Thing-a-Day 2012

I've signed up to do Thing-a-Day.  More info tomorrow!

Last Mobeius bead day!

 Well, it's the last day of January, so this is probably the last post I'll do on mobeius beads anytime soon.  I finished up making something similar to yesterday.  And then I took yesterday's entry and embellished it just a little bit more.  I like it! 

I know I'm saying that a lot lately, but it's nice when I find something I like while experimenting.  I'll probably have a little recap of January tomorrow.

Oh foo!  Instead of playing "Where's Waldo?", perhaps I should have a "Where's the cat hair?" game going on....

Day 30...

One new thing spins off another.  In this case, I took layered mobeius beads and set them together to make this compound flower mobeius bead.  I like it!

Day 29...

Another oval mobeius bead.  This one with a different pattern on each side.  I'll say it again, I really, really like this shape.

An Oval Mobeius Bead?!?

Yep!  I was looking at my cookie cutter case and kind of went, hmmm--I wonder.  So I pulled out some oval cookie cutters:



And stacked a couple of cut-outs:



And made a mobeius bead:



I like it!  It turns out rounder than using a round slice or round cut-out does (weird, huh?).  You do have to be a little more careful and take a little more time to get it to work, but I think the results are worth it.  Needless to say, I'm going to experiment a bit more with these.

Round Layered Mobeius Bead

Thought I'd try the layering with a round mobeius bead--here's a couple of pictures....

Looking back on the beads made with the square canes, these don't look all that different.  It depends on how you fold them, I guess.

Mobeius beads--not just for squares...

Of course, you can make mobeius beads with round canes, too.  I made a few when I was first learning the technique.  Not very many, though--my thing has always been quilt canes and there are not too many quilts that are round.  This is a compound bead I made pretty early on.

And here's a couple round mobeius beads I made this evening:

If you look back a month or two in my blog, I show some bracelets made with the round beads:

More angels...

Hmm...I have, what, seven more days of mobeius beads?  I wasn't feeling particularly inspired tonight (I'm SO tired), so I just made a couple more angels.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be more with it....

Little Angels...

So somewhere around the time I was making snowflakes and wreaths, I came up with these cute little angels.

After I'd been making them for a while, I had the bright idea to make a little nativity (yeah, yeah, I know--Joseph looks Italian; he's really Jewish, though)...

Here's tonight's mobeius creation:

Grrr! I don't remember it being this hard...

Remember my double mobeius bead?  When I was first experimenting with it, oh I'm guessing 10 years ago, I made a chain of them and curved them into a circle.  That led me to my mobeius wreath ornament. 

I tried to recreate that tonight and just had a very difficult time.  *sigh* It looks hideous.  I don't have enough of a green cane to make another one and I don't have time to make a green cane.  So here it is.  I get the feeling it will take me a while to get the hang of these again.  I'm not sure I want to make the effort.  I guess we'll see....

Way beyond the bead...

So, several posts ago I was talking about Mike Buessler and my exploration of mobeius beads.  After I'd pushed a few together to make mobeius flowers, I eventually took it up a notch and came up with these snowflake ornaments:

 

 

I haven't made these for a while...like I said before, I get tired of making the same thing over and over and I just kind of burnt myself out on them.  But I'm starting to like making them again--I guess I just have to let things rest awhile and then I can feel renewed.  Here's the one I made tonight:

Addictive...

*sigh*

Enablers...

Thanks, Patricia...SO not helping!  LOL!

Help! I can't stop!

I am really enjoying playing around with the layering on mobeius beads.  I'm not sure how I like it with a patterned first layer, but this one looks pretty good.

Another ornament...

So here's the final new ornament that I gave my mom.  I am really liking this new style of ornament.  I have a lot of ideas, so it's a good thing Christmas is eleven months away!

Texture!

I'm experiment with texture a bit.  I didn't think it would work because making mobeius beads requires a bit of pressure in the bending and sticking the points together.  It can rub or press the texture right off.  I'm thinking the right clay or the right consistency can minimize that problem and turn out a rather interesting bead.  Kind of like this one:

One side has a bumpy texture and the other has a texture with impressions.  I like the uneven texture on both sides--I was going for a less perfect, more mottled look.  I think I may try to for an even, perfected look in a day or two (it will probably take that long for me to find the rest of my texture sheets...hee!).

Stella...

Here's an ornament I made for my stepdad.  He has a sweet dog named Stella and I tried to recreate her in clay.  Front view:

Day 17...

Even though I'm not loving the colors, I really like this layered mobeius heart bead.  I've been trying to use up odds and ends of scrap clay that I have littering every work surface in the house, so I sometimes wind up using colors and stuff I wouldn't ordinarily use.   It's useful in a way--if I like the way a bead turns out, I can make it again with colors that I really want and fix any flaws or mistakes that I used in the trial bead.  I'll be making more of these....

Poor planning...

I tend to finish up Christmas presents at the last minute.  Barely enough time to wrap and deliver them.  Then I realize I didn't take pictures of them.  *sigh*  Anyway, I finally remembered to take pictures of my mom's Christmas ornaments. Of course, it means lighting and background are less than ideal.  Oh well.  Here's my favorite (and hers, too):

He's about five inches tall.  I've got a couple more ornaments to show off over the next couple of days, so check back.

Making do...

Making a long story short, most of my tools and supplies are in my car about a mile away.  So I'm scrounging around for my second tier tools in order to make something.  I've been having a lot of fun embellishing the average mobeius bead.  Here's the latest one.

Day 15...

I've got plans for these...stay tuned.

Remote clay day...

I've been waiting for Clay Day for quite a while.  To my dismay, I woke up to snow.  I live at the bottom of a steep hill and up a steep driveway in a neighborhood that will get snow when no one else does.  So I stayed home.  But I worked on stuff I would have done at clay day.  I made more of those funky mobeius beads that I made yesterday.  And I made this necklace:

It's...um, colorful.

Following my muse...

Huh.  I don't know why I didn't think of this before.  I kind of stacked up some little cutouts on top of a square of clay, and again on the bottom; poked a hole in it and formed a sort of mobeius bead.  It's too bad I can't figure out how to get a good picture of it.  It looks pretty cool in person.

Okay, I give up for now...

Part of my problem is I'm so easily bored.  I like making new things--I just don't like making the same new thing over and over again.  Here's my final try with this lacy onlay thing (for now, anyway):