Old Flowers, New Flowers

The theme for the latest round of the Artbeads.com blogger program was "What's Old is New Again!" The idea is to take a vintage or antique item and combine it with modern elements to create an entirely new design. As I previously mentioned, I chose a cloisonné necklace that I received from my grandmother for this project, and decided to make little flowers out of Swarovski pendants and Japanese seed beads to match the flowers on the cloisonné beads. Here's the final result:

And the original necklace for comparison:

The project theme was announced at about the same time that Swarovski announced their new spring innovations, and I thought that the new chrysolite opal color would best match the green flowers. Unfortunately, this color was not yet in stock at Artbeads.com, and it isn't available in the top-drilled bicone shape anyway, so I settled on the peridot hue instead.

I also paired it with aquamarine...

... and rose, for all three flower colors on the cloisonné beads.

The flower design is a variation on the Sakura Charm pattern, which is available at beAd Infinitum.

The new necklace is shorter than the original, and I think that the crystals lend a much brighter air to it as well.

What's your favorite way to reimagine vintage jewelry?

Full disclosure: The swarovski crystals used in this necklace were received as a gift from Artbeads.com. No payment was made for the review of these products.

Beaded DNA Experiments: Base Pairing

A few months ago Gwen Fisher published a video using Doceri software on how to weave a pair of DNA double helix earrings using seed beads and thread. As a molecular biologist by training, I was completely enamored with this design and immediately set out to play with it (all the while kicking myself for not coming up with the idea first!), but I've only now gotten around to writing the first of what will be several posts on my variations on this pattern. If you haven't already seen her free video on how to make your own pair of DNA earrings, check out Gwen's blog for all the important details. 

I first tried this design on a short random sequence of eight base pairs:

I managed to get the design to work the first time, using significant tension in the second and third rounds of the design to get it to twist. The helix actually started to twist while I was beading the second round.

After trying out this pattern, I immediately wanted to modify it to make it look closer to the structure of real DNA The biggest difference between this design and a DNA double helix is that the bases, consisting of A, G, T, and C, are on the "rungs" of the DNA ladder, not on the sides. 

Image by Richard Wheeler, used with permission

The image above shows the chemical structure of B-DNA, the most common form of DNA. The bases are the flat ring structures containing the blue nitrogen atoms. The thymine and cytosine, or T and C bases, are called pyrimidines and have only one ring. The adenosine and guanine, or A and G bases, are purines, contain two joined rings, and are therefore somewhat bigger than the pyrimidines.

Each side of the DNA ladder, what we call the "backbones" of each of the two DNA strands that make up the double helix, is made up of a repeating sequence of sugars and phosphates. You can see in the image above that there is one sugar (the non-flat ring next to each base, containing no nitrogen or phosphorus) and one phosphate (made up of yellow phosphorus and red oxygen atoms) for each base. Therefore, the important genetic material in DNA is confined to the inner part of the structure. 

One other important feature of DNA is that, except in rare cases, A will always pair with T, and G will always pair with C. This is why DNA sequence databases such as the public National Center for Biotechnology Information will list the sequence of only one of the two strands; if our sequence is:

AGCCATATGAC

..we can match each base in the sequence with its partner to get the sequence of the other strand:

AGCCATATGAC

TCGGTATACTG

I tried to incorporate this aspect of DNA to modify Gwen's design to use color-coded twisted 6 mm bugle beads for the base pairs. I also changed the colors of the DNA backbone to solid blue for the 15° and 11° seed beads, and capri blue for the 8° seed bead, to try and mimic the repeating sugar-phosphate structure.

From a beadweaver's point of view, the structure works up and holds its twist just as well as the original. But the molecular biologist in me really wanted to see all four types of those bases. 

So I switched to 8° seed beads in place of bugle beads for the bases; two seed beads for the purines, and one for the pyrimidines, and also color-coded the 11° seed beads on either side to match its associated base (I also changed the backbone a little bit, but that's a topic for another post):

I like this arrangement much better. It results in a somewhat thicker helix, but it's much more biologically accurate. It would probably work better in a pendant or a cuff than in earrings. 

Gwen also tackled this arrangement by using 8° seed beads and a 3 mm firepolished crystal for each base pair, resulting in a slightly larger helix.

I'm still not done creating further variations on this design, but those are topics for future blog posts. Next time I'll talk about DNA's major and minor grooves...

Have you ever tried incorporating ideas from your day job into your beadwork? How did it work?

Origami Interlude: Kusudama

A little while ago I picked up Tomoko Fusé's Kusudama Origami because this book is chuck-full of the type of modular origami designs that I so enjoy. This book also explores the more traditional types of kusudama origami, where individual units of folded paper are strung or glued together into a (usually) round structure. I find modular origami more satisfying when a structure can be completed without glue or string, but the designs in this book are so pretty that I had to give this style a try. I started with a single double-flower version of her primula design:

Which quickly started to multiply..

