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)

Just a couple of projects I have been working on

I have been working on a couple of new ideas, thus a lot of making something and then scraping it to try something else.
I did get some designs that I am happy with though. I am especially fond of the frog. I think I need to make more such jewelry, just for fun!

Here they are:

Beads in a square pattern

I saw a piece that used a similar techinque and I was inspired. So I took the idea and ran with it. Love the result. Apologize for the picture quality, still trying to get the hang of my new camera! 

Earrings are in the same design, almost. 

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!