Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a safe, happy and healthy 2010!

It's got to be French

I was a bit naughty today and bought myself two bottles of French perfume!

My two all time favourite perfumes are Samsara by Guerlain and Paris by Yves Saint Laurent. I visited the sales today and to my surprise they were both marked down so I treated myself to 100ml bottles of each!

Honestly.... how could I resist when the Samsara was reduced from $189 to $82 and the Paris was only $74?

Ohhhhh I do L♥VE French perfume!

Mastering St Petersburg

St Petersburg is a stitch I have wanted to learn for some time now. I have always been a little hesitant to try the stitch as it just always looked so difficult and time consuming!

I mentioned this to a friend of mine at my latest bead meet in December and she was kind enough to teach me. I have to say I was really surprised at how quick and easy it was to learn.

So here are the first two pieces I have created. I managed to stitch my second piece in just under 2 hours!

My first piece is a simple bracelet stitched in gorgeous matte black and root beer seeds.

My second piece has been stitched with my favourite bead at the moment - topaz lined seafoam with matching drop beads and gorgeous bronze beads.

My name's Karyn and I'm addicted to seeds ♥

I never thought I would see the day that I would be drooling over teeny tiny seed beads. I have always loved beads but it has only really been over the last 18 months that I have started working with seed beads and who would have thought I'd fall so hard!

I recently bought a stunning book "Cube Bead Stitching" which has some gorgeous pieces stitched with, of course, cube beads.

So my latest bead order included a stunning selection of cube beads in a range of colours and sizes. I have to say I adore the 1.8mm Miyuki cubbes - they are so teeny tiny and I think they are just going to sit together nicely.

Watch this space for some creations from the book!

Blue Bliss

Another of my brick stitch pendants. This time for someone that l♥ves blue!

Our own little Batman

Spencer is a Ben 10 kind of guy and has never really been into any other "superhero"... but since we bought Lego Batman for the Wii he has been obsessed with Batman.

So when we were at a recent football club Christmas party where they had a face painter... well it was no surprise what he chose to have painted on his face! Yep... a BAT!

Moroccan Memories ♥ Pink Passion

Here are two brick stitch pieces I have made recently.

I love making these as they are so quick and easy taking me around 3-4 hours to make - pendant, fringing and the necklace! You can't beat that for a beaded piece!

Spencer loves wearing these too! They have magnetic clasps so they are too easy for him to put on and take off!

Our visit to Australia Zoo

I've wanted to take Spencer to Australia Zoo for ages so on Saturday, 28 November 2009, we finally got to go. I had said I didn't want to go on a day which was too hot. This day they were predicting a top of 30 degrees with possible thunder storms in the afternoon so we thought we'd risk the weather.

Well the storm hit at around 12.30pm whilst we were in the kangaroo enclosure so we ended up stranded with around 15 kangaroos and 20 other people under a shelter for around 1.5 hours enduring torrential rain, strong winds, thunder, lightening and hail! We finally made a dash for it once the rain had eased off and managed to get only slightly wet...ok we were damp!

The rain persisted but only light showers so we were still able to walk around without getting too wet. The rain actually cooled things down a lot and in the end we had a really great day!

Here are a few pics from the day ♥

RAW necklace

I created this pendant a while back. The gorgeous cabochon is chrysanthemum and I adorned the cab with size 11 and 15 seed beads, delicas, rice pearls, red tigers eye and Magatama beads.

I recently made the Right Angle Weave (RAW) necklace to hang the pendant on. This was the first RAW necklace I have made and I think it looks gorgeous with the pendant...

What do you think?

Raku pendant

♥♥♥

When I made this raku glass fused cabochon I fell in love with it immediately and I knew I had to keep it for myself!

I beaded the cab up with black seed beads - nothing to fancy to take away from the cab itself.

I love this piece and every time I have worn it have received lots of comments on the cab. Feels great to be able to say I made the "whole" piece!

♥♥♥

Something old ♥ Something new

I created this piece for a friend at work who had this gorgeous Czech glass button that was from her mother's button collection. She asked me if I could do anything with the button and this is what I came up with!

I have to say she was very happy with the piece and if the button wasn't so special to her I'd have been tempted to keep the piece for myself!

A piece just for me

I had been busy making pieces for challenges as well as a few pieces for some friends and family so I decided I'd make something for myself.

I made this pendant using another acrylic cabochon and embellished it with galvanised gold seed beads as well as black seed beads.

The necklace was strung with black seed beads and black bicones.

Orange Delight

♥♥♥

I made this pendant back in July for my step-mum's birthday.

The gorgeous cabochon is actually acrylic - yep I know it's hard to believe that it's acrylic!

I then embellished the cab with gorgeous galvanised seed beads in a rich orange colour as well as the gold and added a few Swarovski crystals.

♥♥♥

Steampunk Chameleon

I made this little fella back in August 2009. He was made as part of one of the challenges of my monthly bead meets.

He is made from polymer clay and is inspired by Christi Friesen, a very talented polymer clay artist.

Unfortunately this guy is actually the second chameleon I made. The one I actually made at my meet was burnt to a crisp...literally... when I baked him in the oven. I was so upset that I have to admit I actually shed a tear as I had spent all day making him.

Alan felt so sorry for me that he asked me to show him how I made the first one so we sat down together and created this little guy ... and isn't he adorable!

He is made from polymer clay and embellished with watch face bits and pieces and finished off with some gorgeous golden mica powder.

A fortunate mistake!

I finished this cuff a few weeks ago. It is stitched in brick stitch using seed beads in all shapes and sizes.

Now I have to admit that this cuff was supposed to be the same width all the way around. As I kept stitching I realised that I had accidently increased my stitches a wee bit too much. I was pretty annoyed at myself but as I'd already stitched quite a few rows I decided to keep on going and try and fix the mistake.

Soooo... this is the final result! I am pretty happy with how the piece turned out and have to say it looks pretty good on my wrist! What do you think?

Time flies when you are being creative!

I didn't realise so much time had passed since I last posted!

I've been busy making lots of beaded pieces so will post some pictures soon!