The Bead Spot

I've assigned myself beading days, three days a week in which I focus my at-home time creating beaded pieces and striving to develop my creativity. For three other days each week, I plan to work on DIY home projects such as decluttering, painting and redoing my kitchen cabinets. I'm tired of my house being incomplete, but at the same time, I want to stay on track with my beading goals.  For at least the first year or so after my husband and I bought our house, I worked on my home at least once a week. After a schedule change at work, though, that changed. It's not unusual for months to pass between DIY days.  And it's even harder to find the time now that we have a 3-year-old. So I've decided the only way it's going to get done is if I do it. But I don't want to lose sight of my beading goals in the process. I know myself well enough to know that I'll have a tough time sticking with my 3-days-of-beading, 3-days-of-DIY-plan, though. It will take more disc...

At one of my nephew's football games a couple of weeks ago, a woman wearing beaded earrings made to look like feathers sat down in front of my mom and me.  "Mom, look at those!" I said. (My mom works with beads, too.) "I'm going to try to make some like that." Because I didn't know the woman wearing the earrings, I couldn't get as good of a look as I would've liked, so I have no idea what stitch was used or whether the beads were Delicas. I went home, fired up my Bead Canvas software and went to work trying to figure out how to make a feather out of beads. I initially tried a square stitch, because that's what I figured had been used on the earrings the woman was wearing. But no matter how I drew the beads, I couldn't come up with a feather I was satisfied with. So I switched to peyote stitch, then brick stitch, which is ultimately what I decided to use. They're not fancy, but I still like the way they turned out...

On Tuesday, I was digging through my beading supplies looking for jump rings when I came across this peyote weave bracelet I started years ago but never finished. After several hours of work on it, I recall, I decided I didn't like it, and rather than toss the whole thing, I had decided to deconstruct it to save the beads. But on Tuesday, I started thinking that I was too critical, so now it's back on my to-do list. I don't know what type of clasp to put on it yet, but I think it's next on my list. I just hope I can figure out where I put the beads I was using. ...

I spent the past month working on a freelance project, but now that it's behind me, I've turned my attention back to beadwork. It's been a while since I've made rings, but because I've been in the mood to do projects that I can complete in one sitting, lately I've been pulling out my thin wire and making rings. ( Instructions for making rings .) In addition to the fact that it's a short project (I can complete a ring in about 15 minutes), I like that the materials travel well. The wire is thick enough that it's not likely to get knotted in a craft bag, and each small row is secure, so it's easy to stop at practically any point without worrying about losing a stop bead and a whole hour's worth of work. Plus, unlike with loom projects, all the stuff I need can fit in a rather small package. Therefore, this week, during my lunch hour at my day job, I've been pulling out my wire and beads, strapping on my headphones and spending my free ti...