The Bead Spot

My latest project is another pair of feather earrings . I really like this pattern, but I'd like to create another one that doesn't look so simplistic. Feather earrings in progress. I've seen some gorgeous ones on Etsy (like these ), and I just think, "Wow! Maybe one day I'll be that creative, too." In the meantime, I've been playing with my new toy -- a Kodak PixPro camera. After six or seven years of solid service, my old camera was on its last leg. My husband, who takes photos of the comic books and action figures, et al, that he sells on eBay , said the old camera still works fine for him, so now its his, and I've moved on. I had a lot of fun testing the new camera's macro function as I took the shot above. I still could use a lot of practice with it, but new toys are always fun.

I have to give my 5-year-old some credit on this. I could tell before I even started on the pumpkin that the pony beads would make it too big for a child her age to wear as a bracelet, so I thought of making it a necklace instead. However, once I got the first row complete, I thought it would be too big for a necklace too. But I moved forward anyway and figured I'd decide what it would be when I was completely done with it. It was my daughter who said she wanted it to be a necklace anyway, no matter how big it wound up being. So I told her I would put a string in it so she could wear it as a necklace. I was going to make the chain in all black beads, but she suggested three black then three orange. The end result, I think, looks pretty good. And it really doesn't look as huge as I thought it was going to, so hats off to my little girl for creative savvy. I plan to make more, but I need to buy more beads first. The package of glow-in-the-darks I bought ...

Glow-in-the-dark pony beads* I've had my eye on glow in the dark beads for more than a year. After getting an Amazon gift card for my birthday in July, I finally got them. Yay! That's the good news. The bad news is that they're bigger than I expected. I knew what size they were -- pony -- when I bought them, but because I work mostly with size 10 and 11 beads, I didn't realize just how big pony beads are by comparison, which is too big to create the patterns I had in mind for a bracelet for a child my daughter's age. So, rather than make bracelets, I think I'll use the patterns for necklace charms and wall decor. Hopefully little girls will still like them. *I tried to have a little fun with my new glow-in-the-dark beads by getting photos of them, but alas, my smartphone camera is not good enough to truly capture them aglow.

Round beaded earrings. My grandma called a few weeks ago to ask if I had any round earrings. She was asking on behalf of a woman who works in her doctor's office who likes Native American crafts. I told her I had some but no longer do. She told me her next appointment isn't for six months or so, so I've got plenty of time to make some for her to take to show the woman. I made round earrings once before, and they took a long, long time. On the day I started them, I invited a niece and nephew over to keep my daughter entertained. I foolishly thought I could knock out a pair or two over the two hours the kids played together. Instead, I got just one only half finished. I loved the way they turned out, though. So I plan to have some for my grandma to take the next time she goes to the doctor. My other project in the pipeline is an "N" for my daughter's bedroom door. On a recent trip through Target, my daughter got very excited when she saw wooden let...

Before I started sorting one of my bead boxes for the umpteenth time, I started a daisy chain with fall colors. I haven't decided what I'm making yet, a necklace, a bracelet, both? It's on hold until I get the sorting done; maybe by then I'll have decided.

I spent the past week making more feather earrings like the one I did a few weeks ago -- another blue and white pair just like what I had before and one in Sooner red and white. Once I finish the red one, I want to make more earrings, I'm just not sure whether I'll keep with the same style, do some more round ones or start from scratch on the pattern. At this rate, I'll need to buy earring posts before too long, so that will be on my next bead order for  Fire Mountain Gems ,  Fusion Beads  or  Shipwreck Beads .

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 th...

Because this is my first time working with deer skin , I wind up redoing a stitch about 50 percent of the time, but I'm making some progress when I can catch a few minutes to work on it. I even transported it to work, worrying the whole time that I get the threads tangled, but luckily, I got it there and back without a major mishap. I've been doing a lot Internet searches looking for a good tutorial on how to stitch the deer skin pieces together, but I have yet to find one that makes sense to me. I think part of the problem is that what I've found so far assumes I have more knowledge of hand sewing than I do. Hopefully, I can find something that works for me soon. I welcome any recommendations from readers, even if they're in book form. Freebie! On Saturday, I got an email from ArtBeads  giving me a $5 gift certificate for my birthday. I love that! If you haven't already signed up to get sales promos from ArtBeads, I recommend you do so that you can get some...

After what seems like forever, I'm finally down to just putting the clasp on the blue herringbone bracelet I've been working on. With e verything that's been going on lately in my personal life , I haven't had much beading time. On Sunday, I had the chance to bead during my lunch break at work, but I decided to get some exercise instead. I walked a mile and a half, and it felt good. I need to find a way, though, to have time for beading and exercise.

I'm very close to finishing up my latest herringbone bracelet. It just needs a few final rows, and thankfully, it turns out I will have enough beads  after all. Yay! I'm a little up in the air about what I'd like to do next. I'd like to rework some of my children's bracelets since I found that most of them would be too small for girls about age 5 to 8, which is who I envision wearing them. Getting them redone before the next arts and crafts show I decide to set up with should be a priority, but that probably won't be until this May. I've been thumbing through my new book ,  "Traditional Indian Bead & Leather Crafts"  by  Monte Smith and Michelle Von Sickle, and I'd really like to try one of them. I have some leather that I bought several years ago, but I haven't done anything with it yet. Perhaps I can give a project or two a try.

