Beading Arts

I got this great polymer clay cabochon set from Sherri Kellberg, BeadazzleMe . I thought I just needed a push to get back into making things, and this seemed to do it. I am trying to set aside some creative time when I'm not working on or obsessing over the food pantry and meals program. Further instruction on making bead embroidered pieces can be found in Every Bead Has a Story , where the first chapter is free to download. Copyright 2020 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved.

Some of my friends - around the US and around the world - have probably wondered why I've stopped posting new work. Here's why: I run a food pantry and a weekly dinner for the food insecure, lonely, and marginalized people in my community. With the covid-19 crisis, my work there has increased a higher percentage than I can even figure out. I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing Stone Soup Kitchen Ministries . It has left no vacant brain space for making new art right now. As an introvert, I would have liked nothing better than to hunker down and just make things. But that wasn't in the cards.  I've been put in a uniquely privileged position to be able to do this, and I thank you all for understanding that it is the most important thing to me right now. Some day in the not TOO distant future, I hope to be able to create art again.

Available!  Leave me a comment Just last week I finished and posted a pendant using one of  Yvonne Irvin-Faus 's quirky fun pieces.  Seems I'm on a roll!  For this one, I decided to go more elaborate with the bail, stitching up a butterfly bail .  They are waaay easier to make than they look.  In fact, when I was on vacation last summer, I stitched up a whole bunch of these.  Which leads me to an idea. If you are stuck inside right now, especially if you can't get the exact materials you'd like in order to start/continue/finish a project, or if you are finding your creativity waning because of stress, try this.  Pick an easy small project like bails and make a bunch of them in various colors.  It doesn't have to be bails.  It doesn't have to be anything fancy.  It doesn't have to be something for a specific project.  JUST MAKE SOMETHING...ANYTHING!  The act of making, of moving your hands, will open your mind and...

Available!  Leave me a comment I love these bright fun pieces by Yvonne Irvin-Faus .  Yvonne has a site you can check out called MyElements by Yvonne .  In fact, I just realized when I went to post this piece that I had made a similar one almost exactly a year ago!  You can see it at the link...it's a bit more elaborate than this one. As always, if you are interested in getting started with bead embroidery, I invite you to download a free copy of my e-book's first chapter, Every Bead Has a Story .  If other forms of beading interest you, please check out the Tutorials tab at the top of the blog.  Since we are all laying low right now, due to the virus, it's a good time to plan and try out a new art form! Copyright 2020 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

SOLD This pendant features a pyrography fox cabochon that I bought from House of the Green Lady on etsy.  I fell in love with him the moment I saw him.  He is only 1 1/2 inches tall and an inch wide, so I wanted to keep the embellishment pretty simple and straightforward.  He has a square stitched bail on the back.    Copyright 2020 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

Available!  Leave me a comment I fell in love with this pretty cabochon made by Susana Paredes !  When you have a super-colorful piece like this to work with, it's hard to narrow down to just a few colors for the beadwork, but if you don't, it can end up being really chaotic.  That's ok if that's what you're after.  As for me, I prefer to pick one or two main colors and fill in with neutrals.  At least most of the time! When it came to the wrapped wire beads hanging from the crescent, I added a few more of the cabochon colors, and kept it asymmetrical but balanced.  If you need instruction on making a wrapped loop , there's a tutorial at the link using large gauge wire so you can really see what's being done.     Copyright 2020 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

Available!  Leave me a comment I bought this set of polymer clay focals from my friend Mary Anne Williams Knapp of The Cat's Meow !  There's a bit of color-shift that you can't really see in the photos I took unless I show you two close-ups right next to each other.  Suffice it to say that I love this piece!  There were many color directions that I could have gone, but I'm very very satisfied with this one.  The smallest seed beads, size 15/0s, have a purplish cast to them, which is perfect, but funny enough, they are actually a luster cobalt! Copyright 2020 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

