Dappled Air

I came across this lovely link at Wide Eyed Wonderfuls with a lovely pattern for a Christmas tree done in paper embroidery. It is simple but the result is quite stunning. I followed the pattern and made a card and promptly sent it on to Switzerland before taking a picture, I guess I was in a hurry. Then I had the idea of working with the design in Photoshop and created a background for the card from that one tree, print it out and then embroider it. I went through a few version and still don't know which one I like best. First I left the tree to be embroidered unprinted, then I printed it like the rest of the background and finally I reduced the saturation. Then the embroidery part also went through a few version. First I had no sequins, so I used glass seed beads. Then once I got some sequins I had to give that a try.

Well, after making a little turtle with beads, I had to see if I could bead embroider a turtle without first drawing the design on the fabric. I decided to use a button as the center of the shell and then bead around it. I found that after I had sewed the button to the fabric that the design worked better when I glued the button down. I had found at the dollar store some plastic beads shaped like turtles and found them to be perfect to use in the shell. Hubby said that he liked the turtle without the background, but I kind of like the background the way it turned out. I had tube of mixed beads and just shook out a few and used them without rhyme or reason and am quite pleased the way it turned out. I am still not quite sure how to finish the design. So for the time being I just wait until inspiration strikes.

I discovered that I love bead embroidery and that combined with my love of recycling lead me to create these adorable beaded amulet bags. I found that I had a couple of shoulder pad forms, the thin foamy kind and was trying to come up with a use for them. I really liked the shape and then it hit me they would be great for amulet bags. So off I went looking for a design when I found the sitting goddess on my hard drive. I traced the design on a shoulder pad and started embroidering. Here is a link of my progress . Now that I had used one shoulder pad, I had to find a design for my second one. I wanted something different and ended up using the 'Solomon's Knot' design and created this very colorful amulet bag with an 8 inch beaded handle. Both bags are for sale.

I love to do bead embroidery and I love to work with paper. The problem with bead embroidery on paper are the holes. Pre-punching the holes leads to the problem that the holes don't match up with the beads. Then the other problem is how to get the design on the paper so that it won't show up on the paper. I found a way to do it by tracing the design on Glad Press'n Seal plastic wrap and then placing that on the paper. As it is low tack, it is easy to remove afterwards and does not leave any trace. If it get stuck between the beads, it can be cut and pulled out with tweezers. The little tree is the result of using plastic wrap. Check my other designs here .