Last week, I was still battling a sinus infection, and some of the medicine the doctor gave me made me sleepy. As a result, I got very little work done on the bracelet I was working on. I even spent a couple of my lunches at work resting. This week should be better, though. The sinus infection seems to finally be gone, so I'm down to taking just the antibiotics. Revamping Etsy I also haven't had a chance to make any changes to my Etsy store yet, but I hope to add more photos of the items I have for sale -- a black seed bead bracelet , a green seed bead bracelet and a kids bracelet -- within the next few weeks. I think all three items would benefit from me spending some time trying to get better photos, especially the kids bracelet. That photo makes the white beads look as if they have a reddish tint to them.

Blue Herringbone Bracelet Here's the bracelet I'm working on now. It's going a lot faster than the green one did, thankfully. Hopefully, I don't get the arms of this one tangled, too. I have an idea for a variation on the braiding, which I plan to try next. I'm not sure what colors to use though. People interested in seeing my other work on Etsy can find it here . Thanks for your interest!

These photos show the bracelets I've been working on. I've also started a blue one that has the thicker braiding shown in the green bracelet, but I'm only about a third of the way done with it. I think both of these look good, but I've also learned a few things, too, that hopefully will make the blue bracelet better on the first try. I've had to do a lot of reworking on these two, especially with the green one. Black Braided Herringbone Bracelet Green Braided Herringbone Bracelet Also, while I was at the festival , I had an idea for new colors to try in this same style. I'm not sure how well it will turn out, but hopefully, it will look good. Both bracelets are available at my Etsy shop, located here .

I still have yet to finish the green bracelet I was working on. It's getting close, but because some beads are still loose after I cut the strings on it Monday, I can't move it. So the only place I can work on it is at home. The place where I have the largest block of time for working on it, though, is at work on my lunch break. Yesterday at lunch, I just started another that will be in exactly the same style as the green one. Hopefully, I will finish it a lot faster than the last one so that I can move on to some other projects before the festival, which is coming up fast. I probably shouldn't have started another time-consuming project this soon. Hopefully, I'll have the green one finished by Friday, then I'll post a photo here.

I usually wait to cut the strings on any project until the end. Last night, though, I started thinking I might be better able to see how to unravel the tangled herringbone bracelet if the strings weren't in the way. So I cut them. In one spot, though, I cut a little more than the extra string. One leg of the bracelet came undone. Since I'd have to go back and restitch that area anyway, I went ahead and cut another leg of the bracelet off. Now, finally, I have all three sections of the bracelet untangled and lined back up. I'm working my way through reconnecting them, which hasn't taken as long as I thought it would. If I had known that fixing the tangle would've been this easy if I cut the strings, I would've done it a long time ago. Now this bracelet is back on track. Woo hoo!

I spent the bulk of my lunch "beading time" trying to undo the tangled mess my herringbone bracelet has become. After an explanation of what I'm trying to do, I let my husband have a shot. He can't figure it out either, which bums me out a bit because I was hoping a fresh set of eyes could figure out what order the strands should be in. I'm running out of time before the next festival arrives, and I want to get more beadwork made to take with me. I don't have the time to keep trying to figure out how this went together. And really, I don't understand why it doesn't just fall back into place. The black bracelet I made in the same style wouldn't do this. I think I need to just set it aside for a few days, and just not plan on having it ready to sell anytime before the holidays. *sigh*

I held off with a post yesterday thinking that I might be able to finish the green herringbone bracelet I want to list on Etsy . Then, I could post a photo of it. Well, those tangles within the bracelet have me much more stumped than I would've thought. I cannot for the life of me figure out how I had it. The streams of beads just aren't lining back up. Hopefully, I get it soon, because once I do, all I have left is attaching the clasp.

I am within sight of the finish line on the herringbone bracelet I'm making, however, I ran into a couple of snags. Literally. The first happened Saturday. My daughter was napping, so I hauled out my bracelet and worked on it for about an hour. Then, with evening approaching, I decided to wake her so that we could go for a walk before it got dark. (She LOVES going for walks.) I set the tray table I was working from off to the side, woke her up, got her in the stroller and left. When we got back home, I set her down inside the house then turned to make sure the front door, which has settled a little, was closed completely. When I turned back around toward her, she already had the bracelet in her hand. The string was both over her shoulder and up under her armpit. I don't know how she got it so tangled so quickly. With that straightened out, I folded it up and packed it away to take to work with me. When I took it out during my lunch break, I could tell the braiding withi...

I'm still having trouble getting a decent photo of my beadwork when the beads are shiny. I looked everywhere on my camera for the option to take it from automatic to manual settings, but I don't see anything that will let me do that. I don't know that I can really get a better photo without the aid of the camera's automatic settings, but I thought that with more options available, I might be able to find a combination that works. Hopefully, one day I'll get the hang of it -- without having to buy a new camera.

Yesterday, my baby girl was fussing while I was trying to get some cleaning done because she wanted to be picked up. I tried to distract her, so I looked around and grabbed the nearest thing I could find -- one of the kids bracelets I completed last week. I stretched it out and snapped it around her wrist. While it had a little wiggle room on her wrist, it fit a lot more snuggly than I would've preferred. She's only 1 year old. How well will they fit on older children, who are, by the way, my target customer? I've decided that, to ensure I have bracelets big enough for children up to about age 7, I'm going to need to make more in a larger size. I have just a little more than a week to do it. Grrrr.