The big hug - part 2

If you don't know part 1 of the big hug yet, you can find it here.

We left off at the cliffhanger of my dropping my boro lampwork shark on the kitchen floor. The nose and tail broke off, but I could only find part of the tail.
Then something unexpected happened that I can honestly not explain. At least a week later, I found the other piece of the tail, but have no idea where it suddenly came from because I had searched the whole kitchen floor. My best bet is that it had flown even further and the cats found it and knocked it back into the kitchen.
Anyhow, I suddenly had a bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to do something with it. Not what I had planned, not what I really wanted which would make me 100% happy, but something that was still good.

Now how to achieve that?
Obviously I had to glue the shark first. My complicated relationship with glue has long been a running joke among my friends. Much longer than my jewelry-making journey. It's a miracle I don't still have things glued to my fingers from years ago (that's actually a thing for me). I'm terrible with glue and my experience told me that the shark would not be perfect.
Surprise! Not. Of course it wasn't perfect.
So I would have to find a way to hide the scars the best I could. Distracting from them with gold as I had done for my friend's broken dolphin wasn't an option for me because the octopus is copper. Leaving the tail off completely and disguising it - unlike that of my shark the dolphin's tail never turned up again - wasn't an option either because I had the tail and love that long fin.

The tough part about hiding the scars would be that the one through the nose is very close to the eye and that there's a quite massive glass loop on the tail (it is a pendant after all). Had the shark been like a cab, all the way flat on the back, I might have been able to glue it completely onto some backing.
Even before starting I knew I wouldn't be all that happy with the nose part. Oh well.

What exactly should I do, though?
It was obvious that bead embroidery was the only way to go. As I said, this shark is much smaller than the other ones and was even more fragile now (haha). Just wrapping the octopus to it wouldn't make for a very sturdy construction.

So instead I would glue the shark onto the backing where possible, then sew the loop to it and hide it under beads. I would also glue the octopus's head as well as possible (there are wires from the wrapping in the back which lift it up a bit) just to make it hold safely enough while arranging the tentacles around the shark.

Please excuse this bad picture. It's one of my infamous
night time WIP pics and is usually just intended
 for friends. Actually, I had to retrieve it from an old
Facebook message. I hardly ever take real WIP pictures.

This, my friends, sounds a lot easier than it actually is. I first sewed the tentacles on in a few spots. Copper is pliable and can still very stubbornly refuse to do what you want, especially in thick wire wrapped like this, even more so if you go wild with tentacle loops. I would have loved to preserve more of the flow from the WIP pic, but that would have been very wide for a focal for myself.
Of course I would have to sew down the tentacles some more after deciding on bead placement.

So I did all of that and then I had a lot of space for beads. I didn't want to buy new beads at the time. I had a load of seed and cube beads in different sizes and a variety of blue, clear, green, purple, and who has been following my jewelry making for a while knows I can't resist pearls in water scenes.
I started in what I consider (my) classic bead embroidery meaning going in bead rows lying next to each other. Very organized looking, I thought it would make a nice calm background for the hug.
One corner in, I had to admit to myself that I hated it. Because of the thick wire, those tentacles aren't laying flat. So there are not only beads around them, but also quite a few over and  under them. There are also beads under the shark and over the scars (I'm indeed not all that happy with the nose part, but couldn't manage any better without concealing the eye) and under the octopus's head - and getting in these spaces in nice organized rows? Yeah, it didn't work.
I can't tell you how long it took me to embroider that background, one or two beads at a time.

A slightly better WIP picture, still meant for
friends. It doesn't do the sparkle in the
goldstone or the shark justice.

Next up - my old enemy, finishing jewelry.
Two months and still no chain.
Then, however, I remembered my mermaid (this is one big piece of jewelry, but luckily went to a customer who loves it big).

I still had some copper crimps and the faux leather ribbon whose colors worked well with the background.
When I tried it out, though, I didn't like the look of it after all. Somehow the focal seemed to call for a copper chain to go with the octopus.
Rummaging through my supply drawers, however, I only found chain in the wrong size and I really, really didn't want to make my own chain. So I went online shopping instead, but again the chains were either too small or didn't have the right look.
In the end, I found infinity links, which seem to mimic the loops of the tentacles, and used them with jump rings to make a chain. Luckily, I bought just the right amount!

