New Adventures!!

Lately I have felt a surge of new energy and a renewed interest in things I have previously neglected...I have done so much soutache in the past year that I actually came to miss regular beadwork!! And since I was also a little fed up with making regular flowers I decided the time was right to finally try something completely different that I've never done before: a whole bead embroidery necklace!!

This idea came about just as random as most of my other ideas,- I was cleaning up my desk, a very rare event (as my family will gladly tell you!!) and I found these beautiful glass roses...never used them for anything else but all of a sudden I figured it would be interesting to see what would happen if I glued them down and beaded around them and before I knew it, half of this necklace was done! Much easier than I thought it was going to be and a few days later, voila,- here's the result! I loved making this and I'll definitely be trying a new necklace soon! But first, prior commitments to finish!! :)
Happy beading, everyone! ♥

Fashion Colorway 2012

crimson rapture
Originally uploaded by Cielo Design
For the past three years, the talented and much admired bead artist Zoya Gutina has been posting a fashion color competition, encouraging beaders from around the world to challenge themselves, using one of three optional color combination.

From her blog, mylovelybeads:

"The International Fashion Colorworks Beading Contest is held by My Lovely Beads. Entries should be made using one of the color combinations made up of three colors announced by the Pantone Color Institute, the world-renowned authority on color and provider of color systems, as top 10 colors for spring's fashion"

This is the first year I entered a piece and I was delighted to discover that my necklace "Crimson Rapture" won the price for "Best Choice of Color". Congratulations to all the winners!! Let's continue to inspire each other! :)

So it's like this...

Waterlilies necklace
Originally uploaded by Cielo Design

The never ending saga of copyright infringement is getting to be quite tedious to me, it feels like very day another copy of my work pops up and while I suppose some would consider that flattering, I feel it's somewhat disrespectful of the hard work I put into every design to make it uniquely mine. Goodness knows that I enjoy sharing my work with my students, I always make it a point to teach them exactly what they want, every detail and tip I can think of,- there's nothing intimidating about that, quite the contrary, it's is my firm belief, and always has been, that each and every one of us have our own artistic fingerprint that we leave on our work, that has nothing to do with technique or design as such, I know that I can spot my favorite bead artists work a mile away just from the little details that make it theirs...Having said all that, lately a rather disturbing trend has come to my attention. Now it seems that copying my work is TOO much efford and therefore, why not simply copy my pictures of my work and claim it as their own?! I can't even begin to imagine what make people do something like that, especially in our tight knit beading community where everyone knows everyone and their work..but alas, it is a fact that these things happen and as a consequense of that, I have had to resort to numerous IRRITATING hours figuring out how to watermark my pictures. Duh. One should think this would be an easy task, but noooo....otherwise computer savy, I hit a wall when it comes to anything graphic. Also the reason I don't yet sell tutorials...but here's my first attempt! Looks pretty good, no?! :D:D Rant over. ♥

Bead Dreams 2012

Bead Dreams 2012
Originally uploaded by Cielo Design

Bead Dreams came and went and while I didn't win any price, I feel super excited to have been part of the exhibition among the best of bead artists from around the world. I was lucky enough to have a few people attending the shows, students and teachers alike, and they were kind enough to capture my necklace on display there, probably as close as I'm going to get to the Bead and Button show for now but it's much better than nothing! :) Thanks to Met Innmon for taking this picture!! ♥

A while back I was approached by The Bead Smith about creating something using their new line of Elegant Element clasps, a wonderful challenge in which many gifted artists participated with great results, one design more stunning than the rest, (these creations can be viewed here).
This month the necklace I created is featured in Making Jewellry magazine along with 3 other fantastic artists. What a great honor and what fun it was to create!!

Once Upon a Time- Bead Dreams Finalist 2012

Once Upon a Time- Bead Dreams Finalist 2012
Originally uploaded by Cielo Design

Just got the word,- my Once Upon A Time soutache necklace was accepted as a finalist in Bead Dreams 2012!!! I feel very honored and happy that the hard work has paid off, so much energy and love goes into these competition pieces and it's easy to loose perspective of what's really important,- the journey, the creative process, the love for the craft...last year my entry didn't make the finals and it was a very humbling experience but I'm glad I wasn't discouraged to pursue my passion and give it another go...Being part of it already feels like winning!! :) Good luck everyone!!! ♥

Soutache, soutache....

About two years ago I bought a whole lot of soutache thinking it might be fun to explore this delicate and innovative technique of beading, or rather, sewing. I didn't get very far to begin with,- it seemed rather daunting that there wasn't much information out there and most of the info I could get my hands on was either in Polish or Russian where this type of jewelry seem to be quite popular. I was lucky enough to find some simple tutorials but other than that I was pretty much on my own. Perhaps part of the enticement was trying to work it out on my own and gaining experience from trial and error...looots of errors, as it turned out. But it as well worth it, currently I work almost exclusively with soutache but I gather I'll be missing my regular beads soon enough! :)
So I'd love to share a few of my new soutache designs with you all! :):)