First candle gel

Yesterday was my "craft day". Not necessarily beading at all, but I love crafts and love to learn new things.
I've had a beautiful gel candle about 10 years ago from a store. I really enjoyed how beautiful it was. When I discovered gel candle making book from library, I decided to learn. I gathered all the items needed and finally I was able to make one. Since I didn't know how much I should add the gel to melt, it came out short, but all in all, it turned out beautiful and I enjoyed watching my gel candle lit last night.

Tissue Paper Flowers

My library will have a craft day next Tuesday, which I am interested to go to, but with work and boys' after school activities, I won't be able to go. The craft day will learn how to make tissue paper flowers. So, to remedy my disappointment of my inability to attend, I learned how to make it myself through online sites, got the necessary items and I made my own craft day today.
Turned out good. Never too late to learn new crafts and things.

Purple Rose

I started beading this purple rose before I went on my Christmas trip in the middle of December.
Then I beaded on and off when I came back. After I finished the Chinese Flower, I decided to finish this pattern. This pattern is created by Sandot Designs, measures width: 4.7 inches, height 5.03 inches.

Chinese Flower

Gong Xi Fat Choi (Happy Chinese New Year)!!!

I finished beading Chinese Flower (pattern created by Sigrid-Wynne Evans) last night.
I just realized how fast Chinese New Year is approaching and started to bead this on Sunday night.
Now I have plenty of time to prepare the New Year of Dragon, on January 23, 2012.
This Chinese flower measures 3 inches (7.6 cm) in width and 3.93 (10 cm) in length, using 9 colors and 3,452 delica beads.

Won Annual Bead Giveaway from Sigrid Wynne-Evans

We came back from 10-day trip to Japan and Indonesia yesterday.
I held my mails while we were gone and got them all delivered yesterday. I received a package full of beads with a nice card saying I won annual bead giveaway chosen randomly by Sigrid Wynne-Evans.
Thank you!!!  Sigrid is one of my favorite bead pattern artist/maker and her patterns motivated me to keep beading and brought smiles to me and others.

Have a Happy New Year, everyone!!!

My Dragon Robe Stand

I got an early Christmas present for my Chinese Dragon Robe. My friend made the stand from scratch. It's so beautiful. Thank you sooo much!!
Now it'll take me a little while to sew the sides and arm together to make it real 3D robe.
The robe measures 17 inches wide and 11 inches length, pattern made by Sigrid Wynne-Evans.
With that note, I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!!

Front side of the Chinese Dragon Robe is finished

After 59 days working on the front side of Chinese Dragon Robe, at any little chance I got , it's finished. I can breathe and sigh in relieve and enjoy the beauty of it now.

The whole back and front robe took me almost 5 months and it's not over yet. I will still need to combine the front and the back while waiting for my stand to finish, then I'll need to combine the side while it's on the stand. What a great big project it was.

Animal Series 2011

I finally found a perfect frame for all animal tapestries I made in 2011.
I'll hang it inside my new "beading room" soon.

White Pearl and Gold Pewter Necklace

This is my second necklace that I made from the oval shaped pearls that I received from my friend. I decided to use gold headpins with gold pewter. I have not done any wire projects, but it was  a fun break from beading my Chinese Dragon project.

White Pearl and Crystal Ribbon necklace

I received a few strands of white pearls from my friend. I thought of making some necklaces that I can wear and treasure. So, I decided to strand the pearls using stringing wire and combine it with the crystal bow. Simple yet elegant necklace that took me less than one hour to make this morning.

Back side of Chinese Dragon Robe is finished

After 75 days of beading this Chinese Dragon Robe, pattern made by Sigrid Wynne-Evans, I finally finished the back side of it. I'll start working on the front side of this robe and hopefully I can finish this robe close to Chinese New Year in January, which is perfect for Dragon year.
It measures 17 inches length and 11 inches height.

Little Blue Bird

Here is the little blue bird tiny tapestry that I beaded for my friend's birthday. Glad I was able to finish it just in time for her birthday.

