Black/white quarts tourmaline necklace and earrings

I love the finer beads, like these which are semi-precious. However, they are expensive to buy and also I do find that in many instances they have surprisingly small holes which limits the type of thread one can use. 

This necklace and the earrings was part of batch I bought where they were suggested used simply by size. However, I felt that I wanted to do something a bit more. The holes were too small to really get a good threads into them and that did limit my ideas a bit. 

So I tried several different ways to get these to flow better, when I hit upon this design. here I have simply put one of the smallest beads inbetween the larger beads. I really liked the finished expression. 

Only issue, again, is how to get an image to really show the amazing colors of the beads. I am getting better I believe, but still, it is difficult. 

As I have leg that will not heal properly, it is not easy to enrol into a photography class either. So I just have to muddle through on my own. 

At least I am very happy with the design "in the flesh" so to speak! 

I love autumn!

I love the autumn colors. I am not really fan of yellow as such, but when it is mixed with the orange and the red as leaves on the tree.....I absolutely love them.

I have a fairly large, leafy tree outside my living room window. I have no idea what the tree is called, my husband is the garden enthusiast here in the house. However the colors are special.

I will use this as an inspiration. Can't copy mother nature, but one can be inspired!

Hope you all have an excellent day today!

Just having fun with braiding

I have explored several different braiding techniques. Fun!

Inspired by Native American art

Many years ago, as a youth, I was lucky to travel to Arizona and spend some time there. I was travelling with my family and they of course were more interested in seeing the sites than seeing the jewerly and artwork.

Me, on the other hand, was fascinated by the designs and I am still fascinated. I am in no way on the same level as these artists, but several of the designs I have made these last weeks have been inspired by this diverse culture. I have for the first time included feathers in some of my work and I am working on a design for a dreamcatcher, or rather, several.

So hopefully I will have more to share in the near future. Hope you all have a great summer. Here are a couple of pictures that show what I have been working on these past weeks.

Fun with paracord

With the flu season hitting the household I looked for something to do that was fun and fast. With all the running around checking fever on the kids, I had to do something that I could just leave when I was needed. The paracord is easy to pick up again and does not unravel. Thus I could just have fun and make stuff without having to start over again when I came back from helping the kids.

So here is a bit of what I made.

A green and blue day....

Luckily the title does not reflect on my mood, only my color choice. I was torn between wanting to make something in green and make something in blue. I couldn't combine the two, or rather, I could, but I didn't like the result. Perhaps I was in a bit of a blue mood?
Anyway, I decided first to use a glass heart pendant as the centrepiece and then I used a suede, green thread to form the basis of the necklace. The two materials together was a very nice touch. In addition I placed several white glass beads at the end fo the thread, making a focused ending.

Then I turned to the color blue and made a small, but sweet bracelet. This was in sky-blue, small beads sett with an elastic cord. Thus it can stretch as the wearer needs it to, but it will also sitt tight against the wrist if one wants.

You can find this and other things I make on my blog/webstore http://www.designbyconstance.no

Making a bead chocker

In the winter I really like to wear large pieces of jewerly as they fit better against wool sweaters and so forth. I tend to wear turtlenecks and scarfs as I do tend to freeze a lot.
When I was younger, my mother had a chocker necklace in black. I really liked it, and now I decided to try my hand at making this type of a chocker, with black beads.

Then, for a bit of color, I added a glass pendant with a lot of color against a black backdrop. The beads are braided, but I do not know what the technique is called. It makes for very firm and at the same time elegant knots.

Leather and metall

I tend to wear glass bead necklaces and also beaded bracelets. However, I was inspired by a couple of pin interests to see what the combination of leather and metall could do. So I made two bracelet that both focus on combining these two materials, but in slightly different ways.

The first one just has several bronze coloured rings as decoration. I have threaded the leather cord in these rings.
The second has silver spiders as decoration, however, I tend tried to keep the rest of the bracelet very plain. I liked the look of the metall agains the leather.

You can see this and other pieces I have made in my online store/blogg http://www.designbyconstance.no (in Norwegian)