Magic-Beads.com

My collages slideshow

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Oh, what a fun that Slide.com! I think I can spend hours playing with my photos :D

2-tone Felted Beads Tutorial

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Today I want to share a joy of creating geometric shapes with a wool. Yesterday evening I was playing with Merino wool and realized I like to create contrasting color combinations, and I like to turn formless wool into geometric shapes. Because it looks like a miracle :)

To create 2 felted beads 2 cm in diameter pictured above you will need 0,79 g (sorry guys no ounces :) of red Merino wool and 0,79 g of violet Merino wool. For this project I used fuchsia/purple wool I dyed myself some time ago. If you need your beads to be consistent in size, use digital scale to measure your wool.

1. Make a wool ball using 0,79 g of purple wool. Making a wool ball is quick & easy thing: take wool, roll a tight ball shape, dip it into the bowl of soapy water, slide your fingers easily over the wool for approx. 1 minute, then begin to roll it gently between your palms - until you get a tight felt ball (it takes approx. 8-9 minutes). Then rinse your ball in a cool water to remove the soap.

2. Take your purple felt ball and wrap it with 0,79 g of red Merino wool. Try to distribute wool evenly over the surface of the purple ball.

3. Wrap the red wool around the purple ball tightly, then dip it into the bowl of soapy water, and make a felted ball the way described above.

4. This ball looks like an ordinary felt ball, but we know what’s inside! Using a sharp blade we will turn it into a piece of magic. Just cut it into 2 equal sections, and voila!

I couldn’t wait for my balls to dry, so I cut them when they were still wet :) I think I will turn them into earrings later.

Sigur Ros in Russia!

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I can’t believe my eyes: they’re coming to Moscow in August! Of course I will buy that $65 ticket - and a $65 ticket for my boyfriend :)
So bad I don’t post my beadworks here - I don’t have time for beading… All I do in the evenings is pack, pack, pack and pack orders. My small craft supplies store grows, I already have something about 10 loyal customers - I think this is great, because GreenBird was opened only 3 months ago.

And I’m feeling lost because of collapse of my dream to go to Kathmandu, Nepal in October. I’ve been dreaming about going there for 5 months. I explored ‘Nepal’ tag at Flickr almost every week, and today I shared my dream with a friend. She told me about political instability and repeating acts of terrorism in that region.. I started to search news and articles about political issues in Nepal (normally I don’t read news at all because I always feel bad after that.. And I don’t watch TV at all. I’m too emotional to know the truth about this world :)) Well, I think I’m not going to Nepal after reading all that stuff about Maoists and terrorists there - and a cow’s life is more valuable there than human life. I feel kinda scared now, and.. Goodbye my dream.

I wanted to spend my vacation there, and I was dreaming about going there, I was waiting for October.. And now, when I have nothing to wait for, I feel lost. I always live in wait for something - maybe that’s not right, maybe I should better enjoy being HERE in this moment?..

Well, better get some sleep now. And tomorrow I’m going to think about where to spend my vacation. I think I will leave that idea about visiting exotic country and go to Europe instead. How boring :)

It will be a bracelet soon :)

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Beading with Swarovski crystals and TOHO seed beads is oh so wonderful! But I feel a little scared.. I’m afraid to spoil everything a make an ugly piece..

Pink Pink Ring pattern

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I’d like to post here my Pink Pink Ring pattern, which I created in 2004.

Usually I don’t like my beadworks after a couple of months (or even less), but this ring is an exeption. I still like it - mostly because of the pink beads. You can finish it only in an hour, and there are only 2 easy steps:

Step 1
Make central part of the ring the way shown in the picture 1; then loop the detail to make a ring by passing through the first bead (pink bead at the bottom in the picture below):

Step 2
Add 3 or more beads between every 2 beads at both sides (picture 2).That’s all! :)