Brit pack Beaders 1st challenge... the designs

My apologies, I am officially tardy! This week has been non stop and there still is no stop! Friday is my Smitten Beads Open House, I'm in a complete muddle and only have 2 days to go so wish me luck! As a result I am late posting, late finishing & have no words prepared! So, I will be adding all the nitty gritty of the design process next week. But here without further ramble are my 2 finished pieces and 2 more works in progress. I hope you like. I'm now off for a quick peak at my fellow Brit pack beaders designs. Then back to tidying, pricing and generally running around like a headless chicken until I drop!

I will just quickly add a big thank you to Lesley for the idea and the other BPB for such a great challenge I can't remember the last time I enjoyed doing something quite so much!

Lesley Watt  The Gossiping Goddess blog

Teresa (Bo) Hulley Bo Hulley Beads facebook page

Rebecca Anderson  Songbeads blog

Jo Tinley Daisychain Designs blog

Claire Braunbarth (me) Smitten Beads blog

Blog Hop reveal

Sorry everyone we've had to jiggle the date of the Brit Pack Beaders Blog Hop reveal -We will now be posting all our designs on........

2 pieces already made and I'm working on the last today whilst watching more GB medals being won. Today is a good day!!!

The beads!

The bloomin beautiful Brit Pack Beaders challenge beads..

A little late in the day to post I know, but I always like to make an entrance! I received my first parcel about 2 weeks ago, however when we were figuring out the rules for the challenge, it was suggested that we put the parcels to one side and then open when we last one had arrived (which was mine, again making a late delivery) Can you possibly imagine having 4 little parcels containing who knows what beady delight sitting under your nose and having to resist tearing open the jiffy..... it was not easy but I did it.... right up until the point when I read an email from Lesley who had already opened hers. The laptop was dropped and the packages opened before I had even finished reading the email! So without further ado here are the beads I will be working with.
Da da........

I can't quite believe how well they work with each other and can't wait to get started. I was up rather early a few days ago drawing out a design, I had my eureka moment at 6.30am so had to get up and put pen to paper (5 minutes later I was prone again) I will tidy up the sketch and post my idea in a few days. I'm now off to see what delights my fellow BPB's have received. Thank you Lesley, Jo, Rebecca & Bo (Teresa) for your beautifully chosen beads.
 

Lesley Watt  The Gossiping Goddess blog

Teresa (Bo) Hulley Bo Hulley Beads facebook page

Rebecca Anderson  Songbeads blog

Jo Tinley Daisychain Designs blog

Claire Braunbarth (me) Smitten Beads blog

If none of this makes sense to you then have a look at the Brit Pack Beaders Blog Hop post introducing the challenge and all will hopefully become clear.

Cx

Blog Hop Challenge

A really wonderful thing happened to me recently; I received an invitation to a blog hop challenge! The invitation came from a very talented jewellery designer & pmc artist I muchly admire and so of course I said yes, automatically, no question, without a second thought......how lovely, me, part of a blog hop, how exciting, how!...... and then along came my second thought..... What on earth is a blog hop challenge?! 

Being such a novice blogger it took me little while and a little bit of research but eventually I figured out that I hadn’t agreed to don my dancing shoes and jive the night away til my last rival drops. No, luckily it was something far less frantic and a little more up my alley. For those of you as new to the world of blogging as I am then let me explain how it works... the idea is that a group of individuals join forces by linking their blogs to tell a story, in simple terms the reader (that’s you) can start on any of the participating blogs and jump (hop) from one to the next by clicking on the links. In our case we are the Brit Pack Beaders and our story is our challenge! A challenge fuelled by a passion for beading and design and a need to push our creative boundaries. Each of us will tell you the story in our own way bringing a different perspective to a chosen theme. 

How it works –

Every other month one of the BPB’s will take it in turns to set a beading challenge, the chosen Bead Master will pick an inspirational theme, this can be in anything from a painting or sculpture to a play or even a song. Each of the five members will be responsible for providing one of the following  – Focal bead, accent beads, clasp, charms & embellishments or lastly chain or a stringing material, the ingredient needed to create a piece of jewellery. It sounds simple! But now we get to the really tricky bit, every member must receive a different set of ingredients so that no two recipes are the same. (Have I lost you?) In my next blog post I will be posting pictures of the ingredients I have received as will the other BPB’s, you will be able to hop over to the other blogs to see the components we each have to work with and hopefully all will become clear.