Work in Progress: Chinese Dragon Robe

I took a week off from beading Chinese Dragon Robe (designed by Sig Wynne-Evans) because I had to help with a wedding of my friend. That included preparing everything before the wedding, served during the wedding and cut the wedding cake for more than 150 people. Because my hand had little problem with pain, I took it easy. As soon as the wedding party was over, the first thing I did was back to beading :)
I started beading the sleeves of the back side of the robe.

Work in Progress : Chinese Dragon Robe

Since I had 3-day weekend, I got so excited to work on Sigrid Wynne-Evans' Chinese Dragon Robe's design.

My hand is doing so much better after acupuncture treatments. I finished the back side of the robe, from the chest down last night. I'll start working on the sleeves from the chest up to complete the back side of the robe. So much fun working on this project.

Hippo

I am taking little break from my Chinese Dragon Robe project and made something small for my friend. She's been helping teaching little kids class called Hippo Class. So, I thought this is cute gift to thank her for her volunteering at Hippo class and how proud I am of her.

Kitten Face

I made this tapestry for my friend's birthday, who loves cats and she just got a new cat named Mikey.
I'm trying to find the closest kitten color as her cat, so here it is. I got the pattern from maddiethekat. It's a cute small project, only measures 1.8 x 1.4 inches.

Have a great weekend!!!

Work in Progress : Chinese Dragon Robe

I'm working on big project from Sigrid Wynne-Evans, a Chinese Dragon Robe, a 3-D robe. I'm having little problem and pain with my right hand and will go through therapy next Tuesday. I'll get it all better because I don't want to give up the thing that makes me happy : Beading.
Stop by and take a look at my project in few weeks. Thank you for your patience!!

PS: Thank you Candys for your suggestion. I'm uploading my work progress as of August 20, 2011 and what it'll look like (the back side of the robe).

Pig-a-boo

This pig has made me smile all the way while making her.
Isn't she adorable? To me, she seems like playing peek-a-boo. I got this pattern from maddiethekat, to add to my animal tapestry collection. It measures 5.70 x 4.00 inches (14.5 x 10.2 cm).
It uses 38 different colors, total of 6,840 delica 11/0 beads. I hope this little piggie brightens your day.

Giraffe

                                               Happy Fourth of July!!!

I finished this giraffe tapestry today. It measures 2.80 x 4.40 inches (7cm x 11 cm), using 17 colors of 11/0 Delicas, a total of 3,344 beads. I learned some facts about giraffe. Their average height is 15-17 feet tall (wow, 3 times my height). The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which averages 4.6 hours per 24 hours (just like me). Healthy giraffe lives about 25 years in the wild.

Blue Rose Montee Crystal Necklace

Before I start my next tapestry animal project, I thought of  making a necklace project that will last for few days.
Since I have a strand of rose montee that I bought at the fair and hasn't had a chance to use them, I decided to make necklace out of them. I started last night as soon as I finished my Bambi tapestry and  cleaned up my beading table. Turned out the necklace only took me an hour to make. I guess I'll start getting ready for my next animal project tapestry.

Oh Deer!!

I picked a fawn as my next beading project for a reason. I've collected Disney DVD animations for a while and the first one I started to watch again was Bambi. I remember when I was a little girl how much I enjoyed watching Bambi.

So, to celebrate this, here is the fawn drinking water in the wild. It measures 5x5 inches (12.7 x 12.7 cm), using 11/0 delica beads.

Birds on Cherry Tree

This tapestry reminds me of spring time, with cherry blossoms blooming on the tree, birds chirping welcoming the season of Spring. This tapestry measures 4.45 x 6.80 inches (11.3 x 17.3 cm). It uses peyote stitch, 17 colors of size 11/0 Delica beads, total of 9,078 beads. Although we don't have Spring in Oregon this year with rain and cold everyday, just want to wish "Happy Spring!!".

