New stuff

In the midst of packing in the event of our imminent move (we're house hunting, and I don't want to be caught off guard, so I've already started packing, even though we haven't bought the house yet... LOL), I found another nice stash of wooden beads.
Smaller ones this time, that I'd set aside for something. An idea I'd had of mixing these wooden beads with glass beads in a crocheting project. Well, that idea kinda was put on the back burner - sort of like everything else around here these days.... - and since I've been in this incredible 3-D mode lately, I thought I'd make more forms with them, but once I started playing, something else happened. Something wild and natural, and so I just went with it.

I was going to make a series of beaded beads with these, but after I finished the first one, I decided to keep playing, and to see what it would look like if I just kept constructing more segments, but keeping them all attached. And as if that wasn't enough, I went ahead and did a little surface embellishing with some 4 mm Swarovski bicones in Jonquil (nice light yellow). And here is the result:

Now, this angle doesn't really do the piece justice, but each of those segments are three dimensional. Or as Mimi likes to say, they're "Puffy".

The only problem I had was that I hadn't realized just how fragile these beads are! Too much thread and BAM! the beads exploded. No seriously, they just shattered. And as [my] luck would have it, the very last pass I was going for, the very last bead, was just about to finish my thread, just gonna pass through this last one bead, and there you have it. It shattered. Darn it! Darn! Drat! Darn!
See it? Right there, the missing bead. Nothing but thread left behind. I decided to skip taking the piece apart and redoing it. Something that I would SO have done in the past. Instead, the new me has chosen to keep this bangle for herself, and now calls it her 'prototype'. So, I wrapped more thread around the thread left behind by the missing bead so keep it nice and neat. I might add something there in the future, like a charm or something, just to make it more covered, but for now, it's staying as-is. To be honest, I've never seen a piece like this, and I'm quite proud of its design. I will be looking for beads in different materials to make them, since I'm not sure I'd want to sell these if they're liable to break so easily. However, I've worn it quite a few times, and so far so good.


I made a few strung pieces for my "Sticks & Stones" collection a little while back, but only got to photographing them a few days ago. They're not my usual style, since I'm more into the weaving than the stringing, but I really like them. I think what I like most about making these is that they're incredible gratifying. Almost instantly so. ;) Stringing is actually difficult for me. I have more vision for the larger, constructed pieces than stringing.

This one is made of glass, wooden beads, and large seeds. Or beans, they could be beans. They're perfectly round, and look so earthy.

Jade, bone, wood and hematite

Carved glass cubes, wood, glass and seeds (beans)

Carnelian, wood, sandalwood seeds, and czeck glass rondelles.