Showing posts with label beaded necklaces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beaded necklaces. Show all posts

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Titles - Naming Your Pieces - How Do You Do It ?

I find it hard to come up with a title to these posts.  Sometimes as I write, something will come to me.  Rarely does anything pop into my brain in the beginning.  Like now.   :)  I usually know the subject I'm going to blog about but never the title.  I wonder if writers of books and articles do the same or have problems coming up with titles ? 

As a lampwork bead maker, jewelry designer, etc, etc, I have never had luck coming up with names/titles to my pieces.   I sort of envy those that the titles/names just seem to flow off their tongues.  lol !  Does it really work that way for those folks ?  I even tried a baby book of names.  A couple of times I got paint color sample cards from the local paint store to see if THAT would spark something in my brain to make it easier.  Nope.  lol !  Eventually I just gave up.  If, and that's a BIG if, something pops in my head at the time I post the photo wherever that might be, then I put it up with the photo.  That is a VERY rare occasion to be sure.  lol !  So, on that note, here's what I did all this past week or so.  Enjoy.

I ended up doing 2 beaded Kumihimo necklaces for the focal piece shown below.  I couldn't decide between the two which looked best.  They're basically the exact same pattern and same seed beads HOWEVER one color was changed.  The one on the left has silver beads and the one on the right has gold beads.  All the rest of the beads are the same colors.  I've pretty much decided on the one on the left.  The one with gold beads actually looks perfect with another pendant I've had for many years !  lol !   Hopefully both pieces will be finished up by today.  :)  And yes, that pendant is a shell with artwork added to it !  This artist is on Etsy and this is her shop link  Sculpted Windows  Tell her Debbie sent you. 

  
I finished another beaded Kumihimo necklace before the one above.  Gotta say, I STILL can't make up my mind if I'm going to keep it or sell it.  lol !  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this little dragon !  Something about her just calls to me.  I have more coming because of her.  lol ! The artist gave no name in particular so I hope to come up with something - someday.  lol !  

                                

I had one more project I worked on last week and will be continuing that project into this week so will blog about that next time hopefully.  :) 

If you are interested in a dragon necklace, please let me know by posting a message below.  I get the messages via an email so they are not posted automatically.  This keeps spammers off my blog.  I then post them here if they are appropriate to the blog post. 

Thanks much for coming by.  I hope you come back again soon !  Have a great week !   

Monday, March 31, 2014

Beaded Kumihimo - Always Something

Or so it would seem.  I finished up a few necklaces and even added one more to the mix as well.  Altogether, I've made 6 beaded kumi necklaces and 2 of them, nearly finished mind you, had to be torn apart.  Such things happen.  I also put together a ceramic beaded bracelet featuring one of my own lampwork beads as a focal.  That is in my Etsy shop if you want to see.  :)  So it's been a busy couple of weeks - Thankfully.  If I didn't have all of those beads, I'd be pretty bored while my foot is healing. 

So the "always something" part is about to be revealed.  As I was making all of those necklaces, I noticed something in a few of them I had not experienced before.  The end of a couple of them were "loose".  That really doesn't say much so I will try to explain further.  I found, as I was moving along towards placing the last rows of beads in the braid, the beads were becoming loose for some reason.  They were "tucking" in underneath the cords as they were suppose to and staying there but the whole end part, about an inch or so of the braid, was becoming loose.  The beads were not as tightly "woven" as they were throughout the rest of the braid.  Why ?  I am still not 100% sure but I thought that maybe, it's due to the weight of the braid itself really stretching the cord at the end only.  Still, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense if the rest of the braids remained perfectly fine, it's just the end part.  I use Omega #2 cord as I have mentioned in the past and this has never happened before so I am uneasy to put the blame there.  It never happened to ANY of the bracelets I have ever made and only has happened to a couple of the necklaces I recently made.  It's a mystery to me right now and one that I need to figure out.  Is it something I'm doing that's the cause ?  I have changed nothing in the way I finish the braids so.....................

If you have any suggestions or can figure out a reason, please leave a comment below. 

In the meantime, a few of photo's of 3 of the finished braids and the bracelet I made. 




 
Thanks for coming by !  I hope you come back again soon ! 
Have a wonderful week !