SOLD How cute is this guy?  He was made by talented artist Shari Smith McDermott , and I added a raku leaf by my friend Amy Mealey of Xaz Bead Company .  I wish you could see more of the detail on Shari's owl and more of the color flashes on Amy's leaf!  I didn't want to lose any of the owl by bezeling over him, so I used epoxy to attach him to a deep felt backing: a thin piece of black felt over top of a cut out thick piece of felt so that he nestled in.  To do the beaded surround, I followed the same procedure as for this heavy piece, Davy Jones's Lock .  Here are some links to other tutorials you may find helpful: Square stitch bail Chapter 3 of Every Bead Has a Story Butterfly bail Open-center triangular bail Further instruction on making bead embroidered pieces can be found in Every Bead Has a Story , where the first chapter is free to download. Copyright 2020 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

I thought I'd just show you my latest piece.  I don't have time to write too much about it right this minute, but just wanted to get it out there.  I broke my ankle, the holidays were busy, and I've not gotten much work done since the beginning of December.  This "retirement" thing is starting to actually creep up on me whether I want it or not!! Copyright 2020 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

I took a short detour from bead embroidery for my most recent piece.  Recently I showed you a bead embroidered piece of salvage ( Davy Jones's Lock ) that I stitched as a souvenir from our trip to Bermuda.  Here is the other piece of salvage that I got in the Dockyard...a bolt from a ship.  I just love the colors of the patina on both this one and the lock from the last piece.  The bolt is enlarged to show the details of the stitching...it is only about 2 1/4 inch long.    This piece may look a little bit complicated, but it's really quite easy.  I stitched a center band of size 6/0 seed beads using right angle weave.  From there I added size 8/0 seed beads between each stitch at the bottom of the band and larger disks between each stitch at the top.  Those beads became the anchor points for diagonal stitches going in both directions to form an X through the central drop beads (light turquoise).  At the top, I stitched a simple pe...

Not available for sale...sorry! We went to Bermuda not too long ago with friends, partly to celebrate big-number anniversaries and partly to celebrate big-number birthdays.  It was a glorious week: beautiful weather, pink sand beaches, no agenda.  Loved it loved it loved it! Each time I go to a significant place, I like to find at least one item that I can use in a "souvenir piece" that I make and keep.  Funny enough, I just showed you one last week that has taken me years to get around to turning into a pendant, my Petroglyph pin/pendant .   So when I found this piece of salvage, I fell in love, even though it was a bit bigger and heavier than I usually use.  It's a metal keyhole, probably from someone's trunk, that's about 2 1/2 inches high, and covered with a lovely patina in front and deep deep corrosion in the back.  There was no flat back to this one! It was so deeply rounded in the back that I pulled out a trick that I develo...

Not available for sale...sorry! Years and years ago, my running group and I ran across the Grand Canyon.  We started at the North Rim on the North Kaibab Trail and then picked up the Bright Angel Trail, which took us up to the South Rim.  It's a run of about 24 miles, 2 miles shorter than a marathon, but much much harder.  It was the hardest run I've ever done, and it made me feel like nothing was out of reach.  The next day, I picked up a pin that was decorated with stylized petroglyphs common to the area. Smithsonian magazine I wanted to still be able to wear it as a pin, but decided to also turn it into a pendant.  It would have been easy enough to simply glue on a nice bail, but I like the few simple rows of bezeling and frame embellishment that I added.  Very simple...nothing to detract from the pin design.  And the back features a plain square stitch loop to accommodate the necklace cord.  Adding a bead embroidered frame to ...

Both have been sold and are on their way to their forever homes! I showed you the bead embroidered kitty pendant on the left yesterday, and then promptly spent the rest of the day doing what I almost never do...I made a second one like it!  Different colors, but same pattern :-) To remind you, the focals are by Dorothy Supri of  Skyline Beads .  Aren't they the cutest? Copyright 2019 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

Sold! Dorothy Supri of Skyline Beads makes these adorable little focal pieces on dominoes and mini-dominoes.  I have enjoyed stitching around some of her full-sized pieces, but this one caught my eye and it was just so darned CUTE !!  It's only 1 1/4 inches high, so the total size of the pendant is quite tiny too.  It was fun making one that worked up so quickly. Here are two others that I've made with Dorothy's focals: Peacock bead embroidered pendant Winged giraffe bead embroidered pendant Step-by-step instructions for putting together a bead embroidered piece, including back stitch, edging brick stitch, and stack stitch can be found in the free first chapter of my e-book Every Bead Has a Story . Copyright 2019 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