Is this my vision? Heck no, it couldn't be much further from it. I wanted the octopus and the shark all by themselves, maybe with a few beads to hint at the ocean. Had the breaks be in different spots, I might have managed to do it.

Did I save the shark, though? I think so. Another broken piece that didn't go into the trash, but will be shining on. (The urge to get philosophical about broken beauty is big, but I'll spare you!)

The big hug - Part 1

Over ten years ago, I got several boro lampwork pendants from a very talented artisan, manatees (you can see one of them here), a dolphin (you have seen him before as well), and a shark. The pendants are absolutely gorgeous, but it took months for them to ship which put me off ordering more. That's a real pity because I have not seen any since that come even close to them.
Also the shark broke in transport. I got a replacement, but I was determined to find a way of using the broken one as well (I've done that more than once with components, but of course never sold those).

If you haven't noticed it yet, I don't just love sharks, but also octopuses.
This is a picture of just some of those I made over the years. A tiny one, bigger ones, a really big one. Ah, have you already seen it? Sharks!

I experimented with the broken pendant first. The idea had been to hide the glue marks behind tentacles, but show as much of the shark as possible.
It needed a lot of fiddling, but I managed. The pendant got the official name "The hug" because to me those two were friends rather than enemies.
If you think the second octopus-shark hug was easier to make with the experience gained, you would be wrong. Lampwork is really slippery and the tentacles had to sit just the right way to hold the shark safely. The loop on the back of the tail is the only spot where the octopus is actually wired to the shark itself.

The second pendant sold and the first one went to a friend (of course she knew about the glued spots).
I'll be honest, I quickly regretted not keeping one for myself, simply because it proved impossible to find another shark like these.

After searching for a long time, I finally found one and was so happy! It was much smaller than the other ones, but so beautiful.
Somehow I never got around to making something with it, though. There was always something else to try out and wirework was already becoming more difficult for me.
When it started getting really hard on my thumb, however, I knew it was now or never before I wouldn't be able to do it anymore at all. It had been a while since I had played with copper and it felt so good, but it took a lot of breaks to get my octopus finished over the next few weeks.

Talking of breaks ... when I was finally done and wanted to take the octopus to the kitchen to oxidize it, I missed that the shark, which had been in the same box, got tangled in some still loose wire ends. Yes, you have be quite stupid not to notice you are holding two things, but sometimes I am.

It could have fallen in the hallway on the one vinyl floor I have, but no, it fell in the kitchen, on the hardest of all my floors.
You know how some things seem to be happening in slow motion and yet it's impossible for you to do anything about them? Like the time I cut my finger and fingernail with the bread knife and my brain only woke up and told me not to cut there when I had already started bleeding like crazy.
There wasn't a chance for me to catch the shark before it hit the tiles and pieces started jumping. The nose and the tail had broken off (seems to be a thing, the same happened to my friend with her dolphin). I could only find the nose and part of the tail, though.

It may sound ridiculous to you, but I was devastated.
I couldn't replace this shark, no matter how much I looked around. There were a few lampwork sharks, both pendants and figurines and they were pretty, no doubt about that, but none of them had this elegance, none of them spoke to me.
I didn't even want to look at the octopus anymore which says a lot.
Then something unexpected happened and yes, I'm totally saying this as a cliffhanger.

See you for part 2, I hope!

Happy Birthday! or Friday the 13th

Happy Birthday to me! Or not?
This is not something I usually do, congratulate myself, I mean, but I will reach the big 60 soon and that seemed like a good occasion to make something for myself in time.
It's not a medal for making it that far ... although years ago I did make a "medal" for a colleague for her 40th work anniversary (I'm close to that one myself, ugh). Just as a joke of course, we gave her something nice, too.

No, of course I wanted something beautiful and something that was yelling my name.
There was something I had been planning for years now, but I didn't know if my fingers were up for it. Wire wrapping has become so hard for me, but I really wanted this.

