I made–necklaces

continuing my tales of crafting past with bead jewellery

about 10 years ago, when I had been living in Wellington (NZ) for about 6 months I was exploring the fabulous central library and discovered their comprehensive collection of crafting magazines.  I picked up some beading magazines and leafed through them enjoying all the colours and the different techniques.  I generally wore a colourful necklace and brooch to work so I though I would give it a go.  There was a big bead shop nearby so I borrowed 2 of the magazines and went off to buy supplies.  I was hooked and quickly built up a good stash of beads and supplies.

I enjoyed the different techniques -

threading beads onto tiger wire or thread

threading beads with a needle and thread (and learning the difference between peyote and dutch twist)

and bending wire to create little charms to attach to chain (each fo those beads has a wire through it that I then bent into a hook.

I still have a decent stash of beads and all the related tools but, as with so many crafts, I rarely wear all the lovely pieces I made – in part because I no longer dress for work in an office.  I do make thinks with beads occasionally but no longer buy the magazine each month and so am not up with the latest trends and techniques. 

Any other current or former bead workers out there? and anyone else discovered a new craft through browsing magazines?

softly, softly with 3rd colours of summer

Kirstin’s trio of colours in summer of colour this week offer a contrast from previous weeks by not being contrasting and instead are nearly 3 shades of purple – the grey is a warm one

subconsciously I must have been thinking soft with these colours as I was drawn to my photo of a feather covered in raindrops.  After extracting the image and colouring it in grey and lavender I played with several ways of displaying the feather against a plum background

I had some wool in a similar set of hues so was able to make another charity blanket square too

I’m really enjoying the different types of colour trios Kirstin is giving us for this challenge and look forward to seeing how others have used them.

zoom in on hidden treasure

admiring the lush leaves on the raspberry and strawberry plants in my garden I almost missed the hidden treasure - some ripe strawberries (delicious).  Now I know, I'm carefully checking under the leaves for more red.

This is week 26 so half way through the year - can hardly believe it.  I know there will be more treasures shared by you all this week - thank you all for participating.

Scavenger hunt progress

when I read through the summer scavenger hunt list from Rinda I was dividing them in my mind into 3 categories

* I know where to find that

* keep my eyes open

* good luck

So far I have gone to capture 4 of those in the ‘know where to find them category’ – the gnome and these 3

and I spotted this from the ‘eyes wide open’ category when we were at the aquarium (with amphibians)

enjoying the hunt and keeping my eyes open for a tattoo that I can photograph, a bakery and birds on a wire.