Ladybird Beads is open for business!

I've decided to be brave and start selling the jewellery that's been featured on this page recently! Firstly to make more space and secondly so that I can justify spending stacks of money on sparkly beads....currently I'm only set up on Facebook but I hope to start on Etsy and/or Ebay in the near future. If you're on Facebook please check out the Ladybird Beads page, and if you're not but would like to buy sparkly things then please message me via this site!

A stitchy finish...and more!

Have found a little bit of the stitchy bug in the last week or so and managed to make a card for a friend's 40th birthday. It's a Margaret Sherry design from one of the mags and I think it's come out OK! I started it in France last week - I did take poor Maggie with me but was struck down by tonsillitis the day I arrived and couldn't face all the cording, so she is STILL unfinished.

I've also been playing with the beads again and recreated the mother's bracelet from the last post as I wasn't happy with it - and then I was so happy with it I made one with my babies' names on as well. The final pic is an anklet called 'Summertime Blues', 4 strands of seed beads and irregular shell beads plaited together with an extender chain, finished with a heart-shaped shell charm.

Shiny things!

More jewellery finishes - poor Maggie is still unfinished, I think I'll take her to France with me next week where there will be no other crafty distractions!

Below is an asymmetric necklace, worry beads (or golf counters), a 'Big Sister' bracelet for my neighbour's daughter, and the mother's bracelet for when the new baby eventually arrives, a bracelet with miracle beads and large lucite flowers, a heavy charm necklace that was originally going to be a bracelet, a matched set with lucite flowers and leaves, Toho seed bead stalks and Czech glass stalks, a Bollywood Bracelet (I don't know why, that was just what sprang to mind when it was finished. It's made with some sparkly beads that I had in a mix, if anyone can tell me what they are I'd be really pleased), and lastly a foiled blue glass bracelet and earrings.

Slowly but surely!

Finally braved the cording on Maggie last night (I've been too terrified of ruining the whole thing to try it!) and it isn't so bad - but it is slow going. Now I've started it might get quicker, but I'm so looking forward to finishing this! It's been on the frame since March 2006, and since then I've had two babies, finished all sorts of other things and taken up at least two new crafts.

On the other craft front - have been playing with charms and beads to make bracelets, and also finished an ambitious asymmetrical three-stranded necklace - photos to follow!

Updates and new finishes

Finally finished the backstitching and French knots on Maggie the Messmaker last night, and am now left with 'only' a daunting amount of cording to go. I've never done cording before and it looks fiddly, as you have to lay the cord (after making it) on the picture and then tack it down in swirls and squiggles. I'll start with the smaller areas first and work up to the big bits! Here she is in all her backstitched glory...I really like the lacy detail on the tablecloth. The cording will show the detail on the sewing machine, scissors and tablecloth, and will also form trails of yarn from the sewing box in the top right hand corner.


I've also been at the bead box again, which is growing ever larger in the corner - there are so many gorgeous ones out there, and so many lovely books for inspiration....below is a necklace and bracelet set with pink freshwater pearls, a lampwork focal bead and seed beads for a friend; a bracelet made from lampwork rose pillow beads inspired by a picture in a magazine; a more deliacte bracelet with tanzanite/pink bluebells and glass leaves from the current Beads & Beyond magazine; chunky charm bracelet with red crackle glass rounds, Tibetan silver leaves and flower charms and a Czech glass ladybird; and a turquoise ribbon & thong necklace with dangle made from a lampwork tube bead, a random round and some glass cube seeds.

Getting organised!

No more progress on Maggie but I have taken advantage of the long weekend to have a really good sort out of my stash of magazines and charts that I've been saving. I Freecycled* a HUGE pile of magazines and have been scanning all my loose charts into the computer, which has got rid of 5 huge files. The plan now is to scan anything I may want to do from future magazines as soon as I get them...let's see how long that lasts!

One plus of all this activity is that I've been really harsh with my stash of charts - scanning page by page is quite time consuming so I've forced myself to be realistic about what I'll actually do. I still have 6Gb of files though...

* anyone else having a clearout of stash may like to do the same! All crafty stuff seems to go within minutes, and mine was collected within the hour. Lots of charities also keep an eye on the Freecycle network so you could donate your unwanted stash to a worthy cause. See http://uk.freecycle.org/ for details of groups in your area.

Progress report!

In the last couple of weeks I've managed to get down to some work on Maggie at last. I've almost finished the basic black backstitching, then there are some details to add in three or four different colours, and then finally the cording which I've never done before. It can't be that difficult, surely! I'm looking forward to posting completed pics, as the end is surely in sight now...

I've also completed the design for my parent's Ruby Wedding sampler, and I'm being stern with myself - I can't start it till I've finished Maggie. I'm also working on the Fumitory Fairy from DMC, as my 'portable' project.

I have so many projects on the go, I really ought to organise myself....but then it wouldn't be so much fun!

Mother's Day gift

This pin is themed specifically for my mum! The charms are a Welsh dragon, a Welsh lovespooon, a Green Man, a daisy (my daughter), and Celtic knots. The red stones are garnets as she was born in January, and then I added some glass beads to chunk it out a bit. I did try and fit in a sheep and a Snorkmaiden (for my other daughter, named after the author of the Moomin stories) but that seemed a bit OTT. The ladybird spacers (in between the garnets on the right hand side) mean me....in case she forgets who made it! Next up is one for me, with lots of different ladybirds.

Crafty afternoon!

My lovely other half took Daisy off to his mum's this afternoon and it's amazing how much you can get done without the 'assistance' of a toddler! As well as the ironing I made bara brith - fruit teabread - and microwave fudge, finished the penguin bag and experimented with a kilt pin brooch kit I bought on ebay a couple of months ago. I didn't take a photo of the fudge but here's everything else...

Useful websites

I was having a trawl through cyberspace today in search of design paper and discovered two amazing sites where different grids can be downloaded for free, along with some other useful stitchy tools:

http://stitchpoint.com/eng/tool/grid/_intro_graphpaper.php - under the tools link at the bottom of the page you can also find a fabric calculator and quite the best alphabet generator I've come across.

http://www.cyberstitchers.com/StitchingTools/GridPaper/index.asp?processForm=0 - not only can you download different grids, but you can also upload your own image behind the 'paper' so you can see how it looks. How clever is that???

This week - as well as thinking about sampler design - I'm playing with kilt pins and beads. Will post pic of whatever I come up with. Ribbon scarf is 30cm long so far, and the weather today was positively springlike. Still, winter always comes round again...