I had written until here and then this happened today.

After several days with a lot of breaks - and a lot of whining - the piece was ready to be oxidized. I took it to the kitchen and then there was that sound. The lampwork shark I wanted to use with the octopus had been tangled in the tentacles - the irony because that had been the plan - without my noticing it (both my own fault) and it had fallen to the ground.

Couldn't it have fallen three steps earlier in the hallway with the PVC floor which would have given it a better chance? Well, it didn't. I glued the two pieces I could find back on as best I could, but one part is missing. Now I'm heartbroken because I can't get another shark like it.

I had been saving that shark for myself for years.
It won't get thrown away, but I don't know if I will be able to make something with it. It will definitely not work with the octopus. I don't even know if I want to finish that now and also didn't feel like taking a picture of the octopus WIP or the broken shark 😭

I just needed to vent.

The first nest

There are some things you can't learn early enough and among those is how to choose a comfortable spot for hanging out - literally in this case.

Melisande and Schwabhild, the new arrivals in the farmyard, were lucky to have a mother and aunts who are experienced in that sort of thing and found the perfect nests for the girls from where they don't just have a great view, but in which they can also swing!
You can tell from their wide eyes that there is truly a lot to see there.
So many new experiences for a pair of little chicks 💕

Erm, Happy New Year?

I know, I know, I'm a bit late. I can only hope you'll forgive me - happy New Year to all of you!
Have you already broken the first of your resolutions for 2024?
I haven't, but that's simply because I have given up on resolutions a long time ago. I don't like setting myself up for failure like that ;-)

It's hard enough for me to start into this year after my time off work. As usual when having more time to myself than just my weekends, I snapped right back into my normal rhythm, meaning staying awake into the wee hours of the morning, sleeping as long as the cats allowed me to, maybe going back to bed after their first, second, and third breakfasts - obviously they are hobbit cats - or having a glorious nap in the middle of the day. I only needed my alarm clock, so I would take out the trash out in time or for one of my rare morning appointments. It was a sad moment when I turned on the alarm clock on Sunday night before I had to start working again, and after more than a week I am still struggling with it.

Somehow that also put a bit of a damper on my creativity. That doesn't mean I haven't done anything this year yet.
A new little chicken, Friedrun, picked a nest for herself and her triplets Huey, Dewey, and Louie (yes, named after ducks).

Two bead embroidered autumn suns made me dig into my old stash once again, this time for the beautiful frosted carnelian beads.

Then, however, I started working again and, creatively seen, took a very easy way out by beading more folded peyote earrings in different color combinations. Actually, I surprised myself by having the patience for so many, but they were the perfect "background beading" (meaning I only had to concentrate on the colors, not so much on the technique which seems to have made its way into my brain at last) while I am contemplating my next big project for which I have an idea, but am still looking for the best way to do it.

There would even have been a blue version that had been suggested, but I didn't have enough blue beads left for a pair of earrings. I do have a lot of grey ...
What do you think, how many more folded peyote earrings will there be before my muse will finally give me that spark that I need to get started on the next biggie? ;-)

Waiting for pizza

They could hatch anytime now and they would definitely be hungry. Where was that guy with the pizza??
Merlinde congratulated herself on her choice of the little swing basket up in the tree as a nest. From here, you had a really good view over to the driveway and the soft swinging in the breeze calmed down the eggs.

I sure hope the pizza will turn up soon before Merlinde falls out of her nest! But wait, chicken can fly a short distance ... I almost forgot ;-)

Melusine

I guess it had to come like this. Melusine had to try this after her sister Eulalia did and found it was surprisingly comfortable ... ;-)
A trend started?

Eulalia and the new nest

Eulalia was not like the other chickens. If they did one thing, Eulalia did another, just to show it could be done.
One thing of those was that she absolutely refused to build her nest inside the coop. She needed something for herself, something different, something that was just hers, and she found it.
It was a very comfortable little basket, as if it were made especially for her and there was even some nice hay in it for extra comfort.
The others began to eye her a bit jealously ... I wouldn't be surprised if more of them follow suit, but what will Eulalia say to that?