Our Challenge leader and her chosen theme –

The very talented Lesley Watts is the trendsetter for the first challenge. (She also happens to be the mastermind behind the Brit Pack Beaders). When Lesley is not trying to co-ordinate challenges for 4 unruly beaders she spends her time creating beautiful pmc components and stunningly elegant jewellery. I’m a huge fan of her work and have just purchased some oh so lovely bronze hearts and shells from her Etsy shop. Lesley has chosen a rather stunning photograph as her inspiration for this challenge and by kind permission of the artist here it is.... Tangled by Carolyn Saxby

 

And here we are...The Brit Pack Beaders – 

I’m very proud to have been invited into such a distinguished group of Beady artists each incredibly talented and all unique! If you would like to have a wee look at their challenge posts and their work here are the links to their blogs and the Bo Hulley Facebook page, we have still to persuade Bo that she has time to blog!

Lesley Watt  The Gossiping Goddess blog

Teresa (Bo) Hulley Bo Hulley Beads facebook page

Rebecca Anderson  Songbeads blog

Jo Tinley Daisychain Designs blog

Claire Braunbarth (me) Smitten Beads blog

So! If you understood any or all of that and you are intrigued enough to come back, the next post with my mix of components will be in a week followed by the big reveal of our creations 2 weeks later.

I hope you will come back as I think this could be the beginnings of a very beautiful (blog hopping challenge of a) relationship!

Thank you 

Claire

My other secret obsession

About 2 years ago I was looking for some fabric for a reason that now escapes me when I ventured into my local quilting shop and then and there my fat quarter addiction began. I was brought up surrounded by fabrics as my Mum had her own soft furnishing and upholstery business and I inherited her love of fabric. Being a magnet for anything in miniature I was instantly drawn to all the gorgeous little prints, so many lovely & delicate designs I came away with rather a large bag of little fabric squares. I'm not sure I knew what I was going to use them for at the time but I did know it was unlikely to be quilting!

And so to the task in hand, time to share another of my latest experiments made with one of our soon to be added products - GLOSSY ACCENTS, A non toxic water based glaze originally created for scrapbooking and suggested by one of my reps as a possible alternative to resin for filling bezels. I thought I would give it a go and this is my first attempt. I wanted to see if I could use some of my gorgeous quilting fabric in a bezel and happily it worked perfectly, sadly however I have had several failures since Through trial and error I discovered that the type of fabric is key to the success, a looser weave linen print is the answer. In all honesty if you are not obsessed with fabric then use a pretty paper print as this works beautifully. All in all I'm really pleased with the results which is why I've decided to add it to our range.

 
I've used brass findings, chain, beads & connectors along with some of my favourite 4mm round crystals in moon stone. 

Above 2 pieces next on the list to be made up into something wearable and below some of my most recent additions to my fabric mountain!

I should say that the Glossy accents' about as illusive as those devilish Polaris beads I've been waiting for for months. However I have been promised that my order was processed last Friday, so my fingers are very tightly crossed that we will have both beads and glaze in the next week or so!

Claire x

Mustard & teal bracelet

I thought it was about time I posted one of my favourite bracelets. It took a long time to design and get the combination of beads just right, the lovely hand dyed silk chiffon ribbon was the inspiration for piece and everything else evolved around the little tassles I made.

Here is the list of the ingredients from Smitten:
1 Elasticated bracelet - Black plate
27 Bead headpin 2 - black plate
9 Eyepins - Black plate
90cm Chiffon ribbon - coming soon (fingers crossed)
3 Rose cameo small - coming soon
3 Small pebbles - dark lemon
3 Pinched ovals - Silver black
3 Small frosted roses - Olive
3 Puff heart - lemon
6 10mm crystal round - vitrial light

Sorry these few are from my own stash:
9 8mm Iris - Fire polishes beads
9 6x4mm donuts -black/cream

Just a few pointers if you would like to have a go.....
The elasticated bracelets comes with jump rings every 10mm for you to add the drops. All the beads have been added to the jump rings sometimes with 2 or 3 per ring. The cameos have been drilled to give a hole for the jump ring but you could alternatively glue them onto a bail or blank base. The eyepins have been used to make the little tassles (which I have nicknamed 'fairy skirts') and for the lucite roses. I've used the Ball headpins as the pin is quite soft and easy to make wrapped loops with. If you want to find any of the ingredients on the website I have used the exact name used in the listing eg. puff heart - so just pop it into the search and away you go.

I am working 2 new colour combinations for this design, one with copper and the other using our stunning champagne finish.

xx

Okay here we go.......

I thought I would use my first post to show you the bracelet I made recently for a magazine challenge. I was lucky enough to have a head start on the other designers as I provided the beads! However I did put the collection of beads together before I started designing. I will save the other pieces I made for another day, although you can see the earrings if you pop across to our Facebook page.