On my beading tray -- Jan 9th Edition

Welcome to the first edition of On my beading tray, a new blog feature where I will show you what I've got in the works!

Today there are three projects on my tray:

1. I'm embroidering away on the cabochon pendant that I'm making with the bead mix from Allegory Gallery. The onyx cab has been bezeled with bronze Delicas and matte crystal AB size 15 Japanese seed beads. Now I'm adding a row of embroidery using the bead mix. I was frustrated to find that I don't have size 11s to match any of the red beads in the mix, which shows me that I should really buy more red 11s at gem show this year.

2. The marbled green leaves were my first attempt at making beaded leaves using this particular technique, and I will be turning them into dangly earrings. If I like how the earrings wear, I'll make them in different colors for the shop.

3. The three silver-y green leaves will be part of a necklace. There's also a partial matte green leaf. It didn't turn out well and the matte green doesn't go at all with the other green (inside the tubes, they were lovely together).

Desert Raindrops -- BFAC Project

Here's my project for next year's Layne's Legacy -- Beading for a Cure auctions. I didn't add any beads to the kit this year, just a Muscovite cabochon that someone had sent to me as part of a birthday package, some coppery chain, and the supplies necessary for bead embroidery.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but included in the kit was a tube of those new-ish peanut beads. They were a challenge to figure out how to use, but I actually really like how they look laid out in a line for embroidery, so I might have to buy more for further experimentation.

I hit 100

Hooray! I listed two items today and that finally brought me up to a nice round 100 items in my Etsy shop! Of course, I am not going to stop there. As much as I love seeing that "100", I photographed a lot more than two items today so I will be listing them throughout the week. My goal is to keep my shop stocked with at least 100 items for the rest of the year, so I need to build up a bit of a buffer in anticipation of holiday sales!

The two new necklaces are Baby Bat Necklace (above) and Queen of Love and Beauty (below).

It's a butterfly kind of day!

 I just got back from delivering this pendant to Margaret of MZGlass. The cabochon is her work, and I did the bead embroidery. It's liberally embellished with fire opal Swarovski crystals! I like how bright and cheerful it is. As I was getting into my car to leave MZ's place, I saw a huge butterfly fluttering across her yard. No doubt, it's a butterfly kind of day!

Not only did I deliver this pendant (and take home a lampworked butterfly/moth for my own collection), but I also listed this Teal Butterfly crystal bracelet. It features lovely Pacific Opal Swarovski crystals (one of my favorite colors) and a Sterling Silver butterfly clasp.

Get your bids in!

My 2012 Layne's Legacy -- Beading For A Cure necklace "Orientale" is finally up for bids! Click here to visit the listing and possibly place a bid. As of the time that I'm writing the post, the current bid doesn't even really cover the cost of the LL-BFAC kit, Sandy Spivey cab, extra crystals and Green Girl shibiuchi clasp, not to mention the hours of time I spent embroidering and weaving beads. I'd really love for this necklace to raise a substantial donation for LL-BFAC. Remember, all of our proceeds go to the National Colorectal Cancer Research Association, in memory of my late friend Layne Shilling.

If Orientale isn't your thing, or it's out of your budget by the time you click the link, or even better, you'd like to buy multiple items, make sure to check out the rest of this week's auctions!

Bold Beetle

I've been quite the busy little beader while I've been quietly not blogging. This is just one of the pieces that I've made this year. If it looks vaguely familiar, it's because this is the second beetle pendant I've made in this color way -- and there's a third yet to come! MZ sold the first one, and she wants to keep this one, so a third one needs to be made up to sell. I also have a blue beetle, a pinky-purple beetle, and an orange butterfly all waiting to be pendantified, so I need to bead faster!

It's done, it's done!

 I finally finished "Orientale" -- my 2012 Layne's Legacy -- Beading For A Cure necklace -- yesterday! Hooray! It's so good to have it done. It sat unfinished on my desk for too long, as I struggled to find inspiration on how to use every single type of bead included in the kit. I have to admit that while I think it is a beautiful, wonderful necklace and I wish I could keep it, it's probably not as grand as it should be due to the fact that beader's block made me simplify things in order to get it done in time. I have no doubt that whoever wins it will be very happy with it, but I also know that I will not even be in the running for the contest portion of LL-BFAC.

This is the kit I started with! To that, I added the cabochon with a vintage belly dancer and peacock image, some size 15 Charlottes, and Swarovski sequins in Sapphire and Lime to compliment the Colorado Topaz ones already included in the kit, plus a shibiuchi clasp. The sequins around the cab are my favorite part of the necklace, and an element that I will be incorporating into more work in the future.

If you would like to own this necklace, it will be up for auction in Spring next year!

