I Am In Love With Fabric Beads

What fun I had today! I felt like a 5-year old because I had a play date with a good friend.

I belong to a Yahoo Group called "The Altered Art Divas." We are a small group and many of us have belonged to this group for over 5 years. Needless to say, we have become very close friends even though we may have never met in person. On Monday, I met one of the Divas, Bev, and we shopped in the Garment District of NYC (see previous post.)

Today, another Diva friend, Santa came over so that we could experiment making fabric beads together. This is something I have always wanted to do but I never got around to it. Knowing how much "stuff" we'd need to work on this project, I dragged a bunch of supplies down to the dining room so we'd have plenty of room to spread out.

Here are a couple of pictures of what was strewn all over the room.

Everything looked very neat to start with, but you should see what the room looks like now! We don't have earthquakes here in NJ but it looks as if one just shook the house.

It was great to bat ideas around with Santa and we explored and experimented the day away. Here's Santa busily gluing her bead.


A few months ago, I bought Fabulous Fabric Beads by Kristal Wick. I am a bookaholic as are many artists. However, I usually buy a book, look at it, promise myself that I'll make every project in the book, buy everything I need to make every project in the book, and then never get to it.

However, this book was exceptional. It kept calling to me and I could not ignore its siren song. The song kept getting louder and louder until I listened and I'm glad I did.
I suggest if you have any interest at all in making fabric beads, you purchase the book. I know Amazon has the book. If I've done everything correctly, you should be able to follow this link to see the book at Amazon. Once there, you'll be able to click on the cover of the book and see some of the inside pages.

http://www.amazon.com/Fabulous-Fabric-Beads-Create-Jewelry/dp/1596680776

The photography in the book is superior. I wish I could say the same about my photos, but unfortunately I found it extremely hard to get good photos of the beads even though I was using my brand new light box. I think it was because the beads are shiny. So this is the best picture I was able to get. If you click on it, you should be able to see more detail of the beads.
All in all, it was a great day. As an aside, since I have everything out, I am planning on making more beads in the days to come. I'll be sure to post pictures of any new beads I make.