,

The broken dolphin

"My dolphin broke. It fell and the nose and fluke broke off. Do you think I could get a new one?"
Alas, no. The boro dolphin pendant had been from a shop that doesn't seem to exist anymore, at least the website doesn't look up-to-date at all. So what to do about my friend's dolphin?
I asked her if she still had all the parts, but no matter how she searched, she was able to find the nose, but not the fluke.
She sent me a quick picture and my brain started ticking.

This was still better than the other way round. I could try to hide the missing fluke, and the nose could be glued on, and wasn't it a nice coincidence that I had asked for a "gilding" (not real gold) kit for my birthday?
I told my friend I would try to figure something out, and soon after the poor little dolphin arrived at my house (nose already glued on, so I didn't have to do it, phew).

First of all, I gilded the nose. It had been glued on a tiny bit crooked, so the seam is a little visible, but not too badly, I think. Unfortunately I'm not the restoration master I saw on NHK the other day who made cracks disappear completely.
As it felt only a golden nose and forehead would look a little strange, I decided to gild the fins and the nose tip as well.

After that, the dolphin had to wait some time. I kept picking him up hoping he would tell me what to do next.
I thought of a wire structure around his tail end that I could secure going through the big glass bail on the back, then I thought of the same, but beaded in some kind of way. I saw pearls and blue crystals for the ocean to make him appear mid-breach, but I just didn't know how to start.

Then it came to me. Bead embroidery. A mix of blue seed beads. I could make one cut in the beading foundation for the glass bail and a second one to put the tail end through to hide it.
I glued the dolphin to the beading foundation and cut it into shape, but I wasn't completely happy with the spot where the tail end went through the cut.
So I added an extra patch at the bottom that went over the tail end and another one at the back to fill up the spot where the foundation bent because of the tail's thickness.
That was so much better.

I sewed on the seed beads and added some crystal rondelles, then the backing and the edging.
Another worry of mine had been that the layers of foundation and the backing might be too thick for the chain to go through the glass bail, but it works just fine.
It's hard for me to resist dangles, also I felt they would give the piece some balance. To me they represent the splash of water when the dolphin breaches.

Doesn't our dolphin look so much happier now than in his broken state?

Nevermore - again

That may make no sense at first, but with the backstory it will, believe me.
It's actually rather simple.
Eight years ago I bead loomed an Edgar Allan Poe portrait pendant after my own design and made a small polymer clay raven for it. I called the pendant "Nevermore" and was immensely proud of how my raven had turned out.

I always wanted to make another pendant, but my polymer clay days were over. So I looked for raven charms online every, now, and then, but never found what I wanted or needed.
This year, however, I stumbled upon the cutest lampwork beads by Christiane Imkamp, tiny crows sitting on a pumpkin or a cactus. I asked Christiane if I could have just crows and much to my delight she said those had already been on her list. A few days later she had listed them in her shop.
Of course to me they were not crows, but ravens, and they looked just perfect.

After der Dekan moved in, I decided to give my bead loom a break because I didn't trust the little beast around open bead cups. I still don't and if you had just seen him tear down my clamp rod and curtain from one window and knock over a storage box to get to my lacrosse ball, not for a massage, but to roll it around the wooden floor - great noise in the middle of the night - you would well understand why.
The little master "has spring" as I call it which makes him even crazier than he usually is. And it being night, he can't even watch birds now.

I had underestimated him completely, I have to admit, and now it has been two years that none of my looms has been touched, except for putting them back in their spots on the Stairs to Nowhere after der Dekan has knocked one down once again (no worries, my beloved JaLa is locked away safely).
But once my ravens had arrived, I couldn't ignore the itch in my fingers any longer. So I gave dem Dekan - and of course Gundel - something to eat because that is the best way to get him out of the room and then locked myself in with my loom.

Can you believe that I was nervous at first? It showed in my mistakes on the first few increases and decreases when I went through the wrong warp gap, but I quickly got back into the flow of counting and looming.
Then the pendant was finished and I could get to re-weaving each thread back into the loomwork. It was just as meditative as ever.
At first you have a whole bunch of threads (72 in this case, to be exact) getting in one another's way, and then there are fewer and fewer, the piece looks cleaner and cleaner, so satisfying ... it's hard to explain, but you probably have your own things that make you feel this way.

