weird that they have these shows mid-week, but I guess it allows them to do several shows a week and spread the beady love around, so I can't complain.

These shows are great because they have table after table of quality stone beads, properly labeled as to what they are and how they're treated. If a stone is dyed and heated quartz masquerading as something more valuable, Rings & Things will make sure you know it. They're also good about dealing with stone suppliers who treat their stone cutters fairly, so I don't have to feel guilty about my purchases.

I don't think I bought quite as much as last year, probably because I still haven't touched quite a few of last year's strands, and I didn't have Chris twisting my arm to get me to buy things I was hesitant about, but I did get some nice stuff.

From top to bottom:

Black lava coins; dyed red lava; dyed cream lava; brown lava rectangles; dyed green lava coins; black labradorite; kiwi quartz; pyrite coins; faceted mossy agate; color-gradiated chrysoprase rondelles; green two-hole, flat-back pearls; rough cut black tourmaline; assorted glass skulls; black pyrite ovals; heated quartz matrix; big round black lava.

Clearly I did not really move far from my green/brown/black/metallic comfort zone on this trip, but hey... they're all pretty!

Daydreams in Black

I've been daydreaming about designs, like the collar that I want to make with the above pieces, which I'd like to make before gem show. Realistically, that probably won't happen, but it would be awesome to have if I get a chance to go to the Swarovski party again. The necklace that I wore this past year (my steampunk cameo) only had a little bit of Swarovski in it, whereas this one would have the wings and then lots of jet bicones as accents, and maybe some other crystals and/or crystal pearls.

The other design on my mind is making a necklace with a goodie that I picked up at a craft fair yesterday... a nice black trilobite fossil elegantly wrapped with silver wire. I'd like to be able to wear it for my recital, as my costume is black and silver, and modern enough that I don't feel limited to kuchi. I just need to make sure that the teacher's OK with jewelry, since she chose our costume theme because it was relatively simple and sleek. If she wants to keep the jewelry simple, I may just wear the trilobite on my plain black herringbone cord. One of the reasons why I liked this particular pendant is that it has a nice big bail that my basic black cord would fit through.

Perhaps more bead time is in order...