I hope the start of 2012 has been a good one for you all. I must admit I'm still trying to get back into the swing of 'normal' life (or as normal as things get around here!) after being away for 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year.
I spent quite a bit of time this weekend trying to sort out my bead boxes - having taken beads to play with whilst away and having been busy with custom orders at the end of last year, my beads are in quite a muddle so I am keen to get them back into some logical order. Tidying has reminded me of beads that I've got in my stash that I'd forgotten I had, so I think that's some positive to be said for having a clear up!
I've received a few packets of bead post this week (the best kind of post IMHO) so I thought I'd share with you what I've bough lately and what I might like to create with these beads.
I'd run out of a few key colours of seed beads over Christmas, so I re-stocked these, plus I always like to try out some new colours (you can't always tell online whether you are going to like or love a colour as different monitors/cameras etc don't always show shades as they actually appear). Here's the selection of seed beads I plumped for - there's a fair bit of white/crystal, but there are also some unusal bronze-lined sapphire ab beads which are a lovely muted opalescent kind of colour and even some dark metallic red beads (I don't ususally 'do' red!).
I also bought some new accent beads - a selection of different glass shapes from a new bead supplier I hadn't used before. I'm really pleased with what I bought (especially the violet glass flowers) so will definitely go back to them again.
And of course I couldn't buy new beads without treating myself to some Swarovski sparkle including this whopping 27mm rivoli - such a gorgeous blue/purple colour...
...and, inspired by a stunning emerald necklace that was in the recent auction of Elizabeth Taylor's jewellery collection, some emerald coloured crystal cabochons - I am a bit in love with these, so expect to see them in an ultra glam sparkly necklace sometime in the future!
I don't like doing 'New Years Resolutions' as such (I always used to say mine was to stop biting my nails...which I did do eventually I might add, but not really as a New Years Resolution in the end) but I have a few things jewellery-wise that I hope to achieve in the next year that I want to write here.
1.) Develop my metal working skills - I hope to take a course at Holts Academy once my current studies are finished with the aim of making a career change of direction in to jewellery making full time
2.) Self-publish at least one beadweaving tutorial of my own design - I've already started on this one over Christmas so hopefully this one won't take me too long to achieve.
3.) Make some more 'bridal' pieces - I made bridal jewellery for a close friend last year and I'd love to do more bridal work. I want to make up some 'sample' ideas for bridal jewellery that I could have on my website to show people the sorts of thing I could do
4.) Make at least one 'big showpiece design' - this might well end up having something to do with those lovely emerald cabs I pictured above, but having completed two 'big' necklaces last year, I'd like to create at least one big piece this year...not necessarily as a competition entry, but something to challenge me
5.) Continue to come up with new designs and push myself out of my comfort zone - I've just started designing something in RAW which is a stitch I never use. It's not that I don't like it, my brain just until now refuses to 'think' in RAW - but the other night a flash of an idea popped into my head and I've been playing around with it the past few days and think it has potential.
6.) Learn from the 'masters' - I've got lots of books now by various beadweaving heroines of mine, but have never actually made any of the projects in them, just used them for inspiration and to drool over. I want to start actually doing some projects from these books to see how these beadweavers really think about beading and hopefully push myself in terms of what I design and how I use the different stitches
I think that's it for the moment...or at least that's a lot to be going on with for a year so far! Have you made any beady resolutions or set yourself any goals for this year? I'd love to hear what you've set your sights on - perhaps we can hold each other's hands/bug each other so we try and stick to our plans!?
TTFN
Nicole
xoxo
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