Finally he was in my hand, Mister Edgar Allan Poe, and it felt so good.
All he needed now was his little Nevermore - again.

Count Catula

First of all let me say I'm sorry for not wishing you a Happy New Year yet. You know how it is, life got in the way. So here I am, very late. A Happy New Year!

Now I want to show you some amazing footage from Bran Castle, also known as Dracula's Castle.
Seems as if the castle has a new owner, and I got an exclusive picture of him. I don't know, there is something odd about him, but I can't quite put the finger on it. Wait ... are those cat ears and a tail??

Picture of Bran Castle by Dobre Cezar on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0 ro)

Tackle that stash - The Leopard

Usually I make a pendant first and then put a bail on it. In this case it was the other way round.
When I took some shorter wires out of my leftovers baggie the other day to turn them into a pair of earrings - in the end they became sparkly butterflies - I found a wire woven bail, so now I had to find something to put on there. I don't even remember putting it in there. Had I cut it off a different piece or was it one of those leftover wire projects I did in the hope of finding the right piece for it eventually? No idea.

I went to my stash drawers and tried a lampwork tree bead first, but it was too long. Then I thought a bigger mookaite bead would be nice, but the bead holes were too small on all of them.
Then I found the leopard. The leopard was another of those beads that I thought would never make their way out for lack of a good idea. I got it from Babs Beads & Design many years ago. I remember falling in love a whole group of "animal print" beads. I used one of them in a wire knit pendant in combination with some jasper, but the others patiently waited for their turn.

Sometimes things can suddenly be real easy. The wires on the bail had the perfect length, so why not let this little beauty shine on its own?
The funny part is that I had thought the exact same thing a few years ago. I used the bead in a ring with a wire woven band then which I had completely forgotten about. When I happened to see the picture in one of my folders just now, I remembered that I hadn't been all around happy in the end with the way the ring sat on my finger.
I like the bead much better in a pendant and think this could even be unisex, maybe on a leather cord. Now I just have to decide if I'll oxidize the copper to an even darker color although it is not as light as it comes out in this picture.
What do you think?

Tackle that stash - First Christmas ornaments 2019

Among the glass beads a friend from Prague had sent me a while ago (for me a while can be anything between two days and two years) were two twisted glass ornaments, a short green one and a long purple one.
It would have been easy to put a hook on them to hang them on my Christmas tree or turn them into little pendants, but I'm not always going for easy, so I waited and waited and waited some more for my muse to turn on her brain and come up with something.
The only thing I knew from the start was that they wouldn't become jewelry which probably had to do with childhood memories.
My best friend's grandfather always had two trees. There was one in the big room and there was a smaller one in the playroom. It had a stand that had a music box and rotated - I don't remember what melody it was, I'll have to ask my friend - and it was decorated with beautiful vintage twisted glass icicles.
At least that's how I remember it, and ever since twisted glass, even if it's not clear, makes me think of that Christmas tree.

I know, some of you will think it's too early, but firstly we don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, so that's not a reason for me to wait, and secondly, it would be really hard to get everything done if I don't start before December!
The idea for these ornaments finally came from the peyote rings I had been making.
All of the components are stash, even some of the thread has been in my drawer unused for several years, not to mention the bubble lampwork beads that have been with me for even longer. Compared to those, the Delicas are rather new.
Unfortunately it proved quite hard to take a good picture because it's November grey here today and because the size and colors are so different. In case you can't see it well, the green ornament has got a little white peyote tube and an almost clear bubble bead, the purple one has metallic fuchsia beads and a pink bubble bead.

Maybe I'll give these two away as gifts, Ponder had already that glint in his eye saying how much he is looking forward to play with them. The twisted glass is attached to the wire that runs through the lampie and the peyote tube in a way that allows it to dangle, absolutely irresistible for my old man who likes to think he's still a kitten! ;-)
Another reason is that my little tree is running out of space. "You're gonna need a bigger tree!" my mind keeps telling me, but the spot on the stairs is so perfect for the little one.
First world problems!

