Friday, April 18, 2008

Me and Wire

Since having my tutorial published in this months PolymerCAFE, I have not gotten queries about my project, but about my wire items in the Gallery....(click on the image to take you to the table of contents (pdf. format) that shows the bracelets I'm talking about)


Well....here they are too. The reason I sent them to the Gallery wasn't for the wire, but for the imitative or Faux beach pebbles. A lot of people swear up and down that they are real, until I tell them that I made them. And then they still protest, until they agree that they are too light for the real thing. I'm waiting to hear back from Step by Step wire to see if they are interested in publishing my tutorial that I'm working on. I have never seen anyone do wire macrame before. I also do this for necklaces and earrings. It came naturally since my husband makes gorgeous macrame hemp jewelry with, I swear, the most perfect kind of knots....so even and smooth. I've already been doing 'viking knit and braiding' and wire crochet too, so I had to try macrame. I started making these a couple of years ago and instead of just the single row have started to make two row ones as well. The Editor of Step by Step is away for a few days, so I'll have to see what she says when she comes back. If not accepted...well, there is always Etsy. I sell a few tutorials there, including polymer clay projects and beadwork and will be adding more in near future, so why not Wire. Wanna know how to do this?...or the rocks?...??
Back to work....see ya!

Monday, April 7, 2008

Welcome to my Spring and Summer blog!

FREE BEADING SOFTWARE!

This blog is about those teeny little beads and if you like them BIGGER...those too, lol. I'll not be only blogging about beads, but wire too. Gotta start somewhere though and what better than with 'free software'
Above is one little pattern I did on a simple freeware program by Leah Kramer. Thanks Leah for having made this available to us! I think this is beadworks best kept little secret. There are many great beading software programs out there, but unless you are really, really into loomwork and weaving, you may want to opt for freeware first. This one by Leah works well. There is another nifty one by Easy Bead Patterns to download. Here is a screen shot of that program:

Friday, April 4, 2008

Another Blog...about Jewelry!

I decided to get back into beadwork for a while. So why am I starting another blog?
Because the other one is strictly about Polymer Clay. Gosh, it isn't as easy as picking ones own name anymore, even in blogger! Couldn't pick my own name without a DASH! Ironic, eh?
Anyway, I felt the need to separate the two because polymer clay takes precedence during winter, the other during summer. Here we are in Spring and I've packed my clay away. I've made enough focal pieces to keep me going for awhile and now it's time to do some stringing. Will be posting often and put up some pictures too. Not tonight though. It's late and I'm tired. Just got back from an all day trip which included 7 hours of driving....yawn.
See ya tomorrow!