Happy new year!!

It's the last day of 2011. The last 40 minutes actually, over here in Aus-land. Can you believe it? 12 months ago we were preparing to come into this year, full of our own personal hopes, dreams, expectations and goals. Was 2011 what you expected?

At the start of each year, I go through the goals I had for the year just ended and think through them, then write a new set of goals, usually about 8-10, to hang on my wall for the next 12 months. A couple of those goals have been on the list for a few years running now...

3rd on the list for this year was "Continue to improve my beading skill," 5th was "Maintain friendships. Make new friends. Accept losses," 7th was "Enjoy the year of 2011," and 8th was "Learn a new craft." I am happy to share with you, readers, that I feel I have accomplished these things. Did you fullfill any of your goals for 2011?

I have many highlights of this year. One was learning bead embroidery, a technique I know cannot believe I had never survived without. :P Another was learning to walk up and down stairs again. I've had a hip problem for about 6 years now, and last year (2010) I had surgery to help fix it. I've only been walking up stairs for the past couple of months; before that, I hadn't been able to do it for 3 years. It's been amazing that I am finally able to start doing more with my body, on this journey of healing.

Friendships made, maintained, and repairing makes another highlight. This year was my first year of University, and I have met the most amazing people through that, through my new church, and through my beading, on Etsy. Leaving school has helped me to find my true friends, and I've loved maintaining contact with those who really matter. And those friendships that have been broken, it has been truely amazing to see people completely turn around and become different people, and to be able to repair a once-broken friendship with them is something really special.

So what are your highlights?

Just a little something to leave you with-my entry to the EBEG Bead Fest, "Winter Wonderland." It's called "Winter's Fingerprints" and features 5 totally different snowflakes. Hope you like it! :) Blog post to come...

I wish you all the best in the new year of 2012 (only 5 minutes away!!), may you all keep safe and have your most special dreams and hopes fullfilled. God bless you all :)

And happy beading!
Meg

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone! Over here in Australia, it's currently 6:30pm on boxing day, so the merry christmas is a little late... Did you all have a nice day? I love Christmas, and honouring God on this special day.

WELL. Now that everyone has been given all their presents, I feel no shame in revealing them all to you. :)

The first is this wall hanging that was for my older sister:

It is Psalm 121:1-2. There's a Christian band in the USA called Casting Crowns (really awesome!), and they wrote a song called "Praise You in This Storm." My older sister had this song played at her baptism a few years ago, and the bridge of the song is these verses. There's an image of hills, with the rising sun and cross on the top most hill, at the bottom (as you can see).

Second is a crimminal/robber guy I made for my younger brother. I had already made him a policeman for his birthday earlier this year, and he wanted a robber to go with it. The clothes are bead woven, and air dry clay makes up the feet, hands, head and body. Based on a pattern by Jill Oxton. The legs and arms consist of tahitian black pearls and black/white glass beads, threaded on wire with the ends buried in the clay.

 This is the robber and policeman together. I quite proud of these little people!

And of course there's that cuff I made for my other sister, shown on a different post.

And I also made TWO sales in the week just gone:

My Twisted in Blue Brilliance necklace, which was my entry into the EBW November challenge this year

 And these earrings, which are sort of like Christmas trees. Maybe. They're Christmas earrings, anyway.

So I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and that Santa was good to you!

I'm off to finish my "Winter Wonderland" for the EBEG Bead Fest. :D

Meg

It WAS an earring...

There is 7 days and the rest of tonight until Christmas. STRESS!! I don't even really have time to write this blog post. :O I have to finish 3 presents and an order for someone ELSE'S gifts. I've already made one present and done one order...

...as well as this accident:

It all started out as an earring.

In October this year, one of my Aunts ordered a pendant from me to give to my other Aunt for her birthday. So I got out my beads and fabric and needle and thread, and sat down to work. This $37 product is what was produced-

Do you like it? I'm pretty proud of it. And my Aunt liked it too, whoch is good. I love bead embroidery... *sigh happily*

So then mum decided that for Christmas, wouldn't it be great if the Aunt who now owns this pendant had a pair of earrings to match? I thought, great! I need some more money anyway. So I set out to make a pair of earrings to match the pendant.

I was trying to replicate the bottom half of the diamon which is the pendant. That way the earrings would be smaller than the pendant, and they'd definately match. I had ideas of making a collection, titled "Regal Tones." It would be grand.