Tackle that stash - Lampwork, silver, and crystals

Lately I have been working on making more earrings. You know I sometimes struggle making the same thing twice, so this is not always easy for me.
When going through my lampwork stash in search of inspiration again, however,  I found these beautiful drop headpins on sterling silver by Iced Moments.
The easiest way to use them is just bending the silver into earwires, I "made" a pair of earrings for myself that way. For these I wanted a little more, though not too much to keep the drops the main attraction.

In my crystal stash I still have some 2 mm crystals, and these three colors - a sapphire blue and a grey and light blue in kind of an opalite shimmer - seemed to be perfect for the earrings, so I wrapped them on using a fine sterling silver wire.
Just a pair of my handmade earwires and there you go. It doesn't always need much.

Tackle that stash - The face

This piece hasn't started as a stash tackler. It started as a pair of lips, and I don't even know where that idea suddenly came from because my original plan had been to make another attempt on an olive wood disk (from one of my very first pendants ever that I cruelly ripped apart ;-)), and every time there was the one problem of the weaving not staying on the disk the way I wanted it to, and finally the disk was scratched and I started hating it and threw it out after scratching it some more to make sure I wouldn't get it out of the basket again to try an umpteenth time and ... yeah, sorry about that, I may have gone overboard a little ;-)
As you can tell lips were a very unusual design idea in that situation, but there they were, and they made me wonder if I could put a nose on them .... and eyebrows .... and how to make the eyes? .... and all that while some true crime documentaries were running in the background because I was being obsessed, so I couldn't stand up and pick a DVD.

You know how some things will be forever be connected with other things? I worked on the white bead loomed choker while watching the X-Files episode with the dogs and the 1960 Village of the Damned, my very first wire crochet piggy sculpture saw life on Christmas to the sounds of a Max Raabe concert, and this face may be reminding me of a French serial killer *eyeroll* I'll get over it.

Maybe you are wondering about the stash now.
I got these beautiful beads in March 2012. I know that so precisely because I found my old review. Melissa who made them stopped lampworking shortly after that which I still find very sad, that's why I am hanging on to the beads I still have from her. These were the only lentils I had, however, and they happened to fit in size. Otherwise I would have, no, I really don't know what I would have done. Order beads, think of something else, it's useless wondering because these were it, and they gave the face an interesting look.

No idea what I am going to do with it. If I find the right background, I may put it into a frame without the glass and hang it up out in the hallway to confuse the neighbors ;-)
The eyes make me think of a mask, probably because of Egyptian death masks, so maybe some kind of sand for the background? Of course it has to be light or dark enough to keep the contrast even when the copper starts getting a patina.
Let me know what you think!

Tackle that stash - Fine silver, glass, and pearls

I love Art Nouveau. The patterns in this glass cabochon (made by Deronda O'Neill) always reminded me of Art Nouveau flowers with their beautiful flow on the matte black background.

I felt the cab called for something more organic looking, not symmetrical, with a little flow of its own.
First I crocheted a bezel from fine silver wire, widened the stitches here and there and then filled the whole top up with randomly placed freshwater pearls - pearl by pearl individually attached.
Shimmering in different colors, those small pearls match the pattern in the cabochon so well and are so beautiful. I tend to sit on them like a dragon on his hoard, but pearls need light, not a shut drawer.
Last I added a wrapped bail, very small this time, so it wouldn't distract too much from the pearl clusters.
And here's the pendant now ...

Don't miss the new episode of the stash tackler series next week! ;-)

Tackle that stash - Wire woven orphan lampwork bead rings

In the German version of this post's title I couldn't resist the stereotype of German words - Drahtwebwaisenlampworkperlenringe.
There is no such word. Had I ever used something like it in one of my German tests, my teacher would probably have knocked me over the head with a blunt instrument. Okay, probably not, I guess I have been watching too many TV crime shows again. Probably she would have used the red pen, though.

