Bead Seller Giveaway and Two Lessons Learned

-

Fire Mountain Gems Giveaway

Because of a tweet, I found out Fire Mountain Gems is having a giveaway. You enter through the shop's Facebook page for free supplies. The first giveaway is today. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll be among the winners, but I still wish good luck to everyone else who enters, too.

Stretchy String Not Good

I made some children's necklaces out of wooden beads and stretchy string one day last week and gave one to my toddler. Within minutes, she had the stretchy string stretched out so that there are now some huge gaps between the beads. I think next time, I'm going to use monofilament.

Deer Skin Project On Hold

A few months ago, I mentioned that I was stitching beads onto deer skin for the first time. I got into a rhythm with attaching the beads, but it was slow going and the further along I got in the project, the more I wished that I had used a different color. The brown of the skin and of the beads is just too close. I thought at first that there was enough of a contrast. I don't mind starting again, I just wish I had clued in before I had spent a good 10 hours on it.

I'm going to take some time to work on other projects, then undo the beadwork and start again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More pumpkin earrings for Halloween

-
Image
As my older sister showed me the latest earrings she made, I couldn't help but laugh. Just like me, she had her mind on pumpkins. (And Frankenstein and Dracula, though she hadn't made earrings featuring those creatures yet). Nearly all earrings my sister makes are long, dangling creations in the Native American style,* and she brought that into her Halloween earrings. Here is what they look like: How adorable are those little pumpkin faces at the top? I also love the sparing use of turquoise-colored beads; they seem to be just the right amount of accent for the orange and black. My big sis never ceases to amaze me. After the false starts I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, I decided to nix the idea of using square stitch in my own pumpkin earring creations because it seemed too easy to move the beads out of shape. I think this was likely because I'm not all that skilled at square stitch, since it isn't a stitch I'd used before. However, in the inte
Read more

I've got a notion to sew a Halloween costume

-
Image
Now that I'm a mother , I find myself enjoying Halloween more than I ever did as a child. Case in point: Halloween 2015 was less than a week past when I began wondering what my daughter will wear next year. On a trip to Walmart, I sought out the Halloween leftovers and sifted through the costumes hoping to get an awesome costume — one that normally costs out of my price range — at half off. But I know two things about my daughter that made looking through those costumes a waste of time: She has growth spurts every few months. I could buy the next size up, but by next Halloween, she might be two sizes taller — or three even. (She's very tall for her age.) Her tastes come and go quickly. In the week since Halloween, she's already told me that next year she wants to be Wonder Woman, then changed her mind and said, "I think I want to be Sofia the First. " Once I realized the perfect 2016 costume wasn't on the rack, I got ambitious. Despite knowing l
Read more

My Etsy shop reopens

-
Image
For the first time in years, I added a listing to my Etsy shop a couple of weeks ago. My uncle has been making flutes for several years now that he sells to gift shops and tourist sites that highlight the Native American culture (he is full-blood Cherokee). He had told me that he was interested in selling them online; and since I have an Etsy shop, I offered to list some for him to see how they did. So a couple of weeks ago, I listed one. He says he has more ready to go, but I haven't had a chance to pick them up from him yet. It won't be the last of the items I list; I want to start listing my own creations -- beadwork and a few baskets once I get better at making them -- between now and Christmastime. In the meantime, if you'd like check out my uncle's flute, you can visit my Etsy shop here .
Read more