Dappled Air

I love beading and making necklaces, but have trouble finding a way to display them to take great pictures. Then one day while looking for something totally different I came across instructions on how to make your own display stand from cardboard. Now I just had to check this out. After running into a few problems I figured out my own way of making it and I am quite pleased with the end result. You can find the instructions here . The necklace on display is called 'Belle of the Ball' and is beaded over an old key. It is for sale for $30.--. Email me if you are interested.

For the last 10 years I have been making my own envelopes from last year's calendar pages. I also use magazine pages to make envelopes. Over the years I have developed a variety of envelope templates. -> last year's Maritime pictures calendar is now a dozen envelopes. The envelopes are for sale for $9.00 for the 12. Email me if you are interested. The envelopes in the picture are made on the diagonal from a piece of paper that is 8.5 inches square. You can find the instructions here . Sometimes magazine pages are not quite 8.5 inches wide after tearing them out and this diagonal template does not really work too well, so I created a straight down template. As both the top flap and the side flaps are wide, placing the template on a piece of paper that is shorter and narrower is no problem as long as the bottom is aligned with the paper. So even an 8x10.5 inch piece of paper works. You can get the template and instructions here . Another version of envelope needs no glue. I ba...

What do you do when you are computer geek and a crafter at the same time, and are looking for a unique pattern? You figure out a way to combine both. This is what I did this weekend. I have been collecting icons and then it hit me that they would be the ideal way to get unusual patterns. Most of them are already small and quite pixelated. I found this Firefox icon on the left here and that gave me the idea. It still had too many colors, but by putting a grid over the design and then coloring in the grid in Photoshop I got a workable pattern. The result is the beaded Firefox on the right. It is worked in my version of the square stitch. I add 2 beads at a time, go back one bead, go back through the second of the beads I added and repeat. It looks ok, but something is not quite right. It was supposed to be square, but it is not. So I measured the finished design. It is under 2 inches wide and it 3 inches tall and realized that the the width/length ratio was 1:1.39. Back to photoshop, I...

With the cooler weather it is time again to dig out my 'Panta' headband that I knitted a few years ago from a pattern I found at Craftster and adapted to suite me. Here is a link to my tutorial . It also has a link to the original Craftster post which has no grown to over 90 pages. While checking out the link if it still works, I discovered that it dates back to 2005 and some of the pictures don't work any more. The headband was easy to knit and didn't take much time. I sewed it together so that there is no seam showing. I really like wearing the headband, it is very comfortable and warm and small enough to fit into a pocket or purse. It is perfect when it is still too warm to wear a hat.