Angelique's Creations Blog

Right before Christmas, I decided I wanted to make jewelry to give as gifts. I started making my Mom’s bracelet. She is a beader/designer, so I thought she might appreciate my efforts to try and make my own stuff. That’s how it started. Here is a look at the finished bracelet and earrings set:

It was my first try at stringing jewelry, and I didn’t want to ask my Mom for advice since the gift was meant for her. So with my little bit of experience I had working with seed beads, I gave it a go. The bracelet is made with 4mm cube beads and 3mm metal beads. I used head pins and silver ear wires to make the earrings. I was actually proud that I was able to do it without her help.

It wasn’t until later on that week when I was making another bracelet that she told me about making knots in the thread before I cut it. She also showed me how to make a half-hitch knot. I had never heard of it, but I’m glad she showed me. I thought stringing was exactly like working with seed beads where you just pull the thread through the beads a few more times. That would have been embarrassing to have all my bracelets falling apart after a few weeks or so. (*embarrassed*) LoL

I ended up taking my Mom’s bracelet apart and re-doing it, but that’s okay. You live, you learn, right? It was good practice, and it all worked out okay. I was able to keep her from finding out the bracelet was hers until Christmas. At least, if she knew, she didn’t say anything. And when she opened it, she said she liked it a lot.

About a week or so after I had finished that set, my son told me that they had picked the students for the gift exchange in his class. He got a girl named Cassandra, so I decided I would venture out and make a bracelet for her too.

This one was a memory wire bracelet with 6mm acrylic beads and in the middle of the bracelet I used plastic letter beads to put a heart, then her name, and another heart. It was my first memory wire bracelet, but my mom was there to help with that one if I needed it. Tommy said that he couldn’t tell if she liked it or not, because none of the girls in class said anything or made any kind of facial expression when they opened their gifts. Well, at least I tried to make her something nice. *shrugs shoulders*

I ended up making all four gift bracelet sets. One for my Mom, my Grandma, my Granny, and my Aunt, and they all said they loved them. I think they did. Just look at the look on my Grandma’s face when she opened hers. LoL

I also created five more sets besides the ones as gifts. I don’t have pictures of all of them, or of the other three gift sets, but as I get them, I will make sure to add a blog. The reason for the lack of pictures is that we took all the sets over to my Granny’s house so she could see them, and while we were there, another one of my aunts ended up buying five of the nine sets, including one of the sets I had made for my Aunt! It was all good though, we still had plenty of beads, so I just made another one almost exactly like it, and I finished it in plenty of time for Christmas.

All in all, not bad for my first week of wire work and stringing.

Well, it’s finally happened, I’m a grandma. A little earlier than expected, but I’m not complaining. My dog, Sweets, had puppies earlier this month. It was her first pregnancy (and last…I’ll make sure of that). I felt so bad for her because for the last few weeks before the babies were born, she looked completely miserable…poor baby!

But she made it through. She had three puppies, but the boy (the third born) didn’t make it. My mom says he was possibly stillborn because he was cold from the beginning and could never be revived. He was big compared to the other two and would have been healthy, but I guess something went wrong.

She did have two girls that made it though.

They were so tiny. My dad could hold both of them in the palm of one hand!

The little grey one was the first born, and my dad had to help deliver her. We were worried that she didn’t survive because she didn’t breathe right away. After a few seconds, she did finally take her first breath, so she was fine. After about a week though, fate took it’s course and Sweets started not wanting to take care of her. She was pushing her away when she tried to feed and ignoring her when she cried. Even our experienced mama dog, Sugars, didn’t really want anything to do with her. So we started feeding her, but it wasn’t enough…On Thursday, she passed . The best we can figure is that she didn’t have good enough lungs or wasn’t strong enough to make it. Tommy, my son, cried when my Dad told him, but all we can do is try and make sure this last one is well taken care of.

I call her Baby.
She’s a cutie, isn’t she?

These pictures were taken of her today. Her eyes still haven’t opened yet, but they should soon. She is healthy and eats like a horse! But I’m glad she is fine. Sometimes I think Sweets doesn’t quite know what she’s doing…I’ve had to get after her for plopping her bum down right on top of the puppy…but Baby is strong, so she just pulls herself out. She is already two weeks old, so give her a few more weeks and she will be jumping out of the box we keep her in, and roaming the house…and, of course, there will be plenty more pictures and plenty more blogs.

