Snowflakes and Hearts with CRAW and PRAW

Over the past couple of months I released a couple of patterns using CRAW and PRAW. Lately, my designs seem to use either shaped beads and two-hole beads, or just seed beads. These designs are firmly in the seed bead camp.

Snowflake Pendant

You need only a handful of seed beads and a needle and thread to stitch the Snowflake Pendant. This pendant features several units of CRAW and PRAW stitched side-by-side to create the finished snowflake. The concept behind this pendant actually goes back to my original experiments with PRAW, though I only recently managed to show how to stitch these units side-by-side.

Large and Small Snowflakes

The pattern shows how to stitch the finished snowflake pendant as well as smaller and larger variations. You can also use just one color of seed beads for a sleeker look. The full pattern is 19 pages long and contains 66 full color illustrations and photographs.

Peace and Double Hearts

My next creation with these stitches is two-in-one design. The Peace and Double Hearts Pendants use the same CRAW and PRAW stitches to create two types of beaded hearts. One is a heart within a heart, and the other is a combination of a heart with a peace sign.

The Peace Heart came about after I combined Gwen's Sweetheart Pendant with Marcia's Peace Sign pendant. It was actually the last piece of beadwork I created before Sophie was born, but it took me a while to carve out the time to write its pattern.

The full pattern is 30 pages long and contains 128 full color illustrations and photographs. I classify both patterns as advanced as I don't cover the basic CRAW stitch in detail. However, if you are experienced with CRAW and you're up for the challenge of stitching these shapes, these patterns are for you!

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The Evolution of the O Stars Pendant

Sometimes when I'm working on a new beading design, I'll have a specific idea in mind that I'm trying to achieve. This was the case with some of my more floral and geometric designs such as the Sakura Bouquet Necklace and the Tila Garden Pendant. Other times, a new design will evolve from a previous beaded component or set of components. This was the case with my most recent design, the O Stars Set.

Lucky O + Snowflakes + Rizo Triangles = O Stars

The O Stars Set started as a variation on the Lucky O Bracelet, one of the first designs that I completed using the new O beads:

While I liked the open, lacy look of these components, especially when paired with bugle beads in the bracelet, I noticed how the Lucky O components can also almost perfectly enclose a Swarovski rivoli crystal. A few bronze seed beads and two rivoli crystals later, a pair of such components quickly became earrings:

Since the wintertime was just beginning, I wanted to expand on the six-fold symmetry of these components to see if they could become snowflakes. I had already experimented with a more open version of beaded snowflakes in the aptly-named Snowflakes bracelet:

This bracelet gave me the idea to use SuperDuo beads for snowflake points, however I wanted to make the new components a little stiffer than those in the snowflakes bracelet. Another one of my designs that makes use of SuperDuos as points in beaded components is the Rizo Triangles Necklace, and, while this necklace is more complicated than the snowflakes bracelet, each component is more heavily engineered to be solid and self-supporting.

With these ideas in mind, I began work on combining the ideas from all three pieces together.

First O Stars Pendant

My first attempt at executing these ideas turned into these two components. In the medium component, the SuperDuos are added with sets of O beads on each side, as well as one on the top of each point to further decorate the component with these shiny little sequin-like beads. Interestingly, the result is more star-like than snowflake-like, a surprising but pleasing development. I immediately paired both components together with a briolette crystal to make a petite little pendant.

While I was very happy with how this pendant turned out, several people told me that it needed something more. Several friends said it would work better as a three-component pendant instead of two, and my husband said I needed to make a larger version to complement both smaller components. I was reluctant to step up to the challenge of more bead component engineering, but I also knew that they were right...

Final Pendant and Earrings Set

As it turns out, designing the large component was similar to the process of designing the large component of the Rizo Triangles Necklace; it's more challenging to create, but the result is definitely worth the effort. Here's a picture of the completed set of all three components in one pendant, plus two small components in matching earrings:

How do you explore new beading ideas? Do you find yourself returning to your previous work for inspiration? Drop me a line in the comments!

New Pattern: Fiberoptic Duo Beaded Beads

My newest pattern, the Fiberoptic Duo beaded beads, is now available at beadorigami.com.

Fiberoptic Cube Beaded Bead

Why the name Fiberoptic Duo? Well, the "duo" part comes from 1) the two colors of SuperDuo beads that are used in this design, and 2) the two different beaded beads that are are described in this pattern; the Fiberoptic Cube, and the Fiberoptic Octahedron. The "fiberoptic" part came about because I like the way the word sounds.

