Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Take a look our EBEG's blog. We have several people in the Beadsmith Competition and our upcoming Bead Fest #3 has a new deadline of July 10th. (Mine's done - Queen of Hearts necklace, see below post). So please read about it.
http://www.ebeguild.blogspot.com

Plus we have an upcoming silent partner swap that will be announced later. The coordinator for the swap sent out questionnaire's to all EBEG member's asking questions like what's your favorite(s) color(s) and what style of jewelry do you like.?. Then she mails them to a silent partner. Then each member is to make a piece of jewelry for their silent partner, take pics of the progress with some feedback as how or why you made this piece. Then mail the photo's to the coordinator that are to be posted and mail your finished piece to your silent partner. I've already received mine, but I haven't finished my piece for my silent partner. I believe the deadline is in August. 
Couldn't see where Lulu went. Found her sleeping on my bed! Little stinker.
Painting the anchor chain every 10 feet. Painted 340 ft of chain. Then I started singing and couldn't stop............."chain, chain, chain......chain of fouls". 

Thursday, June 14, 2012


Thought you might enjoy seeing a recent photograph of Lulu, 9 months old now, who is my constant bead companion. She's my baby and around 90+ lbs.  
10.  And like magic, you're DONE! Yay! - I give you my beadwork "The Queen of Hearts".
I know this looks easy but believe me, all the beading takes weeks to complete. I'm not a patient person! And I know God made me fall in love with beads just to teach me patience. LOL - Here's some close-ups to view. I hope you've enjoyed a bead embroidery lesson. Ha!




Take care and God bless you! - Catherine

9.  Above the bib necklace on each side, I hand-stitched large white shell pearls, large resin black beads with white hearts, and the flamework playing card beads with 6/0 seed beads and round red crystals. And finished with a gold-filled hook & eye clasp.
8.  On the bottom of the bib necklace, I hand-stitched round red crystals, a playing card bead, and three brass charms; a teacup, a teapot, and Rabbit.
7. Once your ultra-suede has dried, then you can start sewing (I use brick stitch) the front foundation to the ultra-suede backing. I have the right side done in this pic but still need to sew the left side. I sew all the way around.
5. Once I had all the seed beads sewn, I glued a extra thick layer of interfacing between my beaded foundation and the backing. This adds more stability for the heavy cabochons.

One other thing. I use a layer of interfacing to lay my beadwork on while working. This helps prevent your cabochons from being all scratched up. It also helps to wash your hands before you start working

6. Once the interfacing was dry, I cut out and glued down the light blue ultra-suede backing. Ultra-suede is super soft and will comfortable next to your clothing and skin. For 5 & 6, you want to use a white tacky glue, like Aleene's Original Tacky Glue as it's an all-purpose glue.


4. I started stitched rounds of seed beads around the cabochons. And stitched the Off With Her Head.
2. Then I hand-stitched The Queen of Hearts.
3. Using E-6000, glue down your cabochons.
Our Etsy Bead Embroidery Guild is underway with our third Bead Fest which is due by June 30th. The theme is "Fairytales, Folklore, and Fantasy". So all these weeks I've been working diligently to complete my entry which I finished yesterday. So I thought I'd put some photograph's of my entry on my blog and the steps that I took to complete. I apologize that some of the pics are fussy. They looked good to me on my digital screen but once I downloaded them and saw them on my computer screen, I realized they're not to my satisfaction. - First you need to put your idea's down on a paper template.