Bobbly earrings.

This week's effort - earrings which will soon be on their way to my friends' shop, Opendrawer. Prue and Robyn have a beautiful gallery and shop containing many surprising and elegant gift ideas all hand made in Australia. If you are close by, drop in and say hello and tell them Chrisbeads sent you!

BSV Featured Bead Artist

The Bead Society of Victoria are searching for a "Featured Bead Artist" for the Melbourne Bead Expo in November. Applications are due in by 31st July, 2012. What a fantastic opportunity for someone! I really hope some of my blogger and facebook friends have entered. There are so many wonderfully creative people out there and this opportunity is too good to miss. There are more details on the BSV website for anyone in Australia who may be interested in applying.

Lady Charis Necklace

Craftsy seems to be an interesting place to promote tutorials and I have seen some of my facebook friends have also taken the opportunity to list on this website. Over the next few weeks I expect to put a few more up on the site, but todate have only listed the "Regatta Bracelet" which has appeared here before (see earlier in the year), and the Lady Charis necklace which is one of my favourites. It comprises a fairly simple brick stitch medallion in various sizes, which is then strung with complementary beads into a choker. I have taught this class a couple of times and never fail to be amazed by the beautiful necklaces produced by the students who generally use their own choices of colour and spacing in putting the necklace together.

It can also be adapted to make a bracelet.

Here is the link to the tutorial, Lady Charis Necklace

Bead Project

"Bead Project" hosted by Rachel Nelson-Smith has been an interesting exercise. Project one was to make something with two different stitches in two different colours. I enjoyed it although my samples did have their origins in some projects I had worked on previously.

Stretchy Sparkles Bracelet

The evolution of a bracelet tutorial can be fraught with unpickings! Last year I was asked to put together a tute for a stretchy bracelet which was made from size 5/0 Miyuki triangles - one of my favourite bead shapes. It was combined with some other triangle type beads which had a metallic stripe. One of my friendly suppliers, Kay from Kays Artycles undertook to source the metallic triangle beads, which I had bought some years ago. The original supplier had no more stock and after a few days' searching Kay advised that she had found some. Unfortunately when they were received they were 6mm and not 4mm so there were a few difficult decisions about constructing the bracelet with them. My first try was interesting, but not comfortable.

It was reminiscent of some sort of spiral and seemed to want to fold in the middle. After considering the bracelets for a while, there was a light bulb moment where I realised that two-drop peyote would probably work so I set out to make it happen.

This was definitely a much better and more wearable bracelet and I am quite pleased that samples made have been snapped onto the wrists of my daughter and daughter-in-law who are very pleased with their new bling.