Chrysanthemum Brooch

 

 

I made this brooch as a present for my friend, Steph's birthday. The design is from "Bead Metamorphosis" by Lisa Kan. The rivoli is Crystal Volcano. I also used bronze daggers beads  and purple iris gold rizo beads. The design of the back of this brooch cleverly incorporates the brooch pin. It took me a while to find the round brooch back the design required, but it was worth the effort. I found the daggers in the completed brooch were a bit too loose, which may have been my tension. To get around this I built up an extra couple of peyote rings behind the daggers to stop them getting pushed back.

 

 

 

TV Projects

 

 

I almost called this post "So That's Where I Put It!". Earlier this year a couple of blogs I read have shown Anne's Orchard bead embroidery kits. I knew I had done one but I couldn't remember where it was. Then last month my friend Steph visited and brought 2 yummy balls of alpaca and silk yarn from NZ. When I put the yarn in my TV project bag, I found where my beaded fox had been lurking. Like most crafters I don't like watching TV without keeping my hands busy. My TV projects are usually knitting or cross-stitch but can be anything that doesn't require too much concentration.



 

This wasn't technically a TV project because I sat at a table to do the fox and only finished the background in front of the of the telly. But like many of my TV projects, unless it's done for a specific purpose, when it's finished it just gets left in the bag. It was a really fun project to do and I would recommend the kits.

 

 

This cross-stitch design is the Orangery at Dunham Massey Hall, a National Trust property near my parents. I bought the kit 10 years ago and it was on the go a fair amount of that time. I'm dreading taking those drawing pins out because I know they've rusted.

 

 

 

This bookmark is in better condition. It's the Sulu Islands Sash Panel from Travellers Tales. I remember starting this on holiday 2 years ago, but I bought the kit quite a while before that. 

 Finally here's the TV project bag itself. The pattern is Gracie from Lazy Girl Designs. Considering it's 10 years old I think's lasting quite well.

Camera Cake

 

Our friend Steve has a big birthday this year and as we were meeting up for a weekend at Center Parcs, we challenged Jen to make him a cake. As Steve is a keen photographer, a camera was the obvious choice. Jen used her own Canon SLR as a model. She included so much detail, on the front and the back. 

 

The camera was made using a mixture of rice krispies and marshmallows, so that it wouldn't be too heavy for the cake. This was the same technique she used on the "Owl I want for Christmas" cake.

 

Here's a photo she took with her own camera. It rather puts my phone camera shots to shame. She has started taking pictures of my beadwork and embroidery as opportunities to practice. So if some of the photos on my blog start to look a bit more professional - now you know why.



 



Purple Granada Pendant

 

It's almost six months since my last post with pictures of our Christmas tree. It seems wrong to post more Christmas pictures in June but I'd like to do one more Christmas related post to clear the buffers. Last year I taught my Mum how to braid with a Kumihimo disk. She got the hang of it and went on to produce a braid long enough for me to make a necklace for her. Then of course the necklace needed a pendant so together we picked out the beads for a Granada pendant. Granada is a Sabine Lippert design from her Beaded Fantasies book. The colours were so dark I found I got the best photographs by hanging it on the Christmas tree.

 

 





Here is this year Christmas cake, which is another masterpiece by our daughter Jen. It's based on a design from the 2015 winter issue of Cakes and Sugarcraft magazine.

 

 

 

This year, Jen got our younger daughter, Christina, involved. I think there maybe another budding sugarcraft artist in the house. At some point on Christmas Eve, Christina created this cute little chap.