By the pool

Here the Kummli-inspired thing I was writing about yesterday. It's a pin, not a pendant. The slab of agate has a side broken off, which I regretted when it happened but made it just right for this pin! The frog is an altered toy, it came out pretty well I think.

Hi there, hallo, bonjour!

200 pageviews! Wow, never thought anyone other than a few friends and acquaintances would ever look at my blog, but to my surprise I have readers in the USA (hi there!) and France (bonjour et bienvenu!) !
Working on something for my daughter, heavily inspired by something from Heidi Kummli (oh man, if you have never seen anything by her hand, google her up, she's really really awesome!) in the book she made with Sherry Serafini (and if you've never heard of her, google her up too. She and Heidi are somewhat the mothers of my generation of bead embroiderers, with Jamie Cloud Eakin as our grandmother. In the beading world they are Royalty). I hope to have it ready by tomorrow.

Aurora Borealis

Such colours in the sky, born from magnetic activity that can manifest because of the cold. The love of heaven and earth in winter.
Icicle, colour, stars and sky. There is no moon visible, only this enormous expanse of sky with streaks of luminous colour dancing. Cold, freezing cold, that cold that makes everything go silent and still, a holy frozen moment.

Pendant, quartz point, seed beads and glass pearls. Freeform peyote.

Midwinter

Midwinter necklace. I just had to have it finished before the longest night was out. I don't know what to think of it beautywise, but it was one hell of a meditation in beads. From the deepest of nights (and pretty cold too) the light is reborn. I made the birthing goddess as comfortable as I could in a bed of fur (recycled fur, very old mink) and last night I added the Sun son (like Catholics put the baby in the manger on christmas eve).

Materials: I wanted to use as many natural, organic materials as possible. I don't know what the stone is, but it's very lovely and transparent. I added shells, bone, mother of pearl. Underneath, not very clearly visible on the pics, is a shell pendant I won in a give away on Black Crow's forum, a cross/sun symbol that was perfect for this necklace. The fur is mink. Backside black suede leather. The straps are made with bone beads and mother of pearl spacers.

Oldies

Here are some things I made some time ago.
Thinking of spring, I called the wire necklace.

The green brooch is called 'Whisper in her ear', a fimo cab I made (Fimo and I are not friends, I can tell you. Alas.) surrounded by seed beads emulating Malachite.

Spring will come, it will, it will (clap your hands everybody, please!). The snake may whisper about immortality and knowledge, but let's hope Eve can deal with all that without losing her marbles, remembering the green of paradise.

Beaded beads

Somehow I can't get myself to start on a larger project. Beaded beads are in the air and all over internet, nice little projects that can carry a lot of energy. I made some. This is my latest, garnets and miyuki cubes with a lovely blue-ish gold finish that goes very well with the reds. With thanks to Natasha for inspiring me!

Holly

Another wire pendant. I was trying to make an acceptable netted wire bezel on an open frame, and this came out.
The picture itself was a bit of a surprise, because within the glass stones there are all kinds of lively creatures.
Holly, it's definitely a She, green with red berries and swirls the colour of the naked branches of the poplars around my house when the sun rises. Ho ho ho, a very early Merry Winter Solstice everyone :)))

Sign of Life

After a long absence at last a sign of life. I have not been very productive lately, but hope to make amends over the winter.
Not that I have been completely idle. I am working on a thingy for a contest at the Beadwork Forum and that one is coming on nicely but no pics allowed.
And I have been playing with wire. Wire is such a nice change from squinting at thread that just won't go through a needle and teenie tiny beads that fall all over the place.
Here are two things I made.
First there's the last one :), a freeform with a glass opalite-esque bead, a chip of some light green stone and some glass beads.

The other one is a bracelet made of jasper beads and copper wire. The copper has aged nicely, I like it looking dull like this for now but who knows I might polish it up and make it shine.

And now you also know what book I have been reading lately:))) Tiffany rocks!

Dark to new moon

A freeform in the moon series I have been working on. I will post it now, since I have already posted it on Deviant Art and Beadwork Forum, but really should make a separate item of the moons in their proper order with their properties and associations. This then is a freeform with a slab of mother of pearl, how moonlike can you get, with seed beads in a wonderful finish and three of my hoarded baroque sweet water pearls. I love those pearls with their irregular shapes!
Dark to new moon, the earth in PMS, loose and wild and free, crying out old pains to find the path to Ariel, unpeel dead hands, dead stringencies. God's Lioness, how one we get! My favorite time of the month really, all those soaring emotions. But hell for anyone around me.

New wirework

Next to a seed bead project that proceeds very very slowly I have been playing with wire again. After having worked on a basis of trial and error I decided I might buy a book to give me a little more to go on and teach me new techniques that I could not figure out from pictures of finished jewellery on the web. Some time ago I came across Sharilyn Miller's blog and really fell for her Elemental Necklace (among other things). Scrutiny of the pictures revealed that there must be a frame hidden underneath all that riot of stones and pearls, that the stones themselves were set in simple basket weave, but how did it all come together? and what gauge to use to carry such a heavy load? etc. So I ordered a book from her hand. A few days ago it came in the mail, and even though I did not have the right wire - believe me, when she says 'dead soft' don't try half hard! - I went ahead and made Something. Tomorrow I will give it to my sister so this is a goodbye picture.

