Beading Bracelets

I love beads, love jewelry, and the idea that I can make my own is a great delight.  The embroiderer's guild branch which I attend had a lady who was teaching us how to make a bracelet.

This technique is called a flat spiral, and although it looks rather complicated it is so easy!  This was the first time I had ever done anything like this and I was pleasantly surprised at how professional it looked.  There were a couple of mistakes during the making of this, but only because I put it down to go and look at the display of jewelry this lady had made, and when I got back to my seat, I just picked it up to carry on, not realizing that I had flipped it over.  You can see on the next photo why this would be a bit of a mess.

If you do what I did and flipped it mistakenly, the seed beads which lay on top of the crystal beads, would end up underneath.  So five minutes of undoing and then catching up on the correct side.  This is a really quick bracelet to make and uses #11 seed beads, 4mm crystals - those are the clear beads on the sides and 6mm crystals, those are the red beads in the middle. 

I enjoyed making this so much that I have just spent a load of cash on various beads and am trawling through hundreds of blogs learning different  techniques.  Somehow, the thought of doing normal embroidery has lost it's intrigue, all I want to do is bead - and play with tangles!

Wonderful weekend

What a fabulous day everyone had on friday - well those who watched the wedding at least. It was such a spectacular event, and I have no truck with those anti royalists who say it was a waste of money and that we shouldn't even have a Queen. I will not go into the argument that because we have a royal family, along with all the history that we have in the UK, that the tourists especially this year will have paid for the wedding twice over if not more.

It was an historic occasion, we now have a new generation of royalty, and that is no bad thing, hopefully now we can let Diana rest in peace

    

Just look at this sweet little girl,covering her ears as the aircraft did the fly past. Those planes were so loud, and this little one will go down in history 

These two will go down in history as well, but not for being sweet... 

  

 Two such pretty girls, but for heavens sake can someone give them a clue about what to wear!  Can't say much about Beatrice's hat except WTF!  Unfortunately her sister doesn't do much better.  Okay I know it's Vivienne Westwood, but it looks half finished especially the silly hemline and to be honest, the jacket does look a little too small. 

 So sorry this picture is blurred, it was the funniest joke on Beatrice's head gear.

 Spock and Captain Kirk saying 

"Fascinators to stun" 

All in all I think Mr and Mrs Middleton can be extremely proud of their children, the bride, the bridesmaid and the gorgeous James who did the reading without losing his place and pausing in the right places.  I mean it's not every day that your daughter gets her own face book page for her bottom! 

Porthole

I do enjoy making these little windows, I love the fact that we are taking a peak at another world. This little scene is of blustering seas in a pretty sunset.  The tangles I used are Twisted Rope for the frame, Zazzle by Sandy Bartholomew for the sea, and various tangles probably a bit too small to see properly for the sail and the shields.
I coloured all this in with water colour pencils.  I seem to have been collecting these for about 25 years, in fact the sea was done with Staedtler Karat which I bought when I lived in Germany in about 1987.  They are still in good shape and still work very well after all these years.  I also have Derwent Watercolour, both the artist and the student types.  I have 16 Inktense, which are fabulous colours, and a few others that I bought to try out when I saw them. As a beginning artist, I have to say these are great, so easy to use, always give great results whether you add water or not.

Tomorrow I have been asked to work on Tarot from 10am until 3pm, which means that between phone calls I can sit here and have a go at the new Diva Challenge.  I was thinking about it today and found my white gel pen - which obviously doesn't work anymore as it has not been used for a very long time.  I tried scribbling with it and holding it in water to no avail.  So I think it might be Derwent pencils to the rescue again.

Squirrel's Window?

Faffing about with some tangles last night, I like doing the organic tangles, there is Pokeroot and Pokeleaf and Wist.  I can't remember what the outside ones are called, don't even remember where I saw them, but that particular tangle is one of my favourites.  I am sure someone will tell me what it's called.  Anyway I seem to have ended up with some sort of window, maybe a squirrel's window, or a gnome's window. They have a nice view of the garden, whoever this window belongs to.

Good Friday

Lovely day here in the UK and while we were out with the dogs I thought I would take some flowery spring pictures. 

I love the second picture showing the church door with all the sun beams. 

Eggzzzzellent!

Over at I am the diva, here the challenge this week was eggs, Easter Eggs !  This is the first time I have done a challenge, and I rather enjoyed it.  My eggs look a bit misshapen, but what the heck...  So welcome to my newest blog Tangle Tales, I hope there is not another blog called that, I did check but nothing came up, if there is, can someone let me know and I will start again with another title.