Fiberoptic Cube (left) and Octahedron (right) Beaded Beads

These beaded beads came about from a long line of beady experiments that I did last year with the aim of incorporating two-hole beads into new beading projects. The first result of these experiments was the Squareflake Earrings, a project that works with both twin and SuperDuo beads:

Squareflake Earrings

The next result was the Snowflakes bracelet, which appeared in the Dec/Jan 2012/13 issue of Beadwork Magazine. It's related to the Squareflake Earrings with a couple of changes; the snowflakes have six-fold symmetry, like real snowflakes, and I substituted the Swarovski crystal rivoli pendants with the less-sharp 3mm magatamas, so that the resulting bracelet would be softer on the skin.

Snowflakes Bracelet

Then there's the project that I'm really excited about, the Cosmic Nocturne Pendant. This pendant is hollow, holds its shape well, and has a nice combination of crystals and several shaped seed beads. I'll be teaching this project at the Bead and Button Show this June (B130661 - Fri. June 7 • 1:00pm-4:00pm)

Cosmic Nocturne Pendant

The Fiberoptic Duo beaded beads use a simpler combination of beads for sleeker design; two different colors of SuperDuo beads, and round Japanese seed beads. I haven't had much luck using twin seed beads in this design, since it requires the two-hole beads to be very uniform. The SuperDuo beads do this quite nicely.

Fiberoptic Octahedron Beaded Bead

I like how both beaded beads use the exact same number and proportions of these seed and SuperDuo beads. They're similar in construction in some ways, but different in other ways as I detail in the pattern.

Fiberoptic Cube (left) and Octahedron (right) Beaded Beads

Which one do you like better? The cube is a little easier to weave, but I'm partial to all beaded octahedra. It tends to look more round than octahedron-shaped in this design though.

Fiberoptic Octahedron Beaded Bead

The Fiberoptic Duo Beaded Beads pattern is available exclusively at beadorigami.com. I'll be putting some kits together for this design in the next couple of weeks!

Do you have a favorite twin or SuperDuo design that you'd like to share? Drop me a line in the comments below!

Snow White Snowflakes

After beading so many snowflake earrings in not-so-snowflake colors, I decided to weave a pair with actual snow white beads. I couldn't resist adding in silver beads too:

This pair matches the bracelet that you might have seen in the pattern in Beadwork Magazine. The two pieces have a subtle difference: the earrings use SuperDuo beads, while the bracelet uses Twin beads. I've found that these two types of two-hole beads are not always interchangeable, but in this case both of them work in the same design.

This last pair isn't in snow white colors, but I think that they're still rather festive in purple, bronze, and a hint of shiny copper:

Each item above is available for purchase in my Etsy shop. Click on the images above for more information about each one.

Snowflake Earrings for the Holiday Season

I wove several pairs of earrings based on the snowflakes featured in my Snowflakes Bracelet. Not quite in traditional snowflake colors though. Here's one in bronze, copper, and gold:

And another in dark violet, gold and pearl white:

 This one uses the same color pattern as above, only with metallic blues and less gold:

I love the combination of garnet, dark metallic purple, and silver:

Finally, this purple and silver pair reminds me of snowflakes at night:

Each pair of earrings is available for purchase in my Etsy shop. Click on the images above for more information about each pair.

Snowflakes Bracelets in Beadwork Magazine

Are you getting ready for the holidays? I'm getting ready by creating some Snowflakes Bracelets, fresh out of my newest pattern in Beadwork Magazine:

These bracelets feature the new 2-hole Czech twin beads, and they also work well with SuperDuo beads too. They're related to my Squareflake Earrings pattern, but instead of using the 4-fold symmetry seen in the earrings, they use the 6-fold symmetry seen in real snowflakes. These bracelets also use drop-shaped seed beads (either 3 mm magatamas or 2.8 mm drop beads) instead of rivoli crystals, as the sharp rivoli crystals can get caught on sleeves quite easily when used in a bracelet.

Several other design possibilities are achievable from this bracelet design. The individual snowflakes make a great pair of easy earrings, and I think they'd look great in a choker-style necklace too. 

The Snowflakes Bracelet pattern can be found in the December/January 2012/2013 issue of Beadwork Magazine.

What kinds of beadwork designs are you working on this holiday season?