Bead Embroidery

Last August I went to The Southern Bead Retreat in Callaway Gardens, GA.  The instructors were great and I learned a lot.  One of the instructors was Sherry Serafini working with bead embroidery.  In her class, I made this beautiful cuff.  I learned about cabochon attachment and bead placement.  Sherry loves to work with glitzy materials in an asymmetrical way.  This is typically not how I work.  I tend to be be very symmetrical and not as glitzy.  But I am learning!

Until that class, my only forays into bead embroidery were backed cabochons.  Below is the first one I made.  My father-in-law made the cabochon for me.  I love green, so malachite was perfect!  Since this one, I have made a couple more.  One of which sold just recently!

This Christmas, I received a book on bead embroidery and this fired my creativity again.  I have completely finished one project and am currently working on a second.  The first project is called "Dark Winter Night".  I used snowflake obsidian as the main focal stone.  I even added some crystal bicones to add some necessary sparkle for the twinkly stars at night!  You can hopefully see some of Sherry's influence, but not too much!  I would not want to copy her work! 

In the work in progress, I used two stone cabochons that I found while at the bead retreat.  They matched in colors, but one had more circles while the other one had stripes or lines.  I tried to repeat these elements in the surrounding beadwork!  I have so enjoyed doing these!!!