Bead Hoarder Swap - My Partner and What She Sent!

There's nothing like a beading challenge to kick your creative juices into high gear. And considering that over the past year my creative juices have been tucked way, WAY in the back of my brain, I appreciate all the creative kicks in the pants I can get.

So, when Lori Anderson announced a new bead swap blog party, I was ready to jump in. And this time, we were to give our partner a bead we've hoarded for ourselves. What a terrific idea!

And I was so lucky to be paired with Kathy Lindemer of Bay Moon Design. I've admired Kathy's work as part of the ZNetShows design team, and one of her necklaces was just featured on the Art Bead Scene blog.

Many of Kathy's pieces have an element of nature - flowers or plants or animals. Her work exudes a wonderful serenity that I find really appealing:

Wanna see what she sent me for the swap?  It's yummy!

Kathy sent a beautiful little box, complete with a card she had made (creative lady!). And under the card was a spectacular ceramic bead by Suburban Girl Studios, complemented by a length of delicious blue silk cording and one of Kathy's handcrafted clasps. The ideas are burbling up already!

The box was so cute, decorated with washi tape, that I almost didn't want to mess it up by opening it.
Almost.

Kathy's handmade card

And the beautiful surprises inside!

Thank you, Kathy! I can't wait to get started!

Re-imagining A Project

A while back, I played along in one of the A Time To Stitch challenges, and the theme was to bead a bag. I decided to work up a couple of covers for my key card holder to dress up a work necessity.

I took the picture above in order to have it for the challenge deadline, but did end up beading an edging around the outer edge of the piece afterward.

In theory? Great idea. In practice? Not terribly practical.

So I did something that made me very nervous. I cut a piece apart in order to re-imagine it into something else.

It looks a little wonky here - that's the photographer, not the necklace.

I took the scissors to the sodalite piece and reverse engineered it into a necklace. This one lived in my imagination a long time before I got the nerve up to cut it apart.

I'm pretty pleased with the result, and it's still something I can wear to work. It just won't swipe me into locked areas anymore.

Theme and Variations

Crescents and rizos and tilas, oh my!

The explosion of shapes in two-holed beads makes me feel a little like Dorothy in Oz - so many new things to explore.

I spent one weekend at a show playing with crescents, quad tiles, triangles and o-rings whenever the crowds were slow. Just a few colors, and just a few patterns, but oh so many different results.  Here are a few:

Theme and variations - lots of variety from a limited palette of materials. That's one of the things I love most about beadweaving.