Sew Craft N Bead
Sewing, Crafting, Beading and More!
5 Minute “Smoke Break” Walk
I just want to start out by saying, I am NOT a smoker in anyway. I never have and I never will. Personally, I think it is gross but I’m not going to tell people to smoke or not smoke that is their choice and life. My hubby does the vapor smoking and I have a few friends who smoke, which is fine with me, I just won’t do it.
Over the years, I see smokers go outside to smoke either regular or vapor cigarettes and socialize with others who do the same. After a while of seeing smokers take breaks very frequently, I started thinking, why don’t I take mini breaks? If they can take breaks, why can’t I?
This idea inspired me to get up, move around and stretch every so often. Sometimes I would walk around a little bit inside the building I work in. I did this for a few weeks, until I got a brilliant idea. Why don’t I just go outside and walk around the buildings for about 5 to 10 minutes to get more steps in during the day? At that time, hubby had surprised me and bought me a blue Samsung Gear Fit 2 that I’ve been eyeing for a couple of weeks. Ever since I got the Gear Fit 2, I’ve been trying to get 10,000 steps a day. Well, I’ve been struggling to reach that goal, so hence, why not just take a 5 minute walk and get more steps in?
I found that if I walked for about 5 minutes or so I can roughly get 1,500 steps in. Which I thought was great, so I decided to take a break every hour or hour and a half at work. Most of the time I can get 10,000 steps in or just close to it, depends on what I had to do that day at work. Perfect! Started a trend for myself! I’m going on my “5 Minute Smoke Break Walk” now, see you in a bit.
“Teal Embrace” a Bead Embroidery Necklace
I wanted to share my biggest bead embroidery project I have ever done so far. It took me about two hours a day for two weeks or so to complete a wonderful bead embroidery necklace! I also wanted to show how I drafted my design and made it come to life. Luckily, I took multiple pictures of my project since I was emailing my hubby my progress when he was away on a work trip. He loves to see all my wonderful projects.
The left picture above shows my sketch I drew up for the necklace. I also sketched out matching earrings too but I ended up not having enough material at the end to make them. 😢 The right picture I cheated…I photo copied my sketch and used the copy to draw the color design. I thought it was smart. I didn’t have to ruin my original sketch with colors that could have not worked out and be resorted to re-sketching it. Good thing is my colorful drawing turned out exactly how I imagined it and all the colors worked out!
Sorry, my pictures aren’t the best since my shadow is showing in some of them. Like I said, I was just taking quick pictures to show my progress to hubby.
In this picture above, you can see I stenciled my outline on a grey bead backing, called Nicole’s BeadBacking. This bead backing is wonderful because you can get it in a variety of colors and it is easy to sew through and embroider on. Also pictured are cabochons I glued on the day before with E6000 glue (takes about 24 hours to dry), which you can buy online on Amazon or at your local craft store or department store, and me starting to bead bezel the cabochons with teal and white seed beads.
Here on these pictures I finished my bead bezel on all the cabochons with seed beads and white bicone crystals. Then I started my outline with dark teal bugle beads.
These pictures display my tedious beading I had to stitch little bit by little bit. Beading the small seed beads took the longest to complete! I also tried to make sure both sides of the necklace look somewhat symmetrical, but in bead embroidery it can be a little challenging since some seed beads aren’t the same size. There are seed beads out there that are very very close to her same size, like Miyuki seed beads, but they can get a little bit pricey when you need a bunch of them to complete big projects.
Left picture shows my completion of the seed bead embroidering of the necklace. So pretty! Right picture shows the tan suede home decor fabric I glued on the backing of the necklace and me half complete with stitching the front and back layers together with white seed beads on the edge to give it a nice finish look.
This picture shows my completion! YAY!!
I named this beauty: Teal Embrace
Fitting, right?
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My Craftroom
We use to rent a nice little one story house about a mile or two from the beach. It had three bedrooms, one bathroom, living room, kitchen and a sunroom. I got to have a craftroom at this house but it was also used as the guest bedroom. That means I didn’t have much room to place my sewing, beading and craft stuff. Just imagine if you were a guest staying in that room, you would be surrounded by a variety of fabrics, shinny beads, rainbow of thread, crafty stuff, and don’t forget the sewing machine. You can say that you would feel a little cramped in that room. In order for me to cut fabric pieces or do craft stuff in that room, I had to lay a piece of plywood on top of the bed! When my husband and I had guest stay over, I had to move this big piece of plywood and slide it under the mattress. Unfortunately, I can not find the picture what that room looked liked. I swear I took pictures but I probably have it in one of my old phones that I didn’t upload to my laptop… oh well. If I find it, I will upload the photo.
This situation only lasted for about 4 to 5 years until the hubby and I bought a house. I was so excited last year when we bought our dream home! The house is two stories and has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, garage, and a big backyard with a 10′ x 10′ shed. I love It! Now that we have 4 bedrooms I was able to have my own craftroom! YES! After a few days of having the house, I was able to convince my hubby that I needed the second biggest bedroom in the house for my craftroom. I had a lovely plan drawn out to show him that I required a lot of space and different stations to do sewing, beading and crafting. I needed a Women Cave! Below is the sketch I created to show my hubby my craftroom plans.
He gets the shed, garage, and the family room (which he now uses as his office/Man Cave), so it is only fair to let me have the second biggest bedroom to do my fun creative activities… right?
It took a while to get my craftroom situated and close to my plans as possible. Here are some pictures of my craftroom progressing.
This first picture shows the peg board with a nice woven like trim and rosettes on the corners that hubby and I painted and glued on. Then we got four 1 X 1 X 4 boards that we screwed into the wall studs and then used the boards to mount the peg boards on. This also allows you to have space behind the peg board so you can use peg board hardware to organize.
This picture shows my peg board storage/organize setup with all my colorful threads (I know… I have a lot), tools, and miscellaneous stuff I put on there. I used cube storage shelves to help create my big table to cut fabric on or to do crafty stuff on and to make my sewing station. As you can see in the picture, I use the cubes for more storage so no space is wasted. My father-in-law made me the huge mahogany formica board to set on top of the shelves, it really adds the perfect touch…shiny!
The above picture shows me adding my other station for beading and to use my coverstich machine on. Also, I placed a huge white cutting board on top of my table so I have more room to cut fabric and to protect the beautiful mahogany formica surface that is underneath it.
Last year for Christmas, my brother-in-law, Josh, custom made me three shelves to place all of my fabric on. Awesomeness!!!! These shelves didn’t start out like this way though… I had to drive the unassembled pieces from Ohio to Virginia in my SUV. Once we got the pieces home, hubby and I had to assembly, primer, and paint them.
Look at all that fabric! Yikes!
Last but not least, my father-in-law helped me put up these two cabinets when he came and visited us during the summer. I guess you can say I have plenty of storage in my craftroom! Woohoo!
I hope you enjoyed seeing where all the fun and creative magic happens!
