Wedding Fever!

There seems to be a wonderful happy atmosphere here in the UK at the moment.  After an unusually cold and snowy winter, spring has arrived and now we seem to have been rewarded by endless sunny days of perfect blue sky, trees wearing fresh green leaves, woodlands filled with the scent and colour of bluebells, lanes lined with cowslips, gardens bursting with lilac and laburnum, birds singing their little hearts out and butterflies dancing from flower to flower.  We have two holiday weekends in a row, people are hosting barbecues, neighbours are catching up, children are laughing and 'most' people are smiling - it feels like we have come out of hibernation.  And then there was 'the' wedding yesterday.  We watched The Royal Wedding on a big screen in our local town centre, sat in the market square surrounded by cheering families waving flags and beaming broadly and it felt good.  Talking of weddings ...

(Photo courtesy of Make Jewellery magazine)

... E-Beads recently asked me to design a wedding themed project (using materials from them) to appear in a special wedding issue of Make Jewellery magazine and with perfect timing, this issue of the magazine was published yesterday.

My 'Lace Flowers' use brick, peyote, netting and ladder stitch and (as usual) can be worn in a number of ways.  I used Swarovski cream crystal pearls, tiny seed beads and organza ribbon to create a set for the bride of a choker which can also be worn as a headband, a wrist corsage which doubles up as an anklet (think beach weddings!), a hair comb and a ring - all of these can be made using just the one flower design.

I also made a couple of extra pieces in gold and burgundy to show how easy it is to make jewellery to match the bridesmaids outfits as well as the bride.

Wherever you are in the world and whatever season it is, I hope you enjoyed the spectacle of  'the' wedding and that the romance of the occasion filled you with beady inspiration!

Bye for now!

Spine Flowers!

The date for my next beading workshop is coming round fast and so I have spent the last 2 weeks busily preparing for it; writing instructions, drawing diagrams, taking photos and beading samples.  The class will be held at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd on May the 26th and is called 'Kerrie Slade's Herringbone Flower', but you know me, I like to have a name for my pieces and so I have called this tutorial 'Spine Flower' because of the stripes in it.

This one is a fun little project that is quite quick to make and the finished flower has lots of potential.  The actual workshop is to make a single flower that can be worn as either a pendant or a brooch, but I am sure that you will find other ways to use your Spine Flower.  It can also look quite different depending on what colours you choose to make it in -  maybe pretty pinks and lilacs or perhaps something similar to my Gothic red and black version?

This project has been set at beginner/intermediate level and ideally you need to be familiar with herringbone stitch, but as usual, I have written comprehensive instructions with plenty of diagrams and photos and of course I will be on hand to help out with any difficulties (if you are thinking of booking this class but are not sure if it will be suitable for you, please contact either myself or the shop staff to check).  It is a 3 hour workshop and costs £40 per person with all materials and refreshments provided.

Hope to meet you on May the 26th!

A dose of daisy medicine!

Unusually for me, I've had a couple of quiet weeks when I haven't done much beading, pattern writing or ... anything really.  I felt a little 'under the weather' and it felt like my usual drive had driven off and left me.  Even my normally over-active imagination went into hibernation and when I sat by my window in the evenings looking at the moon, instead of imagining fairies with beaded flowers in their hair skipping around in my moonlight garden ... I just saw the moon.  I think it was probably my body's way of telling me to take a little break though and so I am now more or less back to bouncy and have finally picked up my needle and thread again.  I hardly ever get chance to make the same thing twice and rarely make myself anything these days, so I started off gently by following my own instructions and made two of my Rivoli Daisies.

The first one (shown above) has a Montana blue Swarovski Rivoli for the centre and the beads are a mixture of galvanised Tohos and some delicious little Czech Charlottes I bought some time ago but hadn't got round to using.  Although the pattern shows a complete bracelet of daisies, I just wanted to make myself one flower to hang simply from a silver snake-chain and I must admit I am pretty pleased at the way this has turned out - the blue Rivoli looks like a mesmerizing bottomless pool at the centre of my sparkling daisy and I just want to dive into it ... see, my imagination is fully restored!

I went on to make another Rivoli Daisy as a gift for a friend and this one has a Sapphire Rivoli centre and the petals are made with silver lined crystal and transparent lustered cobalt beads.  It can be worn as either a pendant or a brooch and I think it will go perfectly with jeans and a t-shirt but equally well with something more dressy.  Isn't it great how we can make our own jewellery to match our outfits ... or even vice versa!

I think this is a perfect spring project as the individual daisies don't take too long to make, you don't need many different materials and the great range of Rivoli colours available means that you too can soon bring a touch of beady sunshine into your life.  Imagine the full bracelet (shown below) with each daisy made in a different colour or with all the same coloured petals but each one having a different coloured Rivoli centre!  The Rivoli Daisy (bracelet) tutorial is available to purchase via my website.

See you again soon!

English Rose

Several months ago, I was asked to create a necklace project for the beautiful new German beadwork magazine Perlen Poesie -  'English Rose' is the result of my experiments and the instructions can be seen on page 58 of the latest issue of the magazine.  Once again, this is a necklace that can be worn in several ways as the 'rose' is removable and so you can change the colour of the flower, wear it high at the neck or lower down, knot or plait the stems or let them hang freely and cluster gently beneath the rose.  This is quite a difficult piece to photograph as it is very long, but the following picture shows the soft drape of the stems and leaves as they are held in place by the flower.

