ONE WORLD ONE HEART 2011

It's time again for a trip around the blogworld.  I am happy to be taking part in the One World One Heart Tour for the third year. Welcome to my blog, I am mrs beadsley and I am a jewelry artist living in Maine, in the wonderful (right now) Great White North, USA. I design One-of-a-Kind jewelry pieces using brass, copper, steel, silver and gold and combining them with colorful gemstones and crystals and beads.........actually the shinier the better to satisfy my inner magpie. I take my inspiration from all that is around me and craft my jewelry with a rustic twist.  I recycle when possible - and find myself in the hardware store more often than not to buy "parts" for my jewelry. 

Lately, though, I have discovered the joy of weaving Kumihimo pieces........with beads and without.  Over the years I have amassed quite a collection of fibers, and of seed beads.....enough to keep me busy making bracelets and necklaces for a good while (and in my case, through ALL the snowstorms we've been having). 

Which brings me to this: my giveaway............my gift for the last One World One Heart.  I actually decided to give away three prizes - one for each year I participated in the event. 

First up - satin cord; vermeil toggle clasp; gold seed beads - eight strand kumihimo braid bracelet.

Second - red seed beads; copper bali-style cones; sweet copper heart clasp; eight strand kumihimo with seed beads bracelet.

Third - two color seed beads; silver cones; silver toggle clasp; eight strand kumihimo and seed bead bracelet.

This is open to all active bloggers, worldwide.  All you have to do  to be entered into the "hat" is to leave a comment on my blog - and please make sure you leave a way for me to contact you - so I can visit YOUR blog, and so I know who you are when you win. :-)
I will close the post to comments on the evening of February 16, 2011 and will pick three winners using a random number generator.  Please check back here on February 17, 2011 as I will announce the winners here on my blog. (don't worry, I'm sure I'll be so excited I'll both email you and announce here - just to cover all bases!)

Good luck - and have a really good time on your journey through blogland.  So good to "meet" you!

Finishing Kumihimo

I am finding I love the whole process of Kumihimo.  It's almost hypnotic to weave the strands, it's fun to experiment with different fibers and colors, and I learn something each time I make a new project.  This time I experimented with some multi colored string (I found it in the hardware department at Home Depot or Lowes - really not sure what it's true purpose is, but I love how colorful it is) - which came out too long to be a bracelet and, of course, too short to be a necklace.  I'm sure I'll figure out something to do with it - but it's wonderfully colorful.  I will try this string again, in a longer length - that way I can incorporate all the colors and maybe make a necklace out of it.

Next I tried beads again - first using some white twine I have - a thicker string on which I pre-loaded size 6/0 seed beads.  I made each length of the string about 2 feet long and loaded 55 beads on each of the 8 strings.  I am still working out all the finer points of this - ie how many beads for a bracelet, how thick the string shoud be, etc., so while I knew 55 beads was probably too many, I wanted to err on the side of too much because you can always take away - it's not that easy to add.  I ended up using 24 of the 55 beads.

This is the finished bracelet - I used some sterling silver end cones (I glued the end knots, glued the inside of the cones and then wired the cones onto the bracelet ends - as per some instructions I saw while searching for information on how to finish the braid ends) and a nice sterling silver toggle clasp.  While I like how it turned out, it's almost too long and the whole process of gluing and wiring is rather messy. 

I next tried some bead crochet thread - just a heavier cotton thread - and size 8/0 seed beads.  I am not entirely happy how the thinner thread worked up with the beads - the bracelet is not as round and plump as the previous one, but that being said, it's still a nice piece.  This one is also a little too long - I see now that the adding of the cones and the clasp add more to the overall length than I had anticipated. I finished this one the same way as the silver one, only I used copper findings.

I have another braid started - this time I braided the end and created a buttonhole so rather than tie the ends off and add the glue, I will add a button and it will close that way.  It will be interesting to see how this one comes out!