New RAW bracelets

Hi everyone!

Today  I want to show you  some brand new bracelets I accidentally created this afternoon. I say “accidentally”, because this wasn’t the plan! This morning I indeed started with the good intention to spend the day finishing ornaments for my Christmas tree. Everything however rapidly changed as I accidentally clicked on my Pinterest shortcut. After days of baubles, candle holders, ribbons and bows, seeing the beauties I had pinned on my jewelry boards, made me crave for beads, so I had to quickly take out all my supplies and start working.

I have to admit it was very refreshing and I am extremely satisfied of the result…so here are my two little beauties inspired by two pieces which you can see on my bracelets board. They both use right angle weave, but with extremely different beads and motives: the first one has as main feature some champagne 2-hole twins and 3mm bronze round beads creating little flowers, with size 15/0 bronze and pearl seed beads adding a frame finely decorated with tiny picots.

For the second bracelet, I instead used 6mm Czech fire-polished beads in 3 different shades of brown, all kept together by matte brown and metallic bronze size 11/0 seed beads. You could use 1 color of fire-polished only, but I think that combining different ones adds some interest to the pattern.

And here are the pictures! I hope you like them, and don’t forget to visit my Pinterest boards for more inspiration.

Have a lovely day!

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Pattern: Black lace earrings

Hi everyone!

These days I have been experimenting a little with the beautiful book Bead Romantique by Lisa Kan, so after the Autumn Sparkle and the Romantic Vintage earrings, I decided to create a new pair of earpieces using one more pattern from this amazing text.

This time, however, I based my creation on the instructions for making a necklace (the Black Lace Lariat at page 100). At first, I wanted to make one of the flower medaillons on page 102 and then simply attach it to a fish hook component but I soon realized that I did not have most of the beads suggested (and, after seeing such an inspiring project, I wanted to make the earrings right away!) so I adapted the pattern.

While the instructions of the lariat in the book are covered by copyright, my adaptation takes only a small part of the pattern, changing materials, bead counts and adding extra steps, hence creating a quite different pattern. I therefore felt free to share with you the step by step instructions of my variation. So, if you also would like to create these elegant lacy pieces, just follow the step by step tutorial and pattern below.

Time to complete the project: 1 hour

Difficulty: 2/5

Hope you enjoyed the pattern…if you did, don’t forget to leave a comment ;-)

Have a wonderful day!

P.s. If you don’t want to miss any crafty project, remember to follow the blog by clicking on the “join this site” button in the right column ;-)

Romantic vintage earrings

Hi everyone!

Today I want to show you my first creation made from a pattern I found in an amazing book by Lisa Kan called Bead Romantique. 

I have to admit I love his author’s work. She beautifully combines all the elements I like to use in my own jewelry: flowers, nature, vintage look and elegant styles in subtle shades. I think this is the reason why Bead Romantique makes it with no doubt to the top 10 of my favourite beading books. 

But now, let’s talk about the pattern (I will soon devote a full post to the book review)! It is probably the simplest one among the stunning creations displayed: a pair of elegant, yet quick-to-make earrings called Bohemian Drops (page 54). 

I loved it so much, that I tried 2 variations: the first one uses  bronze-tone findings similar to the ones  presented in the book, with size 11/0 seed beads, 4mm bicone and rondelle transparent Swarovski crystals, 8mm fire-polished beads and a mother-of-pearl 10mm coin. 

For the second pair, which I created  to wear with my Snow Samoa necklace, I switched to silver tone findings, combining transparent with pearl-colored seed beads, substituting the fire-polished beads with glass pearls and using a slightly larger (11mm) mother-of-pearl coin. 

I love to use both of them, but which one do you prefer?

 

P.s. If you don’t want to miss any crafty project, remember to follow the blog by clicking on the “join this site” button in the right column ;-)

Peach sparkle set

Hi everyone! 

Today’s creation has a long story. Once upon a time, a magic newsletter from Beadaholique contained a link to an extremely inspirational video (which  you can see here). Watching it, I was immediately captured by the beauty and sparkle of that peach color Swarovski rivoli, so I decided to buy one (and, thanks to my impressive self-control, I ended up buying 4, just in case). 

Once I received them, however, I realized that their edges were very thin and if I used them to create rings as the one shown in the tutorial, I would probably chip them after 2 minutes of wearing (definitely, the stereotypical Italian tendency to not keep hands still while talking wouldn’t help me to preserve them). 

The beautiful rivolis were therefore hidden in a drawer for a long time, until, one day, I was charmed by a gorgeous, perfectly matching filigree component.I decided to dust one of my little sparkling gems, cage it with a bronze-tone bead cap and join it with craft wire to the center piece. To add some interest, I attached freshwater pearls, 8mmm red aventurine beads and Swarovski crystals. 

Of course, no pendant can be happy all by himself, so I made a matching pair of earrings with the same types of beads, which I then attached to a pair of beautiful flower findings I bought on Etsy. 

Once they saw each other, the pendant and the pair of earrings fell in love and they lived happily ever after! 

What do you think? Don’t they make a lovely couple?

 

P.s. If you don’t want to miss any crafty project, remember to follow the blog by clicking on the “join this site” button in the right column ;-)

Cream elegance earrings

Hi everyone!

I just finished this lovely pair of earrings inspired by a beautiful model called Sabina, which I saw on Beads Gone Wild (you can purchase the kit from their website here).

As you probably noticed by now, I am not a large and bold earrings kind of person. But this pattern was way too nice to leave it unused, so I took my beading needle and started working right away! Below, you can see my version of the design. Compared to the original model, I added two rows to connect the seed beads, therefore giving more stability to the work and I changed colors to make the final creation more versatile.

To complete the earrings, I used 4mm round glass beads in a cream color, 4mm transparent AB Swarovski bicones, size 15/0 gold luster miyuki rocailles, size 11/0 pearl Checz seed beads, and faceted crystal drops, all sewn together with a size B nymo thread.

And here they are! I hope they will inspire you as much as they inspired me! :-)

Have a beautiful day!

P.s. If you don’t want to miss any crafty project, remember to follow the blog by clicking on the “join this site” button in the right column ;-)

Princess’ pearl necklace

Hi everyone!
 

Today’s creation was inspired by some cute fairy-like pastel color dresses that appeared in shopping windows last year as soon as spring arrived. 

The 5-years-old girl in me was so excited about creating a design that would make any Disney princess wow, smile and sing. So, she ordered me to immediately craft a magic necklace.

And here is my piece! It is made of a strand of glass pearls, kept together with 0.8mm brass wire wrapped in simple loops to make a chain. Around the neck, antiqued brass filigree pieces (held together with jump rings) are decorated with glass beads, polymer clay flowers and crystal chatons. 

On the back, a pink ribbon completes the creation, which closed on a side thanks to a heart-shaped toggle clasp. The 5-years-old girl loved the finished creation…

and I hope you do too ;-)

P.s. If you don’t want to miss any crafty project, remember to follow the blog by clicking on the “join this site” button in the right column ;-)