Third Times A Charm.

Or another ring!  As I've said before, I'm a collector of things and one is usually just not enough for me.  I guess it could be worse.  In the meantime though, I thoroughly enjoy all of my pretty things. And as you can surmise, I especially enjoy making pretty things.

During my hunt for seed beading supplies, I happened upon this spectacular crystal rhinestone in a tanzanite color.  Oh how it sparkles!  And it's fairly large, okay, it's huge!  That was it, I knew I had to make another seed bead ring.  I absolutely love it!

Here it is along the way to being fabulous.



Here it is as: Fabulousity!

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!

Oops, I Did It Again.

When I posted about my gorgeous seed bead ring that I made, I know I said: "Not sure I'll be doing seed bead jewelry too much." Then I said something about needing a lot of patience.... As it turns out, I was so wrong and I have a lot more patience than the large amount of patience I thought I had. 

You know that photo collage I've been working on?  You know that painted cabinet I was going to paint over in areas?  And all of the other projects you don't even know about yet, they have all taken a back seat to seed bead jewelry making.  Who would have ever believed it! 

With that, I am so excited about the rings (yes, plural) that I've been making.  I finished two of them and have six more in the various stages.  Oops!

I love, love, love labradorite!  I have posted about that before.  Labradorite is such a special stone, the flashes of glowing blues and greens and yellows too.  Recently, I was perusing the jewelry case at TJ Maxx and happened upon this ring on clearance.  A large faceted labradorite stone surrounded by metal.  I didn't love the light gold metal on the ring, but I really loved the stone.  I've been looking for a labradorite ring to call my own but hadn't found the right one.  As I was deciding if I should get the ring that was so cheap, I got The Idea! So here's kind of how it went - I bought it.  Took it home.  Took out my jewelry saw.  Sawed open the metal.  Got the stone out.  One little piece of the stone was cracked and I knew it was being held in place by the setting. Oh well.  I still love the stone.  Then I got to work on my second seed bead ring design.  Of course, when I was buying supplies at the bead store in Nanuet, NY called Beads Mosaic, I found a bunch of other things to make.  I'm talking about my third ring, fourth ring, fifth ring....More on that later.  Okay, we really need some pictures.

Labradorite Stone

 

The stone glued to the stabilizer which is glued to the metal adjustable ring. Read my post A Whole New World for more details on how to assemble.

 

 

The ring!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at that flash of color!  Art is messy and you can see a little preview of my other rings in the background.  I think I'll stop here and leave the third ring for my next post.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!

A Whole New World

Welcome to the world of seed bead jewelry!  A place I never thought I would visit but my inspiration came when my sister and I were at the Bead Show in Fishkill, NY a few weeks ago.  My sister has been making seed bead jewelry for a long time and she is really good at it and very creative.  She has pictures of her work on her own blog sunnrraysfancycrafts, you should check it out.  I have to be honest that while I have always appreciated the artistry and craft of seed bead jewelry, I never felt that it was completely my style. But at the Bead Show, I was looking with my sis at the seed bead booths while she was shopping and I saw these two rings made with seed beads at the beadmylove booth and thought they were so cool.  They were very colorful and big!  At first I was thinking perhaps my sister could make a ring for me and that I would pick out the beads.  As the design in my head progressed, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at seed bead jewelry making and learn how its done.  Always good to learn a new craft or skill.

I saw these foil backed rhinestones and decided upon a large oval. Truth be told, I saw an even bigger one at another table but decided it was too big - me, choosing the smaller one!  That's like someone putting two diamonds in front of me and me choosing the smaller one (that would never happen).  But for the ring I had in mind, it was going to be large enough with the smaller rhinestone.  For the color of the seed bead around the rhinestone, I chose an "ice" theme.  I wanted sparkly and frosted.  Not understanding the construction process yet, I needed to sketch out what I had in my mind in order to better communicate about what I was envisioning. Then we went from there to pick out all the supplies. I got an adjustable ring with a flat saucer on top to use as the platform.  I also purchased some bicone clear crystals to use as accents along with the very tiny clear sparkly seed beads I got.  My sister had stabilizer which is the perfect surface for sewing the beads on.  She glued the ring to one side of the stabilizer and then the rhinestone to the other side of the stabilizer.  And then it was sew, sew, sew.  My sister started me off and guided me on what to do and where to put the needle and more.  I did most of the sewing and had a clear idea of what I wanted to happen with the ring.  My sister is a great teacher!  I finished the ring last night - here is the fruit of our labor!

The sketch and the ring mostly done.

 

Tadah!

 

We did a bunch of secret things to make this ring work.  My sister came up with a fantastic idea when we were almost stunted by the space around the rhinestone and the stabilizer - the rhinestone not being flat backed but having a pointed back, stood up in the middle of the ring with no surface to sew the seed beads to. I can't tell you what her brilliant idea was- though I would like to, sorry.

The underside.

Profile and closeup.

With Flash

Without

Not sure I'll be doing seed bead jewelry too much.  It takes a lot of patience and time to sew the tiny beads.  We'll see!

Thanks for stopping by and Stay tuned for more creativity!