FAUX JADE, EARRING BEADS AND BEAD CROCHET

FAUX JADE

Didn't feel like blogging much since Annie died but I saw a bright star tonight and knew that was her shining down on us to tell us she is ok and that we should keep doing what we love to do and that she is ok now.  My grandma always told me when pets die, they always go to heaven and when they get there, they turn into stars.  I believed everything my grandma told me.

A couple weeks ago Cindy Lietz "The Polymer Clay Tutor" http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/ did a video on Faux Jade.  I decided to play around with a couple batches.  I need to make 16 pair of earring beads for our clay guild's May swap.  I've done a couple things and haven't decided which ones I'm going to use yet but here are some things I did with the batches of Faux Jade.

There are 3 different colors.  The top two are a little darker, the bottom right is my favorite, the large one on the left is really pretty but it has little specs of gold in it.  A friend of mine just came back from a two week cruise and went to Costa Rica which I didn't know was the jade capital of the world.  She went to a lecture about jade and her son bought her a purple jade bracelet.  So you know I'm going to be giving that a go.  If only she would let me touch it.  Anyway, I'm liking this faux jade thing.

CLAY GUILD EARRING BEAD SWAP

As I said, our guild is having an earring swap.  I did a few different things just to experiment.  We are making the beads but not finishing them into earrings.  We are going to let each person decide how they want to use the beads.  Some don't wear earrings, some don't wear pierced earrings, etc. so we decided to made sets of beads and the person can decide what they want to do with them and where they want to put the holes in them. 

These are a few of the ones I've been playing with.  Top left are my mouse in the cheddar cheese earrings, the shiny ones shaped like ginko leaves were done with Tina Holden Shimmering Batik tutorial and then covered with Magic Glos, the elephants on the bottom left were done with a mold I made from earrings my mother gave me 20 years ago that were suppose to bring me luck.  The middle ones are part of the faux jade that haven't been buffed yet.  Caught my tee shirt sleeve in the buffer tonight.  Don't do that, it scares the cat.

BEAD CROCHETING

Many years ago a friend taught me how to bead crochet.  I have been crocheting with yarn since I was 5.  I can make a normal size afghan in a week.  This bead crocheting and I didn't get along.  I gave it up.  About 3 weeks ago I saw a necklace I fell in love with and the lady said it was bead crochet.  So I went on youtube and found a lady teaching "BEAD CROCHET".  She was great.  I also ordered a DVD and decided I was going to conquer this.  I strung my beads and was ripping right along until I realized I shorted myself one bead in the sequence so I crushed all the beads till I came to the place where the next set of colors came up correctly.  It was then I realized the cording I was using tore when I crushed the beads.  I've got it back together and am hoping that the place where I fixed it won't show.  I can always sew some beads on there to cover it.  I'm going to keep doing this till I get it right.  LOL.

I'll post a picture of the finished piece, don't hold your breath.