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.

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.

Getting there in the end

I struggled a bit with this design. I had a very firm image of it in my head regarding the design, but I struggled with getting it into something I could work with. First I started with:

Here I had used string around each bead. However, I was uncertain as to how to get a good placement.

So I tried:

I liked the concept, but when I had finished it, I didn't like it. 

So I used Kuminhio braids and braided with blue and metallic tread with the beads in regular intervals. The result: 

These are three strands of Kumihimo braided strands that are then braided. 

Finally, I got the look I was looking for! 

Looong holiday, a bit creative

Been a long time since I updated my blog. Very hectic before the holiday, and with the kids home, I have been travelling and spending time with them. I am also working on a store, for the Norwegian marked. Just to pay for more material. I got tired og takling apart jewerely just to make something new. Aften all I do spend a lot of time into it and also I love the result. 

Hopefully I will break even. The site is in Norwegian, but you can find it here: www.designbyconstance.no. Not quit finished with it, a couple of bugs to fix and also more product to add. If you feel like it, feel free to send me a comment.

Here is my newest creation. I had lost of fun with this, brown leather and brownish, glass beads. Lovely combination in my eyes!

First idea, just beads and the spoon glass pendant. A bit blurry picture, but hopefully you get an idee. I felt this idea was missing something. So I added a bit of leather. 

This I liked. So I used this as a starting point and ended up with:

And the chain is made up of connecting sections of four beads and leather. 

Earrings included. Maybe I will be thinking about making a bracelet. 

Takes a bit of time, but it looks nice!

Here are pictures of my latest project. The chain is a Kumihimo braid, with beads and then a larger pendant attached.
It took some time, but I love it!

This is the whole necklace.
Here is a picture of the details:

Pink delight

I had these beads that I felt were a bit pale on their own. So I added some wires, and now I am very happy with the result!

A little bird whispered in my ear.....

I had a couple of small metal birds in different shapes. So I thought I would make a couple of earrings with these birds and a couple of blue beads.

This is the result. I thought they were cute. Two different pairs.

Their hearts are singing...

I know that this is a song, perhaps somebody with a bit more control than me know which one? I believe that it is a country song, but I could be mistaken.

However, I have always liked this phrase and while I can not make a necklace sing, I can make bells chime. At least a little.
So I made this

I took 4 hearts, one for each child and placed a tiny bell in the middle of each. Then I took a circle with beaten silver, and place a heart glass bead inside it. I added to keys to the end. In my mind, the hearts are the children and they are held together and given stability and support by the heart in the oval, which represents us as parents. Then the keys symbolises that this unit is holding firm, no matter what, 

I then added a pale grey thread to i, so it can be worn as a necklace.  

A blue necklace, playing with different materials

I must say that one of my favourite colors is blue. So I decided to play around with a couple of different types of beads and make a necklace.
I wanted the colour blue to really stand out, but at the same time I didn't want it all blue. So I chose a grey, rather thick thread.

This was my first plan. The black at the sides are magnetic beads that I thought would make bit of an interesting addition. But I was not that happy with this as I felt that it did not give the right feel. I wanted more blue colour. So I took a several small beads and sown them into one part of the thread. Then I wanted to add the blue beads that you can see just above the blue heart. However, the holes in the beads were to small for the thread to get through. I tried everything, but then I suddenly decided to try and shred the thread. That worked: 

Here you can see both the part where I have sown the small blue beads into the thread, and also the many, many thin threads that make up one large thread. There were really a lot of them, but as you can see on the right hand side of the picture, I was now able to get the blue beads into the thread. 

I decided to remove the black, magnetic beads as I felt that they did not fit into the new design. 

So the ned result was: 

 I had a bit of the thin thread left, so I made a couple of earrings to match the necklace.

I love the colours, but I am a bit uncertain about the small threads as they are not so sturdy. I may have to think of something new.
I also made a bracelet to match in colour, and I think that I am in love with the grey thread. It is so soft and supple.

A couple of necklaces that I have been working on.

I bought at a sale, I love sales, several pendants in different shapes and forms. So now I am playing around with them and making necklaces, among other thing.

My biggest issues at the movement is that I remain uncertain of the different methods of making the base, the tread that the charms and pendants are attached to. In some ways I think that it is too simple with just a rope, but at the same time it can be too much if there are a lot of pearls. But I do like soft material and adding a bit more details.

