Holiday Ornament Swap/Hop - Hosted by Sally Russick

Hi Y'all,

It is time for Sally Russick's Holiday Ornament Swap and Blog Hop.  This is my third year participating in this event, and I am already looking forward to next year's swap/hop.

Wow this year is almost over I hope all is well with you and yours and you are ready for a festive Christmas, Hanuka, or Kwanzaa Season, spent with family and friends. This is the first year in 31 years that I will not be celebrating Christmas with my Son.  He has flown half way around the world to New Zealand to spend the holiday with his sweet girlfriend.

Okay that is enough about my woes you came to see what my partner Karen Williams and I swapped.

Well first of all I was excited and intimidated at the same time when I found out that Sally Russick paired me with, Karen Williams, Freeform bead weaver extraordinaire!  I have been a fan of Karen's for a few years now. So what do you do for an amazing seed beadiest.  Well being a bead weaver I did something with cylinder seed beads.  Here is what I made for Karen.

I found a tutorial for a 3D star on Etsy by JoyHarmonDesigns I have not done many 3D beading designs and this little star... well lets just say it almost wasn't, but I pushed myself to stick with it and I am very pleased with the end results.  The art bead is a snowflake clay charm is by Linda Landig. Linda just started working with clay earlier this year, but you would think that she has been doing it for years.  I love her clay charms and pendants.

I did the star in a dark red and accented it with bronze, because Karen said that she likes the jewel tones and has several ornaments and decorations in dark red. 

Do you want to see what Karen sent to me? Well let me show you.  I swear when I opened the box and saw what she sent to me, one could probably hear my squeal with delight for miles.  Karen sent me an ornament made with one of her freeform beaded beads it is absolutely beautiful. Oh yeah, I guess you want me to hush and show you the ornament, right?

See I told you it was beautiful in wintery whites and blues.  Here is a picture of it hanging on my tree.

Oh and not only did Karen send me this beautiful ornament she also included her new book Explorations in Freeform Peyote Beading.  It is a very informative book with lots of easy to follow instructions on the art of Freeform Peyote.  

If you do not already have a copy of this wonderful book you can get one on Amazon.com.   You will see some of our beady friends in this book as well.

I want to thank you Sally for doing this Holiday Ornament Swap/Hop again this year.  It is always fun to find out who one's partner is going to be, what you will create, and what you will receive.

Now please take the time to go visit my partner Karen and the other's in this swap/hop.

1.  Sally Russick  and Tanya Goodwin
2.  Veralynne Malone  and Sally Russick 

3.  Melissa Trudinger  and Elisabeth Auld

4.  Erin Prais-Hintz  and Lesley Watt 

5.  Jenny Davies-Reazor and Patti Vanderbloemen 

6.  Kim Bender-Hora and Beth and Evie McCord

7.  Becky Pancake and Lynne Bowland 

8.  Therese Frank  and Karen Williams

9.   Melissa Meman  and Linda Hanes 

10.   Sandi Volpe  and Linda Landig 

11. Alicia Marinache  and Susan Kennedy  

Thank you for stopping by and visiting Happy Holidays to you, please leave a comment, because I enjoy hearing from you.

Happy beading Y'all,

Therese 

Whoops Blog Hop - Hosted by Cynthia of Antiquity Travelers Blog

Hi Y'all,

I know that I have not posted much in the past few months and I admit it is becoming a pattern, that I only post when I have a Challenge reveal.  I am going to get better in 2015.  Anyway yes I am posting, because a wonderful beady blogging friend, Cynthia Machata asked me, and others, if I would like to play around with some really huge balls, and being the type of woman I am, I of course said hell yeah!

The big balls are actually 16 MM gray glass pearls from Znet Shows, that Cynthia had left over from a previous challenge for Znet Shows, hence the name of the blog hop "Whoops", because she ordered to many not realizing how big they were when she ordered them. I forgot to take a before picture, but here is a picture of what Cynthia did with her pearls from the Znet Shows Challenge.

I love this necklace it is so pretty and will go with just about anything dressed up or down!

When I got my package with the large glass pearls I knew right away what I was going to do, so I went to my stash and pulled out all of my gray glass pearls.  I had gray glass pearls in 3 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm, and 14 mm in various shades of gray from very light to dark. Perfect I thought, but if y'all don't know me I am all about the Bling!, so I went to my crystal stash and pulled out as many of the same size Czech rounds in clear AB that I had to match the sizes of the pearls and what I did not have I purchased at my local bead store Enchanted Bead.  Now to decide on the color of the seed beads I wanted to use, so you guessed it, I went to my seed bead stash and pulled out my metallic colors of silver, hematite, bronze, and gold.  I laid each color beside the pearls and crystals and I chose the hematite seed beads in sizes 11 and 8.  The stitch I chose to create my piece with is the tubular net stitch.

Here is what I created...

      For the clasp I peyoted a loop using the size ll seed beads and I had some 2 mm clear AB Czech crystals that I went around the outside of the loop with and I used one of the 14 MM gray glass pearls as the other side of the clasp.

Here is a close up of the center of my necklace...

The first weekend in December was my Gem and Mineral Society's Gem and Mineral Show and I was working at the welcome desk.  Well to keep busy between greeting people to the show I was working on this necklace.  I had a lot of people, as well as club members, comment on the necklace and ask a lot of question about the stitch I was using and if I taught classes and so on.  I told them that I do teach  classes at the Enchanted Bead and I told them where the store was, so hopefully one or two will show up for a class or two.

Thank you Cynthia for asking me to play with these huge ball, Um I mean big glass pearls, I had a great time creating with them.

Thank you to Y'all for stopping by and visiting my blog, please leave a comment I love hearing what y'all have to say.

Now please stop by and show my fellow beady buddies a little love too.

Linda    http://lindysdesigns.blogspot.com/

Bobbie     http://www.beadsongjewelry.com/

Christine   http://onekisscreations.blogspot.com/

Hope    http://www.craftyhope.com/

Therese  http://theresestreasures59.blogspot.com/

Val  http://missvalscreations.blogspot.com/

and Me  http://antiquitytravelers.blogspot.com/

Happy beading Y'all

Therese