January 31, 2017

Leather Cabochon Component Reveal

Leather cabochon and peacock feather.

My friend, Lindsay Starr of Phantasm Creations, made the components for the January Component of the Month challenge over at the Art Elements blog.  She made cabs out of leather, then domed (using a wet molding technique she outlines here) and painted them.  I jumped at the chance when she offered to send me one so I could participate in her challenge and this is what she sent:

Leather cabochon and beads from Lindsay Starr.

I chose some colors of cord I thought might look good with the cab, as well as a few seed beads.  

Cabochon palette.

Then I started knotting.

Micro macrame bezel (back of).

This was my first attempt at a bezel and I cut it apart before I even got a photo of it on the cab.  Strike one.  I really hated the front of it, although I think the back side (shown) was pretty fun.  It came up too far on the front of the cab and the dark color really washed out the colors on the leather.  I went back to the drawing board and chose a cord color I never would have considered at first:  olive green.

Failed macrame bezel.

Strike two.  I didn't even finish this one.  Although I liked the color better, it was still covering up too much of the cab.  In desperation, I finally resorted to punching holes all around the edge of the leather and pulling my cord through it.  Boy, was that a lot of work and boy, was I wishing I'd had Lindsay do it when she offered (translated:  Linsday knows what she's doing with leather and I'm just muddling through).

Pierced leather cabochon with attached macrame.

On the plus side, though, I like this approach.  I added a few rows of knotting and a row of seed beads, then finished it off with some curly scallops.

Leather cab set in micro macrame.

All that was left to do was hang it from a knotted cord and add a dangle at the bottom:

Macrame necklace by Sherri Stokey of Knot Just Macrame.

Many thanks to Lindsay for her gift - I love a good challenge!  I hope you'll join me to see what everyone else did with their leather cabochons!

January 9, 2017

Random Ramblings

Micro macrame bracelet by Sherri Stokey of Knot Just Macrame.

The weather here has been both snowy and ridiculously cold the past week, so I've spent a lot of time indoors messing about with my macrame.  I tried a slight variation on the Gothic Tracery Micro Macrame Bracelet design.  Here's the original as a reminder:

Gothic Tracery Micro macrame bracelet by Sherri Stokey of Knot Just Macrame.

And here's the same bracelet with a slight variation:

Micro macrame bracelet design variation in khaki.

Isn't that fun?  I love the look of the second one on the wrist.  The variation adds a lot of interest.  

After that I went back to a simpler design:

Beaded macrame bracelet by Sherri Stokey.

I threw in some coconut heishi beads (the blue ones) for some fun texture.  Of course, that led to some other experimentation.  I didn't have any other coconut heishi beads small enough, so I had to go back to the glass seed beads, but I tried a light turquoise color in the mix instead of the blue (the one on the bottom in the next photo).

Beaded micro macrame bracelets from Knot Just Macrame.

And finally, I subbed out some other matte iris colors like a strange purple/olive green mix and some green/blue oddballs and came up with the top piece in that last photo.  I think it's my new favorite combination!  One more time:

Beaded micro macrame bracelet from Knot Just Macrame by Sherri Stokey.

Maybe I should have titled this post "And That's Why Nothing Else Got Done Around Here."  Stay warm!

January 4, 2017

Quick! (Enabler Alert)


Just a quick post today to share CraftArtEdu's latest sale.  You won't want to miss this one:  40% off all of their classes.  Yes, you read that right - 40% off all of the online classes at CraftArtEdu and you can get one or 100 at that price.  They have a great selection of classes covering all kinds of media, including micro macrame classes like the Falling Leaves Micro Macrame Bracelet in the photo above or this Ripples in Micro Macrame Bracelet:


There are lots to choose from, but you'll need to hurry.  This deal is only good through Friday (details here).  If you're anything like me, this time of winter is long and cold and I'm up for any kind of project to alleviate the boredom.  This is a great chance to try something fun!  Happy shopping!


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