The Bead Spot

Anyone know where I can buy some more of these bead trays, or something similar? I got this one at Walmart several years ago. What I like about them is that you can seal them closed, making transporting a project in progress rather simple. However, the two trays I have are aging and just don't seal as well as they used to. I'd like to get some more, but I haven't been able to find them.

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 .

Ever since I first saw a trailer for the movie "Gone Girl," I've wanted to do two things, read the book AND watch the movie.* Apparently, I'm not the only one. I went to check out the e-edition from my local library and wound up at a waiting list that's 18 people long. Once I got the book, I sat down and started reading immediately. I put on hold any beadwork and home projects I had been working on and dove right in, and I have to say, it was definitely a page-turner.  But when I got to the end, I felt disappointed. (I won't say why because I don't want to give away spoilers. Besides, based on the book's popularity, I might be the only one who didn't care for it anyway.) My time, it seems, would've been better spent beading. *Quite often, when a movie based on a book gets my attention, I crave buying the book. I want to get inside the characters' heads in a way you just can't when you're watching the movie. And yet, for ...

As I tried to figure out how to make feather earrings a few weeks ago, I finally had the chance to do some in-depth work with Beader's Canvas  software. The Pluses Size Adjustments : One of the biggest challenges in plotting out a pattern by hand on graph paper is that all beads are not made the same, but all squares on graph paper are. Some beads are perfectly round, some are wider than they are long, and some are longer than they are wide. That means that a pattern will vary according to the type and size of bead used. Beader's Canvas allows for that, with the dimensions for Miyuki beads, including Delicas, and Toho beads already programmed in. Users can simply select the type (I used Delicas) and the size of the on-screen graph automatically adjusts. If you aren't using Miyukis or Tohos, you can manually enter the dimensions needed. Stitch Switch : I first started the feather project in square stitch, but unhappy with how all attempts were turning out, I sw...

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. ...