The Gateway to the Garden!

This piece only measures 2 inches by 1½ inches (5cm by 4cm) but it has still taken me the best part of 3 weeks to make!  I've loved labradorite since the first time I saw it and I always felt that it has magical properties, so I knew I wanted to use some in my Midnight Garden exhibition.  When I spotted this pendant at Kandra's Beads I thought it looked like a doorway (one I very much wanted to walk through) and I wondered if I would be able to create my vision in beads.  My idea was to make it look like an arch through an ancient walled garden that you might stumble upon on a moonlight ramble.  The wall would be covered in vines and leaves that had grown up around it with long grass at the base and maybe there would be an old gnarled tree curving around the entrance.  All of these things would form a frame and through that frame you would be able to glimpse the magic inside.  Then, as you stand transfixed, not knowing whether to cross that threshold or to leave with your secret, you hold your breath as you gaze at the glorious backdrop of the night sky wondering whether the dark intriguing shapes could be fairies dancing in the moonlight?  So I set about using my beads, needle and thread to create The Gateway to the Garden ... 

I hope you enjoy looking at my new piece but more importantly, I hope that you can see what I see.

As always, I love to receive your comments. so let me know what you think and I'll be back whenever something new grows in the Midnight Garden.

Kerrie

A beady challenge!

A little while ago, Claire from Beads Direct asked if I would be interested in being part of a ‘creative challenge’. The idea was that myself and two members of staff from Beads Direct would all be sent an identical ‘mystery pack’ containing a selection of beads, and we each had to come up with a design based around those beads. Our usual styles of work are all very different from each others, and so the challenge was intended not only to stretch us individually but also to show what diverse designs can be created from the same set of beads. I received my envelope just over two weeks ago, and this is what was in it …

When I first opened the envelope, I was very relieved to see lots of seed beads. I was also thrilled to see the labradorite, I have never worked with it before and often heard about ‘the flash’ but never actually seen it for myself. I looked at the pearls and the silver beads and thought that they shouldn’t present a problem and then I noticed the huge bag of extension chains! I think you know by now that I like to escape to fairyland whenever I can, and so first of all I created a piece inspired by the labradorite and the pearls that also incorporated the extension chains. I imagined a very rare moonlight night, a warm still night, a night full of magic. Only on a night like this, if you are very lucky, something special happens and ‘Under a pearly moon ... the labradorite blooms’.

No sooner had I landed from that flight of fancy and finished this piece, when I thought that perhaps I had not fully entered into the spirit of the challenge as I hadn’t used everything in the pack, and I had also substituted some of my own beads for the seed beads sent to me. It was the last day of the challenge by now and I knew it had to be something relatively quick to make – something that didn’t involve 8 feet of peyote rope! I began looking at the labradorite again, and in the sunshine, it reminded me of the colour of the sea, deep swirling sea with mythical creatures beneath the surface. The pearls seemed to complement the marine theme and yet the seed beads whispered that they would like to become flowers, fantasy flowers. I imagined a Selkie, trapped in human form as her husband had hidden her sealskin. I saw her standing on the shore, looking longingly out to sea but unable to return to her home, and that is when ‘In a Selkie’s garden’ came to life.

I hope that you like the new pieces, but please do let me know what you think (and whether you think I really ought to be locked up!) and I would also love to hear what you would have done with the wonderful contents of that pack. Don’t forget to take a look at the Beads Direct website to find lots of beautiful materials just like these!

Sun, sea and .... flowers!

Well I had another lovely Bank Holiday weekend and this time I spent it down on Romney Marsh which is where I grew up and where my parents still live. The weather was perfect and as you can see from the photo below, the sea was a gorgeous turquoise colour instead of the usual shade of murky brown! We had a lovely walk along the coast and spend most of the weekend outdoors, just as well we made the most of it as it's hardly stopped raining since we got home!

For the last couple of days I have been experimenting with beading lots of tiny flowers - most of them are less than 2cm(3/4 of an inch) across and are quite fiddly to make. I've used seed beads for some, cylinder beads for others and varied the shapes, sizes and colours. A few have crystal middles, some have silver bead middles, others have tiny rice pearl centres and some are still a 'work in progress' as you can see from the photo. They are very simple flowers but I have several projects in mind for these so I am spending time on them now to get the 'look' right for what I have planned.

I've also turned two silver flowers into a pair of earrings today for a birthday present. These are made with silver-lined Delicas and have a sterling silver frosted bead centre which I have had for ages and have only just got round to using. I've made the earwires too, although I'm not great at wirework (more practice needed I think!) I think the simplicity of these long sterling wires adds to the whole overall effect of 'purity' that I was trying to achieve - I like them ... I think I might even make a pair for myself!