My First Commission Piece!

HOORAY!
One of the ladies I work with told me that her daughter was getting married (how excitement!) and she asked me to do some embellishment on the shoes. Her dress has some beadwork on it and she wanted some on her shoes too. I drew a couple of sketches of different designs and gave them to her to choose which one she wanted and she chose one that had a flower on the toes with swirls around the sides.

I started with carpturing a crystal rivoli in some silver lined seed beads. The petals of the flower were going to be beaded in running stitch into the shoe, but when I put the rivoli onto the shoe it was quite fat.. and flat petals against a fat centre would have looked off. So I had to bead 3D petals onto the centre rivoli and THEN bead some flat petals under that. *Sigh*

But then I thought that the petals might catch on her dress, so I decided to sew the tip of the petals to the shoe, to avoid this problem from happening.

Nearly finished

Then I very, very, very, very drew the swirly patterns onto the shoes with lead pencil and beaded onto the shoes with silver lined 15 seed beads and 6mm crystal marguerite beads.

AND HERE ARE THE RESULTS!!! =D



She was really pleased with them and when I saw her mum again (2 weeks after I gave her the shoes) I asked her how she liked them etc etc. She said that they were exactly what she wanted and she wants them. She then said "By the way, the bridal shop wants some of you business cards."

Gobsmacked!!! She said that when she put the shoes on with the dress, the lady that worked at the store loved them so much that she wants some of my cards to put into the shop!

When I go to speak to them, I am going to buy 4 pair of shoes and on each of the shoes, bead a different pattern to put into the shop as a prototype. So that is my plan. Bead, bead and bead some more (just like I have always dreamed)

YAY!

Emma

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My epiphany!

OMG! Its been like 3  weeks since I have posted on here! Shame, shame, shame, Emma *smacks back of wrist* Haha! I have been uber busy lately (and uber stressed out) and my internet was cut off for a while, and I could use the internet at work (like what I am doing now..) but I had just lost some motivation but now Ima get off my high horse, suck up my problems and get on with life!!!
While beading a bracelet here today - Yes, I said I was at work, I bead when I am bored and finished all of my work ;) lol - I got this HUGE knot in my thread.. Now I don't know if I have mentioned this already, but I HATE ending and finishing new thread! Not what you thought I was going to say was it? Haha! Anyways, I would rather sit here with my needle and knot and work at unpicking it, than have to cut, end and start again..

I am usually pretty good at unpicking my knots from thread, as I have been doing it for so long, but THIS ONE however was a doosy! I had to put it down for an hour and then go back to it otherwise I probably would have thrown it. I finally got the knot out and then went to continue beading when I realised something..

Anyone remember my rant about my bendy needles???

This perfectly straight needle that I had started the project with was now all bendy with kinks in it.. NOW I KNOW WHERE THEY COME FROM!!! And it kinda bums me out that its my fault - coupled with the fact that it could have easily been avoided is just downright depressing.

Note to self: Knot = Bad.. and really.. they aren't worth the hassle!

Emma
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I need to be more gentle

When it comes to my beadwork, I have a bit of a short temper.. If something doesn't work out for me, I chuck the biggest thrombo ever! I have been known to scream, swear and - on some occasions - voilently throw my object across the room.. But I never actually stopped to think about who actually cops the most brutal thrashing of all...

My needles.

I am forever buying new needles because I keep breaking them from being too rough. I just finished a project that I was really proud of the other day and I took the tail thread off the needle and looked at my needle - it looked shocking! It hand more kinks and bends in it than a Friday night at a burlesque lounge! I had even somehow managed to ever-so-slightly bend the eye of the needle, smack bang in the centre, nearly closing the hole and now making it IMPOSSIBLE to thread onto another project..

I am in the middle of my first commission piece (excitement! more to come..) and I have just done the same thing! I realise now why I keep losing needles as well.. I don't lose them so to speak, the buggers run and hide so they don't suffer the same grizzly fate as their bretheren!!!

So, as my new order of business.. Ima TRY to start taking it a little easier when it comes to my projects. When something starts to bugger up on me, take a deep breath and walk outside for a break and some fresh air.. maybe make myself a cup of tea.. and again BREATHE! Hopefully, by doing so I will have plenty a straight needle to choose from when starting my next project!

Emma
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Taking Care of Business

WOW! What a hectic week I have had! Sunday I had a 12 hour heavy metal music festival, then work monday, tuesday, tuesday night I had the System of a down concert, work wednesday then Marilyn Manson concert wednesday night and work thurdsay, friday! Needless to say, I am SHATTERED but I have actually gotten some beading done lately =)

Firstly, I finished the kumihimo necklace that I started a while ago!

As you saw earlier, I did the rope using blue and brown delica beads. The focal piece is a large blue lace agate bezelled bead. The bail is made out of red tigers eye beads. There are 2 little blue lace agate beads and one 1 large red tigers eye bead at each end of the rope to add something a little different (not only that but I accidently made is too short.. WHOOPS!)

The second is a bracelet that I made to wear to afore mentioned music festival..