I used 15 by 15 cm TANT paper for these flowers. This paper comes in a rainbow pack and in packs of different hues, and the red pack contains 12 different shades of red and bright orange. I only needed about half of the pack for the whole structure.

The finished "Bouquet of Primula" contains 16 individual flowers. I was hoping that I could use only 12 to achieve dodecahedral symmetry, but alas, more flowers were needed to fill out the whole ball. It measures about 9 inches in diameter.

I'm anxious to adapt this style of flower ball to beads, where dodecahedral symmetry might be more feasible. In the meantime, I'm enjoying my paper version. 

Have you tried a new style of craft lately? How did it turn out?

Floral WIP and Travel Notice

It's been a while since I've posted anything new; moving and traveling has eaten up most of my time over the past month. I did however manage to get started on my project for the next round of the Artbeads.com blogger program. The theme is "What's Old is New Again," and the idea is to take an old or vintage element and incorporate it into a new piece. I chose this blue floral cloisonné necklace that I received from my grandmother a few years ago, after she had it in her collection for many years.

I like the little pink, blue, and green flowers on each bead:

My original idea for this project involved Swarovski bicone pendants in beaded beads, but after Gwen figured out how to incorporate them into the Sakura Charm pattern, I just had to try this as well. While Gwen's final result is a 7-fold variation, I wanted to stay with the original 5-fold flower of the pattern to match the flowers on the cloisonné beads. It took me five attempts to arrive at something I was satisfied with. You can see my attempts in this photo, starting at the left and continuing clockwise to arrive at the charm in the center:

I found that to get a 5-fold flower to work with bicone pendants, I had to work with progressively smaller seed beads to get them to fit without being wobbly. The back of the charm also ended up somewhat different than the original; the weave and bead counts are slightly different, and the bail is rotated to straddle one of the bicones, instead of sitting between two of the petal beads.

I tried to match the colors to that of the flowers in the cloisonné beads. Do you think it's a good match?


Finally, I'll be traveling internationally for the next three weeks to spend some time with my husband as he participates in the San Francisco Symphony 2011 European Tour, so any jewelry orders placed from now until June 9 from either my Etsy or Artfire shops will ship on June 10. I will have some e-mail access on my trip, so I will still send out tutorial orders, but these orders might experience a delivery delay of up to 48 hours.

In the meantime, the Sakura Charm pattern, as well as the Circle Starburst and Balloon Box patterns, are available at beAd Infinitum 24/7.

Bon voyage!

New Pattern: Sakura Charm

Just in time to celebrate the arrival of May flowers, my Sakura Charm pattern is complete and now available at beAd Infinitum. 

The idea for this charm came out of the Bead Mavens Vernal Visions Challenge, where I created this necklace to mimic the cherry blossom trees that bloom at the start of spring. I was humbled to receive an honorable mention for this entry! Each Sakura blossom was woven individually into a self-supporting charm measuring about 10 mm in diameter, and then I assembled over 30 of them to make the necklace using a combination of three different stringing methods. These charms are easily incorporated into other types of jewelry. I created two of them to make this pair of earrings to match the original necklace. 

But why stop with cherry blossoms? This design also works for several kinds of 5-petal flowers. I used three shades of blue lentils to make these cascading forget-me-not earrings:

As with the Circle Starburst design, the Sakura Charm also works well with Swarovski crystal circle "rivoli" pendants in place of the glass lentils. Here's another take on forget-me-not earrings using these sparkly crystals:

Finally, I made a forget-me-not necklace using charms made with sapphire AB lentils, and strung with bugle beads for festive simplicity. 

The Sakura Charm pattern illustrates in detail how to weave the basic Sakura Charm, and then describes how to make all the jewelry that you see here. It also includes over a dozen photos of completed pieces for inspiration, as well as a couple of variations by both Gwen Fisher and myself. I'd love to see what you'll create with this design!


How are you celebrating Spring so far?

Infinity Egg

Continuing with the theme of egg-shaped beaded and origami polyhedra, I've completed this beaded egg using Gwen and Florence's Infinity Weave technique:

This "Infinity Egg" measures 1 1/2 inches long, and just over 1 inch wide. It's surprisingly stiff and stable for such a hollow structure. It's a little big for a pendant, but it would make a nice ornament for an Easter Egg tree.

The basic structure is the same as the truncated hexadecahedron that I've wrote about before.

The Infinity Weave is used in three patterns over at beAd Infinitum, starting with the Infinity Dodecahedron and continuing with the Donut and Prisms patterns. I guess that this egg is a variation of both the Dodecahedron and Donut patterns, but the weave is so versatile that there are an infinite number of other possible variations as well.

Happy Easter everyone!

SATeam Mother's Day Giveaway Event

My wonderfully talented team is having a Mother's Day giveaway! 

Until May 1, each valid entry will be included in a drawing to win one of three gift certificates to any participating SATeam shop. You can enter more than once, and all entries are free of charge! For the details on how to enter this giveaway, along with a list of participating shops, check out the SATeam blog. 


Mother's Day is a month away! What are you getting for your mother?