I don't usually follow a tutorial design, but this time I did because it's such a cool, timeless pin. To age it, I held it in a flame. Now it looks as if it has been buried for a long time, an archeological find. In the Allard Pierson museum here in Amsterdam you can find similar pins, from Roman sites. I am quite taken with it, hope my sister - yes, she the Goddess of Felting - will like it and give it a place of honour on one of her fabulous scarves. Another goodbye picture, but this one I will make again for my own pleasure (and probably some more to sell).

Finally a pair of earrings I made some time ago. I love the combination of copper and green, and the glass hearts just needed to be put into some kind of earring. A spring love theme, leaves and hearts.

Cuff

Everyone makes cuffs. Somehow it's something you just have to do, if you don't you're not a real beader. So I "had" to make a cuff.

From Beyond :)

A good omen for the day! Thanks to the Lady of Lost and Found!

Found on A Path to Spirit, a great surprise to colour my day in blues and greens.

Wire

Sooner or later beadwork leads to a fling with wire. If only to make bead fringe, or clasps, you can't ignore wire for long.
And I saw such wonderful things with wire that my fingers itched to give it a try. Putting beads on a head pin was familiar stuff, my sister gave me a pair of chain nose pliers and some wire for my birthday when I was a teen. But coiling, twisting, was another matter. And I had these lovely stones lying around that just were not flat enough to use in beadwork.
A lot of trial and error followed once I had decided to try and make real real beadwork pendant. I made one using a bead and Szilviabead's excellent tutorial on Deviant Art. But how to bezel? I studied pictures, tried the classic three-wire bezel (which I did not like, too many loose ends to wrap up) and the good old puzzle wrap. And a netted bezel, this one. It's far from perfect, just as the stone is far from perfect - it's chipped on the back side. But I liked it, broken stone and broken wire becoming whole. This one I often wear. The wire is silver plated so sooner or later the copper underneath will show through, to give it a warm glow. That will only add to the charm of it, like a few gray hairs or wrinkles give a face warmth and personality. "Be whole again" I wrote when I put this one in my Deviant Art gallery. And that's what it means.
Silver plated wire, glass beads, a freshwater pearl, and a lovely fluorite.

Mother of Pearl

Ahh this one makes me nostalgic. My first mother of pearl pendant. True, there's a definite Triz influence here, but the way I found to make these pretty but irregular vintage facet beads lie the way I wanted them to was my own invention.
My sister models here. It was in those days of confusion when my sisters visited regularly to keep an eye on things and me. I had just finished this pendant, made with a beautiful mother of pearl cab. She tried it on, for the picture, and I had a hard time getting it back! Later I made another one for her, different but roughly the same technique.
And this one was the first beaded pendant I sold. I put this picture on my facebook page and the next day I Had Mail. Now the pendant's alive and well and living in Bruxelles.

red pendant

It's not all symbol-heavy stuff I make. This one, though made with more or less the same materials, is light and feminine, pleasing to the eye.
It was my second commissioned piece, the first one for someone I had never met. Scary! But I had this painted cab, the reds so beautiful next to the bronze coloured seed beads, and his lovely baroque pearl to give it a light and very feminine touch. The lady I sold it to was very pleased.

Jewel of Samarkand

Another 'oldie' from Indiana Jones' backpack. Samarkand, I thought, maybe because of a book I read. Another amulet, shielding the vulnerable heart chakra, balancing its green with the reds and golds of furious phoenixes, justified anger and hurt kept in an accessible but secure place.

I felt strong and balanced wearing this. Several people tried to buy it but I refused. This one's my shield, cross and six pointed star well hidden in its shape, golden eye promising harmony, and its final shape the symbol of Venus and Mercury combined. Well, that's how it turned out. My hands sort of went their own way on this one, a real occult rorshach for those who like that sort of thing. But without all that crap it's nice too.

Eye

Now here's an Eye to ward off all evil!
I was so proud when I finally finished it.

Now in the possession of someone who needs a good and secure ward.

Yes it's all new materials except the chain. But we thought it looked like something Indiana Jones dug up somewhere, from the tomb of some long lost queen-high priestess. Old but still filled with a powerful magic.

Modelling in this picture is my Broken Healer Hygeia, the Dustbin Dived Divinity.

Dragon Eye

No chronology in what I am showing now, just the first picture that showed up when I browsed for things to show here.

OK, this is the first Dragon Eye I made. Glass cab, painted, sealed, then beaded up and backed with black leather. I made several of these (sold a few, gave some away), people really like them. The eye as a guard from evil has a very long history. This amuletette was dreamed up only to find that eyes like these can be found all over Deviant Art etc., with the only exception that I paint my eyes myself. Duh, gave me a good lesson on synchronicity and the illusion of uniqueness.

She is the Mother

I should apologize for not showing this one first. She is the Mother of all things I make. I am a bit shy to show her, she is so close to my heart this one. Not a very good picture, that held me back.

She is the Mother.

A First

My most recent necklace. I wanted to make something with viking knit, and it had to be something from another age. A gladiator/warrior necklace.
Most of my things seem to come out as something from another era. A mythical past, a dream world where myths are living realities.

Where to begin this blog? I am a woman, mother, jewellery designer by chance. And I dream with my hands when I am making things, giving material reality to whatever is in my mind at the time.

This is my gladiator necklace. Hard times ahead, determination to face up to it all knitted in brass, hope in green glass, earthy realism in brown. Hope you like it.