This is just a simple square stitch bracelet made to resemble the keys on a piano.
It is my own design it that probably took me about 5 seconds to design, and ALOT longer to put together.. This particular bracelet was a bit of a pain in the ass to bead because, I don't know why, but the thing kept breaking on me!!!
Either the thread was the thing that kept snapping or smack bang in the middle of the bracelet, the beads would break - too far away for me to pull apart to replace the broken bead.

The clasp is a 3 loop magnetic bar clasp that fits snuggly on my wrist. I am very pleased with this piece and I'm really glad how it turned out!

I do have a few other projects 'on the way' but they aren't finished enough to blog about yet ;) lol

Emma
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A valid point

My room mate (Trent - I talk about him enough, I might as well put a name to him.. lol) was admiring one of my pieces of work last night and was telling me that when I try to sell them online, I need to really specify that the beads are coloured 'all the way through' and won't go bad a few days after wearing. He said "I would pick that up and think: its pretty.. but the colour would fade after wearing it once in the shower. And walk away" and I said to him "But obviously, you wouldn't wear that in the shower!" But that has got me thinking... Is it obvious?

As the majority of my creations are beadwoven, I would not personally wear anything I make in the shower, because it might weaken the thread or the colour MIGHT get ruined, I don't know and personally I don't want to risk it.. But is it really that obvious to everyone else? Will I need to consider putting 'Caring for your Jewellery:' tags on each of my pieces? Will these tags put people off buying the items because they think "If they need to put that there, then the piece must be prone to breaking easy!"?

This is a question I am going to be hounding the gals at BD later, but it is something I thought I would share (while bored at work..)

Food for thought my darlings...

Emma
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St Patricks Day

I was doing something the other day and someone mentioned/I read something about St Patrick's Day coming up soon (don't ask me when it is, I just follow people to the pub) and just then it was like the big flashing lightbulb went up over my head 'DING!' and I thought to myself that THAT was going to be my next project - and hopefully one that I would finish!

I got home and I went onto my beading pattern creator on my laptop and started designs for a 4 leaf clover.. trying to bead a four leaf clover using square stitch was harder than I thought.. it just ended up looking like 4 rectangles put together with a weird tail at the back. So I pushed that one aside and thought I would try my shot at a 3 leaf clover.. it took a few goes but I eventually got it and was REALLY proud of myself and went to show my room mate Trent.. His response "Oh... What is it?" - ladies, don't ask a man for advice on anything =P lol.

Then I pulled out ALL of my colour green delica beads I had, which was alot more than I initally thought, picked 2 colours that I probably wouldn't have chosen before, but I was feeling brave. I was at first going to make a pair of earrings then switched the idea to a barette. I beaded 2 clovers (and 1 dodgy one that ended up being back to front) and lay them on a barette. It looked nice but there was something missing.. I wracked my brain and finally turned to google images for advice and up pops a lucky horse shoe.

So then I retreated back to my bead pattern program and designed a horseshoe, this time using the brick stitch pattern, pulled out my gold beads and beaded a little horseshoe.. I decided after I was finished that it was too thin and without wanting to pull the whole thing apart, I ended up just beading additional beads in each row of the inside of the shoe - which actually worked out quite well because it pulled the edges in nicely.

I decided to attach the whole thing to the barette using a white peyote stitch base to attach everything to. After the base was stitched, I attached that to the base of the barette and layered the horseshoe and the 2 clovers on top and stitched them all together. A quite coat of clear nailpolish to hold its shape and VIOLA! One STUNNING hair barette (if I do say so myself!)

I must say that Ima very pleased with how it turned out.. I think I might end up making the earring too ;) Keep your fingers crossed that more random inspiration pops out of nowhere for me!

Emma
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The importance of bead stoppers

As a beadweaver, when starting any piece of work it is a good idea for the first thing you put on your thread is a stop bead. I always do - until today..

I was starting a project in square stitch that was only 19 beads long, so I thought that I would forget about the stopper bead because I didn't want to use one of the same colour beads in my project.. that and I couldn't be bothered to get up and find a stray seed bead to use as a stopper bead (I was comfortable)!
So I strung on the first row and as I was beading the second row I let go of the loose end of beads.. all over the table - smooth move Emma!
I restrung the beads back onto the thread and was about to keep going but I wanted to make sure that I had them in the right order so I lifted the project to my eye level.. and let go of the loose end of beads AGAIN!

I am so used to having a stop bead on the end that it was automatic reaction to assume the beads wouldn't go anywhere, so I lost them not only once, but twice! Luckily for me though it was only a small project so it didn't matter all that much.

When I am doing a beadweaving project, I like to get a larger bead (say a size 8 seed bead if the project is using size 11s) in an obviously different colour and put that on the end of the thread. Using the needle I pass the thread through the bead again - in the same direction, twice to reinforce it. This can then be pulled off after the profect is finished (or after the first few rows if it irritates you like it does me..)

When stringing, I put a bead stopper onto one end of my string, these look like a little spring with two circles at either end for easy grip. Once closed ont the wire they shouldn't move (see pictured). They cost about $2 from bead shops.

If you don't have one of these however, it is just as easy to find other resources. Another tip I learnt was to get a heavy duty paper clip and pop that onto the end of your wire and viola! A make-shift bead stopper ;)

So as a wise person once said.. "DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO!" - if you want to get as irritated as I do then go ahead and skip adding a stop bead to your work! Have fun!

Emma
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