Dabbling with beads !!!

Beading aur main ... sounds two contrasting points. Can I ever get to working on this craft! I guess, nope ... until ... all of a sudden, I found myself getting fascinated by this creativity during last Christmas. I was never so enchanted by artificial jewelery as much as I am towards gold jewelery. I guess, I am still old-fashioned in my tastes :( I could never relish a piece of jewelery which contains rope-like jute threads (or cords) or thick zanjeer-like chains around a delicate neck. Neither can I appreciate the jewelery which gives you a look of gypsy.

About beads ... all I knew was what my mom prepared with beads during her young days. She had prepared lotza creative things which adorn every showcase and wall back at home. ... each one neatly beaded to resemble their closest living version.
Ah, I never sat down to learn any of those... all I did was cleaning the items periodically to remove the dust ... packing them in safe zones whenever we were moving and then forget it for all. Such was my acquaintance with beads.But.... things changed during last Christmas season... I found myself being a frequent visitor to craft store .. not for beads... but for knitting/crochet/tatting threads and tools. Amidst my visits, I found myself eagerly aspiring to create a fashion jewelery. I did not have any idea of what I want to do. All I knew is ... I want to do something with beads. And lo... my treasure hunt for unknown and unimaginary item started. And one day, I found some small jewelery-making-kit which I got home. Interestingly, I got down to work on it ... may be to get diversion from my otherwise dull life.
In the meanwhile, my craze with craft stores sort of became infectious. Well, I got more companions to craft store visits. And then, it wasn't just me... but some more crazy amateur ladies shopping for ... some visualized artistic designs and what not. The artistic self in us was morphing into the shopping addiction, which nonetheless was harmless because ... all it did to us was wearing our so-long hidden parachutes of thinking and gliding with them and did not result in any breaking of piggy banks (Thank GOD!!!... else all the male partners would have mangled me by now :-p)

Come Friday, Saturday... the instant place for we ladies to hang out will be AC Moore, Michaels... while our male comrades would sigh with a wriggly face showing their discontent with the idea :-p) Days passed by and our short brief visits to the crafts stores resulted in each of us purchasing tools, beads and all that is required to complete our visualized final products :-)

No, no... we just dint shop and purchase stuffs to shove them off in some corner ... but we did try to lace these beads into beautiful (!!) artworks.
This spiral ocean breeze colored blue-green glass beads woven into a long necklace ... isn't it looking awesome (atleast in photograph:-p)
All these crafts were done in Summer of 2009 

Hands on painting and cross-stitch

After a long time, perhaps a decade later, I picked up the craft needle to sort of kill time. I had purchased the material and tools a decade ago, but never got to it because of change in interests over the course of time. Most of my spare time, of late, was spent doing window shopping or hanging idly at malls peeping in to get the list of new/updated stock. I may have already purchased all the things I need, but still the temptation to hang-out in a mall and read out the details typed on each cover never ends at all. I think, this is a girly tendency which is very hard to explain :-)

Recently, I have had my hands on few diverse crafts. My roomie had purchased a nice white pant long ago and by mistake, the salesperson forgot to remove the store tag from the apparel. My roomie tried to remove the tag herself and stained the pant with the paint contents present inside the tag... spoiling the nice white pant :( After lying around in the wardrobe for couple of years, an idea struck me... why not paint the area and camouflage it :D That gave me a reason to visit the arts and crafts store (which is one of my least visited stores otherwise). As if a complete professional, I put few bottles of paint, brushes, carbon paper, tracing paper, applique designs in my cart and checked out of the store. I tend to have starting-trouble-mania for anything new. I had to find a pattern to paint. So, searched all around the great net and did not find any which will be short and sweet design. After keeping the items in my shelf for few days, I made up my mind to pick them out and start with no design in specific. Slowly, I placed the applique designs and stuck them on the fabric. I then, picked up colors in random and connected the design... carefully ensuring that the stain is nor visible. End result was not so bad ... isn't it :-)

Next in my craft series was yet another oldie stuff... which I had got very long ago. Slowly I picked up the cross-stitch and completed it after taking some spare time daily :-)

Here it is, aren't those love birds cute :-p)

Tatting designs

Some intricate tatting patterns for craft amateurs .....