Chinese Goddess

I made this tapestry for my best friend's birthday, who has given me tremendous amount of support and encouragement in my life. I wanted to give something that purely comes from my heart to show how privileged and  honored I am of the friendship and how much I care and appreciate of everything. I found the pattern back in December 2010 (designed by Sigrid Wynne-Evans at http://www.beadedbear.com) and bought it on February 9th, 2011, but took me a while to gather the right color and amount of beads for it, searched through online and few bead stores around. Finally, I had all of the required amount of beads and started this big project on March 23 and finished on May 4th (42 days).
This is the biggest beading tapestry project that I've ever done. It measures 9.70 x 12.33 inches (24.6 x 31.3 cm), using 35 colors of 11/0 Delica seed beads, total of 35,890 beads. Finding the right size and color frame, was another challenge. But I found a place online which has the perfect size and color frame for this Chinese Goddess.
While beading this tapestry, I went through challenging times; a lot of worries and stress, and came down with flu. But as my best friend always remind me never to give up hope, this tapestry gave me determination as my goal and achievement, adding one bead at a time. It was such a big accomplishment beading this. I hope as much as my best friend brings joy in my life, this gift can bring smile and encouragement. Thank you for everything and Happy Birthday!!!

Star Necklace

I'm making a new star necklace inspired by Sandra Halpenny.
It's a good quick project in between making tapestry.
This necklace is using size 11/0 seed beads.

Organizing my beads

Since I've been making tapestries lately, which requires a lot of Delica Seed Beads, I've been collecting Delicas. I used my Christmas gift to buy a lot of Delicas needed for few projects, but I didn't have the containers to put them in.
So, around Chinese New Year in early February, I bought 200 bead containers from pandahall.com, which is based in China. After 2 long months waiting for the containers to be shipped via boat, the containers arrived yesterday. I spent 3.5 hours last night organizing my Delicas; put them into containers, labeled Delica numbers on each containers, rearranged my 8-drawers I designated just for Delicas.
So, that was my "Spring Organizing Beads" night.

I'm still making my big project tapestry (I removed it from the photos because I don't want to ruin the surprise). It'll be at least another month or so until I can finish it.

Flamingo

Happy Spring!!
Since most of my tapestries have brown or grey colors, I wanted to make animal that has bright colors. So here is the Flamingo. I had a busy of couple of weeks explaining why for such a small tapestry (3x4 inches or 7.6x10.2cm), it took me more than 2 weeks to do it. This Flamingo used 35 colors of Delica 11/0 beads, total of 3,600 beads.

I'll be making a very big project after this, as big as letter size paper, so it'll be at least more than a month or two until I can post another tapestry project on my blog.

Goose

This goose reminds me of a place that I used to go all the time. It was just a few miles away from my house. There was many geese and ducks that swim just as everything in their world is so peaceful. Watching them gave me peace. So this tapestry is my reminder of those time. It measures 6 x 4.3 inches (15.2 x 11 cm) and uses 29 colors of delica 11/0 beads. Total beads used: 7,800 pieces.

Dolphin

This dolphin tapestry is a new challenge for me to make. First, it uses Peyote stitch instead of Brick stitch, which I use for all other tapestries. Second, instead of using the beadscape, this pattern came with only word chart, and a tiny photo of what it'll look like at the end. So, it was kind of having a blind date with beads, not knowing if I beaded right or wrong.
But, the dolphin turned out to be perfect, to me anyways.
This tapestry is the biggest one I've ever made so far. It's 7 x 4.3 inches (18 x 11 cm) and used 28 colors. Actually the pattern says that it uses 9,100 size 11 delica beads.

Cat

While much of Asia celebrates the Year of the Rabbit, Vietnam is striking a note of independence from the dominance of Chinese culture and marking the beginning of the Year of the Cat. How did the cat replace the chinese rabbit? One of the reason was The Chinese word for rabbit is Mao which sounds like Meo in Vietnamese, which means cat.
Anyways, I happen to make cat as my project, and my Dad reminded me about the cat zodiac in Vietnam. Perfect coincidence.
This cat uses 26 colors, measuring 7.5cm x 9.5 cm (or 3 inches x 3.7 inches).

Rabbit

Happy Chinese New Year 2011!! It's Golden rabbit year and I made this to celebrate the new year. I rushed at making this because I wanted to finish before the new year started.
It took me around 10 days to complete. There are 36 different delica colors used.