January Moodboard Piece (and a bitch session)

Well, here it is- my piece for the January Moodboard at OTTBS.

LET ME TELL YOU- this thing frustrated me at every turn! Argh!

The strap is made with Gwen Fisher's Super RAW in Miyuki cubes and Czech 11/0s in white, embellished with silver Tohos in 8/0. The focal and the open half of the toggle are both the same, with a black glass pillow bead in the middle of the focal.

My first complaint- the cubes are a little irregular- enough to make this piece look wonky and wobbly. Second complaint- you can still see the threads holding the open square beads in place DESPITE me taking a Sharpie to them multiple times. Third complaint- the silver 8/0s aren't enough to fill the holes between the cubes, but four 11/0s were too much! So there's thread showing there, and augh I hate thread showing. HATE IT.

I guess the one good thing about this is that, despite all the frustrations, I plugged away and finished it. I really try to come up with something for every Moodboard, and although I'm not entirely pleased with this piece (understatement), at least I stuck with it and finished it. I suppose that counts for something!

I'll leave you today with Trinity and her pretty green eyes.

'Til Next Time!

Where have I been?

Oi- apologies for the long pause in posts there! I can't say there's a specific reason for it- but I HAVE been beading- a lot!

It's a bit overdue, but I thought I'd post some completed OTTBS Moodboard pieces. First, from the October Moodboard (click to see my entry and everyone else's lovely pieces). I created two, but the main one is my "Biscuit Bracelet" (you can see the pieces of the bracelet in this post).

I finally decided to stitch them together with some teal foiled glass coin beads I had. In the true spirit of OTTBS, I dug these out from my stash- I had six, so I used up all but one in this piece. This is also my first peyote toggle clasp. Hooray!

 Next is a pendant in Gwen Fisher's "Super RAW" (click for her free video tutorial of the technique). Super Raw is very fun! It seemed complicated to me at first, but it's actually very intuitive and satisfying. AND I 'tackled my stash' beautifully with this one. The red ball chain and the big blue 6/0's have been sitting in boxes for aaaages. Very satisfying to use them up!

Next is my entry for the November Moodboard (click to see all the other people's lovely entries). This was a challenge at first- the moodboard colors were red and green- christmas colors- YUCK. So, I was determined to make something in red and green that doesn't make one think of christmas at all. (And again, I tackled a good bit of stash here!). It's a twisted herringbone rope using 15/0 green seeds and 11/0 red seeds. The difference in sizes gives this a lovely spirally rope that feels very nice between your fingers. I added a simple round peyote ring at one end, and for the other half of the clasp, two beaded bead 'cherries' and a lucite leaf. You put the berries through the ring to close the clasp. The cherries, paired with the rope that reminded me of a caterpillar, led me to name this one "Cherry Caterpillar". Not christmassy at all! In fact, it reminds me of springtime :)

I have some other pieces I've been working on- I'll post them next. One includes a bracelet using Preciosa's new Twin Beads.

For now though, I leave you with Neo sniffing my bacon-flavored lollipop. (Sounds gross, but it was quite tasty!)

'Til Next Time!