Yes, I am a proud grandma, but hopefully I’m not a grandma again (from Tommy and Anna) for a really long time.

UPDATE: October 14, 2011:  To see pictures of  Baby (now named Peanut) all grown up, see my blog “It’s Been a While” posted on August 2, 2011.  She is so cute!!!

My pattern that my Mom was working on is finished. She didn’t get it into the beading challenge on time though. She was supposed to have it done and online by midnight on the night of August 5th, but it was eastern time instead of central time. She just didn’t notice that specific detail early enough. Common mistake. I don’t think many of us pay attention to things like that; I know I don’t unless it’s big and bright on the screen. But she said she will take extra special care to look for any details like that next time.

Here is a look at her finished product.

I like the color choices she made. I created the pattern; she created the bracelet. It works out well for both of us.

It took my mom several times trying to make it and taking it apart. I think I said in the last blog about this bracelet that she was trying to do the pattern in brick stitch like the original pattern I made, and since she doesn’t have as much experience in that stitch, she decided to re-pattern it and make it in peyote stitch instead. It looks exactly the same when completed, it’s just a different way of putting it together. That’s what I understand anyway. I will learn more as I become more experienced.

Here is another picture. I love the way this bracelet turned out! It actually inspires me to try and create more patterns and possibly pick up a needle and beads to create some bracelets myself.

Hope everyone is happy and healthy!

I just realized I have been writing blogs about my life, beadwork, and embroidery, and you haven’t even seen who we are. So I figured I would go ahead and put a blog out so you can put the names to the faces.

This is me. I am sometimes silly, sometimes serious, and sometimes neurotic since I seem to let my anxieties get the best of me quite a bit.

This is my son, Tommy. He is 13, has a bit of an attitude (like most teens), and terrorizes the dogs by wanting to hug them all the time. Here is a picture of him and DD. Can’t you see how happy she is?

This is my daughter, Anna. She is 11 going on 16. She loves clothes, shoes, music, and the internet. And we are lucky if we see her (internet, tv, music, and video games in her room).

These are my two chihuahuas. You have already seen DD, the one on the left is Sweets. They are so cute when they are sleeping.

Here is also one of our turtles Spidey (officially Spiderman ~ Tommy named him ~ he is obsessed with Spiderman).

And the other turtle Spike (officially Princess Spike ~ Anna named her Spike, then we found out she was a girl).

We also have some fish, a crab, and a shrimp, but there are too many to put pictures up.

We live with my Mom and Dad. Here is a picture of my Mom with three of our six dogs.

Here is my Dad. (He is playing with Tommy’s transformer from Christmas that year).

Yeah, with the animals we are quite a big bunch. But at least now you see who I am talking about when I blog about them.

Well, I dunnit.

I finally started using my BeadTool 3 to create beading patterns. My mom had been asking me to do some for a while now, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it. I guess it was partly because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to make anything good. Once I started she really loved them. I have only created four small christmas ornaments, one butterfly in different colors for a cuff bracelet, and four cuff bracelet patterns in various colors, but at least I’ve started doing it.

I haven’t started actually doing the beadwork for any of my patterns, but I will eventually. I just haven’t gotten to that point yet.

However, my mom is making one of my patterns for the newest Etsy Beadweavers team challenge. Voting will begin on August 9th. So if you are interested in voting, that is the link. Vote for whoever you like, you don’t have to vote for me, but please come and vote.

Her entry is due August 5th, but this bracelet has been giving her a heck of a time, so we’re hoping she’ll make it. She began it in brick stitch, but it kept falling apart, so yesterday she had to tear the whole thing apart and start over in peyote. I would post a picture, but as of right now, the bracelet is still itty bitty (only to the 34th row), but I promise, when she finishes it I will post a picture.

Wish us luck!

Have a great day!

UPDATE: October 14, 2011:  BeadTool has been updated to BeadTool 4. Here is the link where it can be downloaded.