These are just different coloured rings that I have attached to each other and I made necklace as well as a bracelet. I think it is a bit funny, and most importantly it is very lightweight.

Here there are white bigger pearls, and then I have added to several, smaller beads on the outside. It is very time-consuming, but I really love this style. I am experimenting with it at lot at the moment.

Here is my little owl. Perhaps not that easy to see? I have just used a simple silver tread and then I first added the center peace, in this instance an owl. Then I added four smaller charms, two frogs and two clocks. I am happy with the colours and the shape her.

During the sales, there were several glass fishes on sale. I thought they looked absolutely lovely and I have had a lot of ideas about how to use them. However, most those ideas have failed for some reason. So I went simple an shifted focus a bit. I simply use the fish as a centrepiece and then I added two sea-stars to enforce the nautical theme.
Finally I figured out a good use for the glass fish!

Beaded bells, earrings

I have experimented with circular peyote beading. Here are two pictures of my latest effort. I am struggling a bit with getting the beads even and also how to finish it. It is a bit of a trial and error project, however I am rather happy with the end result.

When I had finished the first bell, I felt that something was missing. But I didn't want to add something heavy or large, as I felt that the earrings could not be to heavy.
So I found a small bell and added that to the bell, making it a true bell :-)

I am not the best photographer, but I hope it is possible to see the small bell hanging from the bell shaped earrings. The bell does not make a lot of noise, but I thought that it was a nice touch.

How to do peyote beading, bracelet

This is the first time I am trying to write a "how-to", but I thought I would give it a shot. So here goes nothing.

Peyote beading is fast and simple. The only thing you need to remember is to skip one, use one.
You start with a bead, any size, on a thread. The thread has to be flexible and fairly thin as it has to pass through the beads at least twice. In addition, you need to have enough beads, you are probably going to use more than you think. The number of beads has to be uneven, but you can decide how many.

So, start with a thread and a bead. I have used an elastic thread.  I also prefer to have the beads I am going to use in a small bowl next to me. If the beads are very small, I prefer to have them on a bead cloth. But for this beading, the beads are large enough that I prefer to have them in the bowl.

 In the next picture, I have added all the beads for the first line. In total 6 beads, two purple, two pink and the last two purple. Notice that the thread is long both also in the end. That is because you will use that thread when you connect the bracelet.

 Here I have started on the second line. The thread is passed through the number 5 bead on the first line.  

 Here I have added another bead to the second line. I hope you can see the rhythm. One bead outside another, the thread through the next bead, and then another bead outside the another. So in this picture you will se the top two beads are tighter, then there is one single, and then there are two together again.

Here I have added the last bead on the line. It looks a bit shaky at the moment, partly due to the fact that I have used an elastic thread and partly because it always looks a bit shaky when you go down. Notice that there are only three beads in this line, so half of the original number.

Here I have started the third line. The bead I have added is going to lay next to the first bead on the first line. The thread then goes through the last bead on the second line.

Now it is starting to come together. When you bead upwards, the beads are falling more into place and you can easily see if you have made any mistakes. So here you see that I have added a pink bead after the purple bead and now they are starting to form a nice line. It is easy to see where the third bead on this line is supposed to be.

Here I have finished the third line. It looks like there is only two lines when you look at it like this, but remember that you have first gone up (the first beads), then down (the second line) and then up again. So there are three lines.

Here is a picture of the line 4, going down. Now you can clearly see where you are supposed to place the beads in the next line. It gets easier once you finish the first lines as it is easier to see the pattern.

 Here I have completed the 5th line, going up. Again, the pattern is perfect when going up and you can see what it will look like in the end.

 Continue like with the same pattern, bead one, jump one, bead one.  You decide how long the bracelet is going to be. When you reach the desired length, you need to end on top.  Then you place the two edges together and you bead in the same pattern, pulling beads from both sides, until you reach the middle. Then you take the thread that is hanging loose from the first bead in bracelet, and use that to connect the beads from the bottom up to the middle. Then you tie the two threads together in the middle, tight with a surgeons knot or what suits you the best. You can add a bit of glue to the threads if you are worried that the knot may slip.

Then you will end up with something like this:

Good luck with your beading! Remember to try out different patterns, different lengths and colours. The good thing is that you can always cut the thread, pick the beads apart and start again if you are not happy with the result.