MZ Beetle Pendant!

 You may remember that in February, MZ gave me one of her new beetle cabochons to work into a bead-embroidered pendant, so she could inspire prospective customers. Here's what I came up with, using Delicas, Japanese seed beads and some Czech three-cut seed beads. I really enjoyed working with the bright color palette in this cab, it's pretty far out of my usual muted olive and bronze palette :) For more beautiful lampwork, please visit MZ Glass. For more bead embroidery, visit my shop, Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs.

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.

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!

Skulls!

Necromancer's Mirror is all done. I'll blog more about it when I do my weekly Etsy round-up!

I really want to do more bead embroidery now, though. I think it's finally time to start Wings of the Morrigan, which will be my first beaded collar. If I start now, I might finish it in time to wear it for the gem show!

A Picture of a Pretty Pixie

Sorry this post is so late, I spent the day running errands and getting the house ready for my Mother-in-Law to spend a week with us... and now I'm on my way out the door to pick her up at the airport! So you'll have to wait for me to gush about this necklace ;)

Stuck with it!

This is my current project. I abandoned the failed beaded motifs, and decided to go with my current beading love, embroidery! The problem with my inspiration is that I had to glue the precious faerie pendant down to the felt to embroider around her. There's no going back now! If this idea doesn't work on, she'll be all besmirched with glue and felt, and I may not be able to salvage her -- short of cutting away most of the felt and never letting anyone see her back!

The cabochon was sent to me by my secret birthday buddy last year. I'm pretty sure that it's petrified wood. The warm honey color with traces of rust nicely fits with the color scheme I had picked. It's a very thick cab, so I need to bead fast to get it properly bezeled into place before I can move on to the rest of the embroidery.

I left the faerie's wing-tip-loop below the felt, because a bezeled rivoli will be hanging from the bottom.

Did I mention that I have a week to finish this before gem show starts?

Brooch

I made this brooch for the swap in Tahoe! Isn't it beautiful? I love Dolly Ahles's lampworked cabochons.

In just a moment I'll be taking off for the airport, where I'll take off for Reno, by way of Phoenix, and then I'll be praying that the lovely friends who are giving me a ride will not have to drive through sleet or freezing rain or anything scary like that.

I'll try to keep up my daily blogging while I'm at the Retreat!

In all his hideous glory!

Yes, at long last, Cthulhu is complete! I stitched the last beads on early this afternoon, clipped all the stray threads, and basked in the afterglow of the largest, most involved project I've ever done. Just look at that malevolent glare!
All those beads! He's surprisingly heavy now -- I'd estimate he has at least 50 grams of seed beads stitched down to his body.
His back is only lightly embellished, and good thing, too. The closer I got to his head, the harder it was to manipulate the needle, and I managed to snap another one! His dorsal ridge is accented with the same bugle beads that outline the veins of his wings.

I'm really proud of myself for completing this. Yes, I had to scale back from my original plan, and yes, there are some goofs, and yes, I may go back someday and add more beads, but... I beaded Cthulhu! And completed him on time! And only lost 1d100 sanity points in the process.

So very close...

Cthulhu is so very close to done... Just his right leg and his back left to do! I might even finish him over the weekend.

For his leg, I did concentric rings of beads around a Czech pressed glass bead with a spiral pattern. I used those same pressed glass spirals to accent the wing tips, then outlined the veins of the wings with bugle beads. I also put bugle beads on his toes, so they weren't beadless.

It's a nice feeling to have my goal in sight at long last!

Tentacles All Akimbo!

I've been pushing Cthulhu's tentacles out of the way so that I can work on his belly. I decided to make things more interesting by doing a free-form branchy design, like some sort of bizarre kelp washed up on the shore of Ryleh. I'll probably fill it in with more of the opaque green that's become the main color on his body, assuming I can get my hands on a tube or two at the Best Bead Show this weekend.

While I was editing this photo, I realized that I haven't yet taken a shot that shows his completed arms (they're sort of hidden in tentacle-shadows here), so I'll make sure to include them in the next Cthulhu update.

Cthulhu is Well-Armed

Finally! At long last, I've finished Cthulhu's head (except for that pesky blank spot on the face that I need to break down and fill in) and moved on to his arm! This shot allows you to see the stripes that I did for the side of the head -- they wrap around the back and to the other side -- and the spiraling beadwork around his right arm. All of the arm work has been done today, and I'm pretty sure I can finish the arm before Chris finishes work today.

After that, I need to decide what to do with the hand. I'm thinking I might just accent it with beads. Given the fact that I only have a month left, I'm not sure if I have time to fiddle around with a good way to completely cover the hands. Not since I still have the other arm, both legs, the entire torso and the wings to work with.