Night and Day Earring Swap

It’s time for a new swap! As the theme for this month is stocking fillers, I though that an earring swap would be in order, as earrings are the perfect stocking filler! This swap is for 2 pairs of earrings, 1 suitable for day and 1 suitable for night and I am specifying sterling silver earwires so that we don’t have to worry about allergies.

Sign up is open from today to 12.00 midnight Friday (BST) 7th October. To sign up, please e-mail me on librabeader at gmail dot com by 12.00 midnight 7th October.
Partners will be notified on 8th October and posted here then too.

This will be a straight partner to partner swap. I will send you your partners name and e-mail address. Once you have your partners contact details, please get in touch with them during the following week for postal addresses and likes/dislikes, though please still keep your pattern choices secret so that everyone gets a lovely surprise. Once you have received your earrings, please e-mail me and your partner so that we know they have arrived safely.

Please post your 2 pairs of earrings by Saturday 29th October and add photo‘s of your finished earrings to the Flickr Pool (link at top right) when you know that your partner has received them. If you have any problems such as being unable to contact your partner, or being unable to post on deadline please let me know and I will try to contact your partner.

Your 2 pairs of earrings can be made either from your own pattern or from a pattern by another designer, but please credit the designer in you description on Flickr.

Main Swap Details

Sign up by 7th October 2011
Contact partner for details etc by 14th October 2011
Send out your 2 pairs of earrings by 29th October 2011
Email partner and me once you have recieved your earrings.
Add your photo's to Flickr once you know your partner has received her earrings.

Here are a few patterns from members of the OTTBS facebook group on Etsy for a little bit of inspiration.

As always, click on the pics to be taken to the listing,

Lila Earrings by NEDBeads (Nancy Dale)


Starlet Earrings by The Crimson Moon (Liz Reed)


Peacock Feather Earrings by April Is Forever (Me!)


Layered Leaf Earrings by Jane Lock


Happy swapping!

Sarahx

Pearl Ladder Ring Tutorial

Quite often I have very small amounts of beads left over from larger projects and I am sure you do too. I hate to throw them away but it's also a nuisance to have almost empty bead tubes cluttering up your bead stash. If you are anything like me, you really don't have the extra space. So I came up with this little project which uses ladder stitch to turn those little bits and bobs into a ring that works up quickly and easily and would make a great last minute gift.


You will need a few gramms of size 11 seed beads, 6mm focal beads ( I used 3 x swarovski pearls) and fireline or wildfire.


1. Thread your needle with approx 1.5 metres of thread, pick up 6 size 11 beads and go back up the first 3 you add, snug up the last 3 beads you added next to them and go down through them.

2. Pick up 3 seed beads, go back though the last 3 beads added in step 1 and then back down through the 3 beads added in this step.

3. Repeat step 2 until your ladder strip is the required length for your finger.

4. Join the 2 ends of the strip by going up through the first 3 beads in your strip and back down the last 3 beads of the strip. Repeat this step to reinforce the join.

5. Weave in ends, tying several half hitch knots as you do so.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 for a second strip, but weave in only the shorter tail thread, leaving a long thread to add the centre beads.

7. With your needle & thread exiting a set of seed beads in strip 2, pick up 4 seed beads and go up through a set of 3 seed beads in strip 1 pulling fairly tight to join the strips together. *Go up through the next set of 3 seed beads, pick up 4 seed beads and go up through the next set of 3 seed beads in strip 2. Repeat from * one more time for a total of 3 sets of 4 seed beads. Exiting with your thread in the centre, pick up 1 size 6mm bead and go up through strip, repeat this pattern of 3 sets of 4 seed beads, 1 set of 6mm bead as required, ending with 3 sets of 4 seed beads. My ring is as follows 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads.

8. Weave in tail, using several half hitch knots as you do so.

I hope you enjoy this quick little project, don't forget to add pics to the OTTBS Flickr group if you make one. We would love to see them!

Happy beading!

Sarahx

The Trials & Tribulations of Goal 8!

First of all, huge apologies for my lack of posting lately. I've been really busy with orders and commissions (although I'm not complaining!) plus other non-beady stuff and have spread myself a little too thin.

Also I came to a total standstill with my last goal. I had planned to use up that gorgeous tube of beads by the end of the week but three weeks later they were still sitting on my desk! Several times I had an idea, tipped the beads onto my bead mat and had a go but everything I tried was a disaster.

I discovered that they're not very good for herringbone, triangle stitch or right-angle weave. I had an idea that because they're triangles, they would look good stitched in rows on a bead embroidered cuff and I visualised a lovely zig-zag texture. No. They wobbled about a bit and it just looked messy, so back into the tube they went.

My last resort was peyote stitch which I had dismissed at first because of their shape. Success! They fit together brilliantly to give an unusual effect. So off I went, merrily making a six bead wide strip to make a bracelet...and ran out of beads three quarters of the way through! Grr. Determined not to buy another tube of these flippin' beads I unpicked it all and started again with four beads. Several hours later and with the addition of some red and gold seed beads I had this bracelet...



Now who was it that said beading was relaxing, lol.

4th Goal completed...sort of (Liz)

The instructions for these beads are brilliant and they're really easy to make, but due to their small size they're incredibly fiddly! I can see why rubber tubing is used in the project now, they look great while on the straw but once you take them off they collapse. So I popped a couple of size 6 beads inside them to hold them in shape and added some silver Greek ceramic washers to keep them from sliding over the Swarovski crystals. This scuppered my plans to make a bracelet as I don't have enough washers so I decided to make just two beads and create a pair of earrings. As you can see I didn't use very much of my bead stash but at least I've made some use of the magazine!