Available!  Leave me a comment Instead of starting with the focal, this time I started with the beadwoven bail !  The one I chose was a previously stitched piece that you can learn more about at the link above and below. Open-centered triangular bail Now, that's not to say that I don't absolutely love the focal!  I do, and I've been saving it for something special.  It's a resin-coated polymer clay piece made by my friend Mary Anne Williams Knapp .  Mary Anne has online trunk shows that you can access through Facebook, but you better move quickly when her work is up for sale!  It gets scooped up with lightning speed.  I used some Miyuki drops on both an inner row and around the edging of this piece, along with some pearls and a lovely little raku bead by Amy Mealey of Xaz Bead Company . My e-book, Some Assembly Required , covers making different types of bezels to enhance both regularly shaped and irregularly shaped cabochons, connecti...

There are over 225 iron-on transfers in Heirloom Embroidery from Brian Haggard , specifically from his book Embroidered Memories .  The designs are classic for crazy quilts, and come in a variety of sizes.  There is only one page of embroidery stitch instruction in the very back, but surely you've got plenty of other books that cover the stitches!  This book is about pure iron-and-go!!  By C + T Publishing. This post contains affiliate links: Amazon

Available!  Leave me a comment When I was in Cambridge England recently, I went to a really nice little market.  It mostly had food, so of course I bought some tea...and then I turned a corner and found a lovely woman selling stones and fossils.  One of my favorite pieces that I've ever made features a small but almost perfect orthoceras fossil I bought in Alaska, so I was thrilled to find she had a little bin of them.  They were a bit shorter than my first, but that is absolutely fine.  The one on the left features a butterfly style bail that I've really enjoyed making recently, and the one on the right has my more typical square stitched bail on the back.  Finally!  I always planned to keep my original pendant and have resisted all offers to buy it, but now I can keep it guilt free! Copyright 2019 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 

I'm so happy to be able to share these treasures with you.  Our last stop in England was the world-famous British Museum.  My tastes have always run to the ancient, so I headed for some of the most ancient pieces in the collection.  Created about 2500 BC, these pieces of jewelry were found in a royal Sumerian tomb.  Sumer was the earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates.  One of the best-known city states in Sumer was Ur.  Most of the Sumerian artifacts in the British Museum come from Ur. This stunning headress is a reconstruction, but the jewelry is original.  This suggests the arrangement of the jewelry worn by the royal Sumerian women found in the grave called The Great Death Pit.  Below is the signage with information about this burial site.  Click the image to enlarge it for easier reading. These are some of the pieces worn by the queen's attendants, similar in ...

The other day, I showed you some photos that I was able to take in Cambridge England (link at the bottom of this post), and today I want to turn to the first of two world-class museums we visited in London!  In no particular order, here we go! Micromosaic jewelry pieces are made from the very smallest glass pieces (tesserae), some of which contain more than 5000 tesserae per square inch!  The necklace, bracelet, and earring set were most likely made in Italy around 1850. This piece is called Devil's Trumpet, and was made from recycled and electroplated cutlery in 2016 by artist Ann Carrington.  It was inspired by Dutch still life paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries. Life Began in Water , about 1950 by artist Sah Oved.  The necklace contains gold, silver, agates, jasper, and aquamarines. Inspired by a Picasso drawing, Portrait of a Woman , artist Wendy Ramshaw made this necklace in 1988 from patinated silver and colorcore. ...

Mike and I just returned from a trip to Cambridge and London, England!  Mike was working, and when I wasn't busy being a groupie, I was out exploring.  I loved loved loved visiting two of the museums in Cambridge, and was sorry that I didn't have time for more.  The Fitzwilliam Museum is not to be missed, but since it doesn't have much to do with beads per se, I thought I'd concentrate on the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology instead.  You must go if you every have the chance.  It is a "small" museum, but is three floors high, with lovely displays and wonderful guides/guards available. In no particular order, here are some of the things I liked best.  The quality of my shots is poor...the lighting as designed to preserve the pieces, of course, and flash photography (as everyone should know by now) is not appreciated.   The so-called square headed brooches of the Anglo Saxons.  They could be worn either direction, so the 19th centur...