Sadly I have to admit that some beads proved to be no real orphans. There are always some orphan siblings around that I just didn't find in my lampwork drawer at the moment because they slipped into another baggie for a visit. Or it's one of those cases when I kept picking up a bead and didn't even realize it wasn't one bead, but two that looked the same (which reminds me of the time I thought I had lost one earring, so I kept wearing it in the extra hole of my left ear until I found out I had alternated between the two earrings ... it's true, my personal jewelry box is less organized than the biz ones).

This "orphan" actually has at least two siblings that I found after I had made the ring. They hid with some blue beads. I just hope I hadn't planned to put all of them in a design together?

And this beautiful leopard has always been a single bead, meant to shine by itself.

Maybe I'll try some orphan pendants next! What do you say?

Tackle that stash - Gunmetal and gold and lampwork, oh my

It's incredible what treasures you sometimes find in your house.
I went through my nightstand drawer (I have no idea what others keep in there, but mine holds supplies) and literally struck gold! Gold wire, to be more precise. 4 feet of 9 ct gold wire that I had completely forgotten about and that spent years in that drawer hidden away in the back corner because I didn't know what to do with it.
I got it with the intention to use it as accent in a wire crochet piece, but the wire kept breaking, so I had to give up on that plan. Every time I stumbled upon it, I looked at it for a while and then put it back again.
This time, however, I had a new technique up my sleeve.

No matter how careful I was, the wire started twisting up and finally broke in a few spots, but I managed to finish this pendant.
Another successful stash tackler! ;-)

Tackle that stash - Beaded spring flower necklace

So I have been a little flower crazy lately. I made earrings, a pendant, experimented with more petals, ripped up said experiment. Sorry, guys, I'm afraid this hasn't been the end yet.
Not even today's stash tackler has been the end.
First of all let me tell you the story of this seed bead stash. I have won these beads in a contest. They are seed beads of different colors and sizes. My problem were - the different colors and sizes. I don't work in opaque colors much. I didn't have enough beads of the same size for using them together in a nicely patterned loomed piece and off loom beading is not high on my list. A whole cup of transparent green size 15 seed beads? What on Earth could I make with them?

Over the years I used some of them in wire crochet and knit projects. The others I kept looking at, desperately waiting of a sign from the beady gods.
Once again a rope did the trick. A beaded rope would use up those tiny green beads very nicely, and then I could decide what to do with it. Herringbone. Herringbone spiral. When this was finally done, the flower idea jumped to mind.
One flower, two flowers, speckled flowers. How many flowers, though? After all my choice of color was limited. Leaves. Leaves and vines.
And last but not least ... hm ... a beaded butterfly? Wouldn't that be too much? And what colors? No butterfly, but .... hey wait, why didn't think of that right away? Perfect. A rotund, happy, cute as can be lampwork bee by Izzybeads.

A closer look.

An extra bonus was that this necklace qualifies for the JAC April challenge "Spring has sprung".
The necklace is not available yet because I am still waiting for some findings, but you can tell me how you like it, anyway ;-)

Tackle that stash - The Manatee

Did you hear that it has been proposed to take manatees off the US endangered species list?
The first thought is of course "oh good, that means that they are doing better, right" and then you start thinking about what exactly it might mean. Will they be less protected? What does "endangered" mean anyhow? What is the next level if they are downgraded? It's "threatened". Oh, doesn't sound THAT much better, does it? Here's an article if you want to know more.

Now you may wonder what that has to do with my stash and why I break my rule to keep this a crafty blog, even if just for a small introduction?
First came a stash of bigger, irregular seed beads in ocean colors. Dark blue with a hint of AB luster, a transparent sky blue and a silver-lined light blue. I couldn't have found any other design for to use them, so I crocheted a long rope from wire.
Then I came upon the news about the manatee and remembered the beautiful lampwork pendant by Tom Heath from Sanctuary Glass Designs that I still had in one of my treasure boxes. Actually it's more than beautiful. It's clear glass over a base that gives you the feeling as if you are looking into water with light playing on it.

Now I'll have to think of some way to use Tom's shark pendant that has also been waiting in the box for too long ...