I would like to start off by saying that this piece turned out to a bane of my beading existence. I had wanted to do something with this painting from Mary Jane Ansell for a while and I thought it would work perfectly with the swarovski crystal chains that I had ordered. This piece is from her “The beauty of the Hours” series and is titled “Girl in a cocked hat”
I glued the piece on the backing and did the initial bezel. I decided to do a row around the bezel with the navy blue beads I had used in the bezel to make the crystal chain pop a little bit more. And then did another row with the same beads after I had sewed on the crystal chain. So far so good.
I started this piece right after I had done my Maleficent bracelet so I was pumped. That piece had come together so nicely that I wanted to replicate that experience. That’s when I decided to turn this piece into a bracelet.
Since I had planned this piece as a brooch I had glued it to a small piece of backing which meant that the bracelet would have to be made of separate pieces. But that was ok. I drew out the shape I wanted the sides to look like and went looking for stones, cabochons and other beads to use in the piece. And I had nothing. Well I mean I had stuff but nothing that would go with this piece.
So I went online in search of blue stones. I found some blue opal stones on the website where I had purchased the crystal chains so I thought they would be a good a choice. While I was at it I went on my favorite website for buying seed beads to get some that might help the process along.
So at this point I couldn’t really go any further with the piece. I had to wait until I had all my pieces so I could start up again. Leaving a piece half finished is never a good idea. I lose my train of thought and my groove and it’s always a little hard to get back into that exact same frame of mind to finish up a piece. But I had no choice, I moved onto doing other pieces.
A week or so passed and I got my packages but I really wasn’t feeling it so I didn’t go back to the piece. But the fact that it was unfinished kept nagging me so I gave in and decided to just finish the piece and be done with it.
I glued on the blue opal stones I had purchased for this piece and started doing the same bezel as I had done around main focal image. It took me a couple of tries to get an even number around the piece in order to get the bezel done but I finally got there. I followed the same pattern as the main image and added the pearl and goldstone.
This is as far as I had planned but when I put the pieces next to each other it was so obvious that the piece would not fit around my wrist. So I had to add more.
Initially I thought I’d do a row of bugle beads all around the piece. I had seen it done and I though how hard can it be, the answer was very hard. I just could not get the beads to sit right, there were unsightly gaps and they just look weird . So I thought why not just use seed beads. But on second inspection I found out that I had run out of the navy blue seed beads I had used in the piece.
Argghhhhhhhhhhhh!! This is the point at which I started thinking this piece just does not want to get made!
The right thing would have been to order the blue beads but I was just really frustrated with the piece at this point and I didn’t want to have to wait another week or so for beads. I decided to use what I had instead.
Once the few rows were added I was thinking surely it will fit at this point. But alas it was not to be. So I started adding other elements. I mean at this point I just had to laugh and go with it. Ok maybe had I planned things better or if this pattern was what I had in mind I would have been ok with it but since I had to keep adding and adding things just to make this bracelet reach the 7.5 inches I needed for it to fit around my wrist, everything felt like an afterthought.
I cut the pieces out finished the edges and connected them together. And wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing still didn’t fit!!
I mean the process I went to through to finish this piece was so ridiculous that it makes me laugh. I have done enough beading now, not to have to repeat these basic stuff over and over again to get it right but with this piece I had to rework every element over and over just to get it somewhat right!
All in all I am at peace with this bracelet, its not one of my favorites but I don’t hate it now as much as I did when I was making it. But I am sure glad it’s done
LIST OF MATERIALS USED:
- 30×40 OVAL CLEAR GLASS CABOCHON
- 18mm BLUE SEA OPAL GLASS STONE CABOCHON
- 7mm DARK BLUE GLASS OPAL CABOCHONS
- 2mm SWAROVSKI CRYSTAL AB CHAIN
- 2mm BLUE GOLDSTONE ROUND BEADS
- 3mm GOLD SWAROVSKI PEARLS
- 3mm ROUND BLUE GOLDSTONE BEADS
- 6mm MATTE METALLIC BLUE IRIS BUGLE BEADS
- GOLD SEED BEADS SIZE 11/0
- GOLD METAL ROUND SEED BEADS SIZE 11/0
- METTALIC EGGPLANT IRIS SEED BEAD SIZE 11/0
- METALLIC VERIEGATED MIDNIGHT BLUE SEED BEADS SIZE 11/0
- OPAQUE DYED COBALT BLUE SEED BEADS SIZE 15/0
- GOLD COLOURED METAL SEED BEADS SIZE 15/0
- 14kt GOLD TOGGLE CLASP
- FIRELINE THREAD 0.006” IN CLEAR
- FIRELINE THREAD 0.006” IN SMOKE GREY
- LACY’S STIFF STUFF
- BLACK ULTRASUEDE
- E-6000 GLUE
- CRAFTER’S PICK THE ULTIMATE GLUE
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