I sat beading with my computer next to me, with a photo of the pendant to guide me in the colours I needed to use to get a match. I beaded for half a day, thinking, oh yes, this will be wonderful. And it was, just not in the way I had intended. I never made a pair of earrings after all.

I finished this first earring, cut it out and lined and backed it. Before edging, I held it up to my ear in a mirror, just out of curiosity. Oh my goodness, what had I created?! It was a MONSTER of an earring!! Who would ever wear something that huge? Certainly not my Aunt. I asked mum what she thought, and she promptly agreed with me: however nice it looked, it was simply too big to be an earring.

I packed away all my beads in dismay. Half a day's work wasted! I could have been doing Christmas presents. And now I had wasted half my day, and was left with this, this THING that I didn't know what to do with!

I sat on my bed with a bag of craft supplies I had not yet sorted and put away. As I pulled things out of the bag, what should I find? Lo and behold, it was gold brooch backings! I looked at them, and at my time waster, and back again. Ideas started forming...

So I began to pull off the back of the earring disaster (thank goodness I hadn't edged it yet!), thinking if I could just get this backing off I could put the brooch backing in like so, cut holes in the backing, it'd fit, I could edge it...

I ended up yanking the whole backing off. Thank goodness I didn't rip any threads...

In a frenzy I glued the brooch bit down and put slits in my NEW backing. This was exciting. I didn't even really know what I was doing, I was just following half remembered instuctions from a book... And it turned out that it was really quite easy! I edged it, added a lovely little fringe, and voila! I had made a brooch!! An accidental brooch, but a new skill learnt and a new product for my store all the same.

Beading accidents don't generally happen to me. I always hear about other bead embroiderers that always leave that extra bit of room in case their designs morph out of the original plan, which they usually do. I always leave that extra bit of room, because apparently my designs could morph too. But they never did. Until now. It's a pretty awesome experience!

It's the Regal Tones brooch. And I'm pretty proud of it.

Happy beading!
Meg.

P.S. I did end up making a pair of earrings to go with the pendant, but they were such simple drops (beads on head pins) that I couldn't even be bothered taking a picture of them, haha.

Sales and new listings!

I have TWO sales lined up! :D A friend wants two versions of my Peas in a Pod set (which was inspired by a project I once saw briefly in an old issue of Australian Beading-don't know how the designer was...) for Christmas presents. So I'm really happy about that!! :D

I have listed many new cabochons in my shop, such as the following:

Polymer clay rainbow face cabochon

and:

Polymer clay rose cabochons


There are MORE of these handmade cabochons in my shop, so please go on over and take a peek!

Thanks for reading!
Meg

New listings!!

I was very busy today and made lots of cabochons. And not just any cabochons: FUN and interesting and UNUSUALLY SHAPED cabochons. I like polymer clay. :D

So the first is this pair of feet

<<<<<<<<<<-------------------------

SHOP LINK: http://www.etsy.com/listing/87899781/pair-of-feet-cabochons?ref=pr_shop

Made from pink pearl polymer clay

And the next is this set of 2 heads/faces

-------------------------->>>>>

SHOP LINK: http://www.etsy.com/listing/87900072/dont-lose-your-head-polymer-clay-head?ref=v1_other_1

I suppose they're more "faces" than "heads" because they're missing half the skull. But oh well.

And there are more coming at a later date! I have made quite a few, but they're not finished yet. When they are, I will share them. :)

Thanks for reading this and looking at my new creations!

Meg

Christmas is around the corner...

It's currently 1:03am 1/12/11. Wow, first day of December, already!!

And due to it being December, and December usually signifying CHRISTMAS TIME, it's time to start making all the Christmas presents. I love making people things; the only problem with deadlines is the stress, cos I'm not that great at time management... haha.

So. It is now 1:07. I finished the first gift about half an hour (40 minutes?) ago, and now I'm ready to share it with you (but it's really hush hush till Christmas, so my little sister doesn't find out!!):

I'm calling it "Laura's Rainbow Cuff"

These pictures aren't that great (what do you expect? T'were taken at some unearthly hour of the night/morning... :P ), there will be better ones in times to come.

I made the cabochons out of polymer clay, using a plaited rainbow technique. Turned out pretty cool! Maybe I can develop good polymer clay skills... :D Anyways, polymer clay cabochons and bead embroidery. This is my first ever actual cuff (y'know, with a metal cuff blank as the 'lining' and all)! What do you think? I'm quite happy with how it turned out. :D I hope she likes it!

Meg