Playing with my Beads...Ivy Bracelet with Candy Beads

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8mm 2-hole Candy beads "Chalk Lumi Green"
• 4mm druks "Bronze"
• SuperDuo beads "Opaque Green Senegal Matte"
• O-Beads "Opaque Green Luster"

I used our free "Ivy Bracelet" pattern to make this sample. I know that most kinds of 6mm 2-hole beads work well with the pattern but I didn't know if 8mm beads would also work. They do work but I had to make a tweak. Instead of the three seed beads on either side of the 2-hole beads, I used 4mm druks. When I tried using the seed beads there, they were stretched out straight instead of forming points. That made the beadwork too loose and the druks give the motifs more stability. Even so, this version is kind of soft but I think it would be fine while wearing it. The bracelet comes out only slightly wider than when made with 6mm 2-hole cabochons but it has a bolder look because the Candy beads are much larger than the 6mm cabs.

You'll find these 8mm Candy beads at Queen City Bead on Etsy HERE. Download the free "Ivy Bracelet" pattern from THIS post.
 

Playing with my beads...Sunflower Bracelet with Candy Beads

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• 8/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• 8mm 2-hole Candy beads "Light Blue Travertine"
• SuperDuo beads "Opaque Olive"

Before a huge storm came through yesterday afternoon, the sky brightened just long enough for me to FINALLY take LOTS of beadwork photos. Over the next week or so, I'll be giving you all kinds of ideas for using the new 8mm 2-hole Candy beads.

This bracelet design is from a YouTube tutorial by HoneyBeads1 and you can watch it HERE. I blogged before about some samples that I'd made HERE and HERE. 

The pattern calls for 8mm round beads so I thought maybe the 8mm Candy beads would also work and they do. I started to make this sample using two needles as directed by the video and decided that was too frustrating. I really don't enjoy beading that way. So, I figured out how to make it with one needle and it's so much easier than with two needles, especially with the 2-hole beads that I was using. I like the Candy beads in this bracelet even better than the round beads because they're flat on the back. Although I won't use these colors, I will make one of these bracelets for myself one of these days.

You'll find a nice selection of 8mm Candy beads at Queen City Bead on Etsy HERE.
 

Playing with my Beads...Retro Fans Earrings with Candy Beads

I've made lots of samples with the 8mm 2-hole Candy beads in the past few days but I haven't been able to take photos of them yet. Yesterday the sun came out just long enough for me to take pictures of these two sample earrings. The pattern that I used is Monika Extrano's "Retro Fans Earrings" which I originally blogged about HERE. Below is a photo of one pair that I made back in 2015 according to the pattern instructions:

Original Retro Fans Earrings

I tweaked the bottom part of the earring a little bit this time and left off the SuperDuo bead that hangs down in the center. I like how that looks and there are no SuperDuo holes left open. Instead of adding a SuperDuo in the center at the bottom, I replaced it with an 11/0 seed bead. That seems to work fine with both Toho and Miyuki seed beads.

They're a bit snug but I managed to get the Candy beads to fit inside the openings at the top of the earrings. The tricky part was figuring out where to attach them to the seed beads in the earring by going through each of the two holes. I got the black Candy bead attached a little more securely than the gold one. The gold one looks fine but the bead is a little more prone to popping up slightly on that one.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8mm 2-hole Candy beads "Jet"
• SuperDuo beads "Lustre Gold"

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• 8/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• 8mm 2-hole Candy beads "Matte Golden Olive"
• SuperDuo beads "Turquoise"

You can buy Monika's earring pattern in her Etsy shop HERE. You can get 2-hole Candy beads at Queen City Bead on Etsy HERE.

 

Free Graphics - Victorian Valentine Background

This started out as yet another Victorian card that wasn't very useful to me in its original condition but I really liked the border and background. I removed the heart, flowers and cherub and filled in some of the missing parts of the border. I think it will make a pretty greeting card or scrapbook element. The picture is much larger than it appears on my blog.

Here is what the original card looked like:

Feel free to use my pictures to make greeting cards, computer desktop wallpaper, calendars or scrapbook pages, etc. but please do not sell them or post them for download.
 

Jigsaw Puzzle - "Edwardian Boutique"

I thought I'd show you an example today of what Paint Shop Pro can do to give new life to a poor scan of a painting that I found online. The original picture looked very dull and almost monochrome as you can see below:

All I did was tweak it with some of the adjustment tools in PSP to bring the colors back to life as you can see below. Just for fun, I turned the picture into a jigsaw puzzle. I hope you enjoy it.

This puzzle was created with BrainsBreaker which you can buy HERE, but you don't need to buy the program to play my puzzle. Click HERE to download the puzzle.

I'm making a lot of progress making samples using the 8mm 2-hole Candy Beads that I told you about HERE. I've still got a few more ideas to try and maybe we'll have enough sun soon for me to take photos of everything I've been making.
 

Free Graphics - Ladies & Lace Series

This is the first in a series of graphics that I made for an "altered art" calendar. The calendar featured Victorian and Edwardian women on distressed lacy backgrounds.

Feel free to use my pictures to make greeting cards, computer desktop wallpaper, calendars or scrapbook pages, etc. but please do not sell them or post them for download.

I got some new beads in the mail yesterday and I'm hoping to have a chance to play with them today. They're Czech 2-hole Candy Beads. They are very similar to the 2-Hole Cabochons that I've blogged about before but they're 8mm in diameter instead of 6mm. They're also more rounded on the edges than the 6mm cabs. I don't know of any patterns for them so I'm going to try adapting some existing patterns to see if they will work. I got the beads from Queen City Bead on Etsy if you want to check them out. 

Here is what they look like:

8mm 2-hole Candy Beads

Here is a photo of some 6mm 2-Hole Cabochons for comparison:

6mm 2-Hole Cabochons

 

Free Graphics - Victorian Holy Card Fix-up

Below is another pretty Victorian card that wasn't useful to me in its original condition. I removed the greeting and baby Jesus picture then got rid of the black background behind the card. I also brightened up the dull colors. These pictures are much larger than they appear here on my blog.

Here is the result:

I'm also including this version with softer pastel colors more like the original:

Below you can see how this card looks when placed on a patterned background:

Feel free to use my pictures to make greeting cards, computer desktop wallpaper, calendars or scrapbook pages, etc. but please do not sell them or post them for download.

I was just looking at the weather website this morning and it would seem that we're in for over a week of rain and no sunshine is mentioned at all until at least next Wednesday. So, I might not be able to take any beadwork photos for a while which means that I will have to blog about graphics and craft projects in the meantime. Of course I will watch for any brief appearances of the sun and snap as many photos as I can.