The Beach is Made for Beading!

Last week, my girlfriends and I had our annual beach beading soiree. This is a blissful time for us beadaholics as we enjoy five days with nothing better to do than bead. We sleep as little as possible (or as much as you wish), bead a lot, drink if we want, tell stories, and basically have a fabulous time. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for loaning us the location, we are truly grateful!

Just to prove that we really do bead, I thought I would share what I got accomplished. For those non-beaders, it may not look like much, but I was pleased with the outcome. Some of you may know that I have been working on an extremely large undertaking -- a 20" x 14" Christmas tapestry of the North Pole. Here is a picture of what it will look like when finished:

There are over 400 rows to the pattern and I am only on row 89. I did 14 rows at the beach. Each row takes approximately 1/2 hour to an hour. So, for the first two days, I worked on the tapestry, here is what I have done so far:

To give you an idea of 14 rows, it is about 1/2 inch. I did the area between the bottom of the light, down to the bottom of the picture. Pictures do not do it justice, the use of beads in this pattern is incredible. The stars in the sky appear to twinkle, the snow on the roofs glisten and the light has a soft glow to it. Doing a project like this is as close as I will get to painting, I guess it is my version of paint by number. = )

Besides the tapestry, I made a couple of bracelets. One was this cute snowman pattern. It is finished except for the button closure (I forgot to bring buttons so the bracelets I made are almost finished).

I made this mini-tapestry using the beads that were called for in the pattern. I am not happy with it at all because the sky is way too dark. After I was halfway through it, I made the decision to finish thinking it would be better. Wrong decision. I will probably end up taking this completely apart and salvaging the beads. It is a cute pattern, just a poor bead selection.

My next bracelet is my favorite. It is a goddess bracelet and is quite colorful. I just love the wild colors. It was a very fun pattern to do! Now, I just need to find the perfect button to close it up.

The last bracelet is a cool snowflake pattern. The colors do not show well in this picture, the beads have a metallic finish and it glistens quite nicely. As you can tell, I didn't get it quite finished before it was time to pack up and go home.

Well, there you have it. This is what I have to show for myself. I had a great time and I'm already counting down the days until next year's getaway!