My niece Cheeks modeling the beaded bugs.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Beading: BUGS
Behold the bugs...
These little buggers were a lot of fun to make, more so than the flowers because they didn't seem so tedious and the outcome was so cute! It felt a lot like when I crochet, a lot of loops turning into something really cute and you cant wait to see the end product so you just keep working.
I could only use the colored copper wire I was so excited about with black seed beads that I had bought previously for a different project because the colored beads I had bought for this project were too small for the wire to fit through a second time.
I made the bugs into bobby pins for my nieces to wear who are both three. I added some super glue onto the bobby pins in addition to wrapping the extra wire around the pins to secure them but the glue didn't really want to hold so that was a little frustrating.
I think the end product is really cute and really fun. I am excited to see the pins on my nieces (one of which has the cutest little red curly cues so the bugs should look pretty sweet hiding in those curls.) It is always cathartic to make gifts for them as they both live so far away and I only get to see them a few times a year. Making things for them always brings me closer to them in my mind and spirit.
Other ideas for these bugs would be to put them on a beaded wire necklace for a little girl or a bracelet of some kind.
Good project Ms. Stewart, I enjoyed it.
These little buggers were a lot of fun to make, more so than the flowers because they didn't seem so tedious and the outcome was so cute! It felt a lot like when I crochet, a lot of loops turning into something really cute and you cant wait to see the end product so you just keep working.
I could only use the colored copper wire I was so excited about with black seed beads that I had bought previously for a different project because the colored beads I had bought for this project were too small for the wire to fit through a second time.
I made the bugs into bobby pins for my nieces to wear who are both three. I added some super glue onto the bobby pins in addition to wrapping the extra wire around the pins to secure them but the glue didn't really want to hold so that was a little frustrating.
I think the end product is really cute and really fun. I am excited to see the pins on my nieces (one of which has the cutest little red curly cues so the bugs should look pretty sweet hiding in those curls.) It is always cathartic to make gifts for them as they both live so far away and I only get to see them a few times a year. Making things for them always brings me closer to them in my mind and spirit.
Other ideas for these bugs would be to put them on a beaded wire necklace for a little girl or a bracelet of some kind.
Good project Ms. Stewart, I enjoyed it.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Chapter B - Beading, Project 1: Flowers
Things I learned with this project:
1. Seed Beads are expensive and I never should have gotten rid of the millions I had just because they fell out of their separate containers and got all mixed together.
2. Being a crafter means getting excited over such things as an assortment of different colored copper wire
3. That K-Marts still exist and that the one in Broomfield smells like fumes people huff out of aerosol cans and still has the design and neon lights it had in 1984
4. Working with thin, 30 gauge wire is just as frustrating or more than working with string. Kinks and knots occur frequently and are hard to get out because the wire is stubborn (so its a mystery on why the kinks get there in the first place)
5. That I don't know what I was thinking when I was obsessed with beading on a loom in high school.
6. That I remember that working with seed beads was just the kind of tedious project my brain needs to get me to stop obsessing.
7. That the lamp my sister made me with the shade made entirely of seed beads is a masterpiece in patience and talent. (Honestly I already knew that - I have fallen asleep by its light many nights thinking "oh my god, how did she do that it must have taken her forever and about seven hundred fits of frustrated rage at those tiny little beads").
8. That I can become just as upset at my seed beads as my husband becomes at our sod when little round spots of it turns brown, reminding myself to cut him a little slack
9. Flower tape is not actually tape, it is barely sticky at all.
10. Beaded flowers are beautiful.
Side Note: I made the small camellia flower and instead of adhering it to velvet ribbon for a wedding corsage as Martha suggests, I sewed it to a string of leather so that it was a bracelet that could be worn everyday. See below for pictures.
1. Seed Beads are expensive and I never should have gotten rid of the millions I had just because they fell out of their separate containers and got all mixed together.
2. Being a crafter means getting excited over such things as an assortment of different colored copper wire
3. That K-Marts still exist and that the one in Broomfield smells like fumes people huff out of aerosol cans and still has the design and neon lights it had in 1984
4. Working with thin, 30 gauge wire is just as frustrating or more than working with string. Kinks and knots occur frequently and are hard to get out because the wire is stubborn (so its a mystery on why the kinks get there in the first place)
5. That I don't know what I was thinking when I was obsessed with beading on a loom in high school.
6. That I remember that working with seed beads was just the kind of tedious project my brain needs to get me to stop obsessing.
7. That the lamp my sister made me with the shade made entirely of seed beads is a masterpiece in patience and talent. (Honestly I already knew that - I have fallen asleep by its light many nights thinking "oh my god, how did she do that it must have taken her forever and about seven hundred fits of frustrated rage at those tiny little beads").
8. That I can become just as upset at my seed beads as my husband becomes at our sod when little round spots of it turns brown, reminding myself to cut him a little slack
9. Flower tape is not actually tape, it is barely sticky at all.
10. Beaded flowers are beautiful.
Side Note: I made the small camellia flower and instead of adhering it to velvet ribbon for a wedding corsage as Martha suggests, I sewed it to a string of leather so that it was a bracelet that could be worn everyday. See below for pictures.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
PROJECT 2: Memory Boxes, Continued
Dear Martha:
I regret to inform you that your instructions for the Memory Boxes (specifically, shadow boxes) were unclear...
These instructions involve cutting balsa wood to make a false backing for a deep picture frame to give yourself room to create 3-D images inside of the frame. I did not realize the point of the balsa wood until I finished the background, realizing something needed to hold up the glass if it was not to be the back of the frame. I was lucky enough to have gotten a frame that already had inserts to hold up the glass because the frame itself came with border inserts. I started off by cutting the balsa wood and then ended up feeling totally confused as to what to do with it. So I skipped ahead to making the background and only then realized what it was for. I ended up just using the inserts the frame came with as they seemed just as good or better than the balsa wood.
I would recommend you all try to find a frame that does not involve the cutting of balsa wood. You will cut down on expense because you would not need paper tape. You will also cut down on the tedious extra work of removing clips and such as Martha instructs. (By the way, when clips are fastened with bolt like strength and have no places to insert a screwdriver, that task is impossible).
I chose my trip to France as the subject of the shadow box because Paris is just the right amount of whimsical.
I made my decroative paper background by using pink paint and a sponge. The cloud is a cotton ball and to give the Eiffel Tower just enough "umph" I mounted it on balsa wood.
This project took me a little less then two hours and cost me about $25 but that was thanks to the half price sale Hobby Lobby was having on most of the items I bought.
So let me say thank you to Martha for this project as it was just the distraction I needed on a night when nothing and no one else could do that for me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)