The next picture shows the 'Silver Shadow' version of the necklace and also highlights the silver spines on the leaves.

The following picture shows the 'Burgundy Bloom' version of the necklace and the strong red provides a real contrast to the pale pink version - change them to suit your mood or your outfit!

Another view of the true 'English Rose' version of the necklace, showing the rose worn high at the neck with the stems gently braided.

And finally (now that I have learnt how to make them!) a collage of the 'English Rose Collection'.

I hope that you like the new necklace and that you will enjoy making your own - as always, feel free to send me a picture of your own version and I will gladly add it to the 'Readers' Gallery' page on my website.  The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd stock this magazine or you can subscribe directly via this page of the magazine's website.

Another Creative Challenge!

Do you remember last year when Beads Direct gave me a beady challenge?  I really enjoyed that experience of being stretched creatively when asked to design something different, and yet  being bound by certain constraints (such as a particular size and colour of beads to work with) and so I was very happy when a couple of weeks ago E-Beads threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to make their logo using beads!

I knew straight away that the basic 'dandelion clock' would be fairly easy to create in beadwork and I set about using a combination of Swarovski crystal pearls and seed beads to get the look I wanted.

It still took me several attempts (and many hours!) to get the bead count right so that my piece had exactly the same number of large beads in it as the logo and to ensure that it laid flat without too many ruffles.  As I worked, I kept wondering how on earth I was going to create the 'flyaway petals' included in the logo . At first I tried turning my dandelion into a brooch and attached the petals with wirework, but I didn't really like the look of it.  Next I tried creating a flat piece of beadwork with the beaded dandelion and petals attached to it, but I couldn't really see how it could be worn as it would have been quite large.  Then I noticed an image of a little bag with the logo on, on E-Bead's website, and that's when I came up with the idea of embellishing a bag with the logo and so I beaded the nine separate petals and attached them to the bag and then added a narrow beaded handle and some surface decoration.

As I had already created the dandelion and stem, I thought it would give the finished piece an added dimension if I also made that part of the logo wearable and so I attached a brooch/bail to the back of the dandelion so that it can be pinned to the bag, or removed and worn as either a necklace or a brooch.

Below is a picture of the original logo that I was working from and both myself and E-Beads would love to hear what you think of my version of their logo.  Leave a comment on my blog, or email E-Beads via their website or become a 'fan' of their Facebook page and leave a comment there.

Let me know what you think and what your solution to including those tricky 'flyaway petals' would have been!

Bye for now!
Kerrie ♥

Teaching Timetable ...

There's not much to report at the moment as I have been busy writing instructions, drawing diagrams and taking photos for my new workshops.  I have managed to sneak in the odd hour or two for putting a new idea into beads for my next tutorial (after all there has got to be some light relief from all that computer work) but it will probably be some weeks before the new design is finished or added to my website - it's going to be a little bit different from my usual style with lots of citrus colours and an asymmetric twist, so watch this space!  In the meantime, I suddenly realised that I haven't actually posted details of my new classes, and as there are still some places left I thought I should tell you about them as the first class is next week!

I will be teaching four 3 hour workshops at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd.  The first one on February the 3rd is 'Spring Daisies' and I will also be teaching this again on May the 14th.  The other workshop is 'Herringbone Flower' and I will be teaching this on March the 12th and May the 26th.  The city centre venue is lovely and spacious and bright, with a beautiful bead shop stuffed full of sparkly goodies on the ground floor, all materials are included, workshop students receive a 10% discount voucher to be used in the shop after class, there are lots of tasty fairtrade refreshments on offer and the atmosphere is fun and friendly - what more could you wish for?  Full details and booking information can be found here.

Resolutions!

Happy New Year everyone!

Did you make any New Year's resolutions?  I made the usual ones of course; eat more healthily, take more exercise and all the other ones that are usually broken by the second week in January, but I also resolved to keep moving forward with my beading.  I have exciting plans for an exhibition in 2012 and my butterfly mind keeps flitting to thoughts of that, but first I think that 2011 is going to be all about teaching.  I have 6 workshops lined up in the UK and Germany and I'm also planning on making more patterns available to purchase via my website, but all of that means a lot of detailed planning, writing instructions and drawing diagrams instead of designing new beadwork.  I do have a head full of new ideas to try out though, so watch this space!  In the meantime, I thought I'd remind you that one of my resolutions for 2010 was to start selling patterns directly from  my website and I now have 5 available - details below.  These are in addition to the 26 patterns that I have had published in magazines since 2008 and you can see details of all those on this page of my website.  Most of them are still available from the publishers as pdf's or back issues, so if you see one you like but can't find, drop me a line via the contact form on my website and I'll try and track it down for you.  All of the patterns below are available from this page of my website.

Core Beaded Beads tutorial

Poppy tutorial

Twinkling Tilas tutorial

Double Daisy tutorial

Rivoli Daisies tutorial

Bye for now!