~John

[singlepic id=377 w=320 h=240 float=left] [singlepic id=376 w=320 h=240 float=right]This set became a finalist in the most prestigious bead competition in the world – Bead Dreams 2010, and I feel proud for this my “baby”, though it wasn’t selected as a ribbon winner.   But I am happy with just beeing the part of the show, and this is certainly amazing thing: this year both of my entries (this set and the necklace ”The Stone flower”) were selected as finalists! You can see this piece on official site of Bead and Button magazine, the top from the back and the bracelet as well as all other finalists of this show!

This set is consisting of 3 parts: the top for a pregnant lady (completely made from beads), necklace and bracelet. The idea of this set came to me while I was expecting a baby; and the experience of spring on the nature of my home city with hills, covered in thick snowdrifts, sparkling under the sun on the thin crust of ice over the snow with billions of snow “diamonds”, and a real miracle – butterflies flying among all the snow – showed me the exact image of this set. It has a deep sense of human’s closeness to Nature, combining the ideas of expectance by a mother for her child and Mother Nature for spring.  I wanted to accent the beauty of the expecting mother and the beauty of the snow-melting time with its clear thin delicate ice, sparkling snow and joyful spirit.

The butterflies on the necklace and bracelet are also symbolic. They are forerunners of Spring’s Nascency: in their bodies-”souls”- they show up different manifestations of coming Spring (melting snow, dew drops, thawed patches, etc).  These butterflies are very different, like snowflakes – you can never meet the same shape among others.

[singlepic id=369 w=320 h=240 float=left]About the technical aspects of this set: I used here my own technique (Tatiana’s MOTIF (“Microbeaded Openwork’s Tastiness In Fitzpatrick’s Fancywork”)) working with antique and vintage micro beads in embroidery, making the embroidery look delicate and lite like lace.  The top on the front has a little clasp, hidden by Swarovski crystals. On the back the top has buttons made from pearls on two sides of the central part of the back.

Тhe necklace has magnet clasp on the bottom of small butterfly.  The big butterfly from the necklace can be removed and used as a pendant separately or as a decorative part for a hair clasp.

Creation of this set took about 9 months – in unison with the idea.

Materials used in this set: Antique Italian glass seed beads sizes 18, 20, 22, 24; vintage Czech seed beads and cuts sizes 18, 20; Japanese glass seed beads sizes 15, 11 and cuts; Czech micro cuts; Swarovski crystals (2 mm round crystal beads, bicones 2.5 mm, 3,4,5 mm; 6 mm crystal rondelle beads; 11×6 mm crystal modular beads; crystal aquiline center hole beads; crystal sew-on stones); natural rock-crystal beads; natural pearls; leather; memory wire; Fireline, Silamide waxed thread; Lacy’s Stiff Stuff.

Today we took Anastasia to the Home Plus play area for the first time.  Here are a couple videos of her response.  Watching her was so much fun I had to figure out how to record video on my cell phone!

[singlepic id=358 w=320 h=240 float=left] [singlepic id=359 w=320 h=240 float=right]This necklace is one from my “fairy-tail collection”, it is amusing, funny and light, though the work on this necklace was quite hard because of the micro-bead framing (I used beads size 18- 24 for the stone mounting decoration).

The name of the necklace speaks for itself; it was taken from the verses of A.S.Pushkin’s poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”:

“On seashore far a green oak towers,
And to it with a gold chain bound,
A learned cat whiles away the hours
By walking slowly round and round.
To right he walks, and sings a ditty;
To left he walks, and tells a tale….”

Materials, used in this piece of art: Jasper cabochon, antique Italian micro beads (# 18-24), Japanese glass beads size 11; acorns; metal golden chains.

[singlepic id=355 w=320 h=240 float=left] [singlepic id=356 w=320 h=240 float=left] [singlepic id=357 w=320 h=240 float=right]A gold nugget and glass beads – are you surprised with such a combination?  The nobility of antique micro beads and the luxury of gold go together perfectly, neither denying each other nor distracting from each other, but adding new nuances and new perceptions.

This necklace I created as a transformer: you could wear it differently, changing the pendant (I made additional pendant to this necklace in a shape of a leaf, using my own technique “Micro bead netting in embroidery”) or you could wear all parts separately – the necklace also looks great without any pendant, and pendant looks very attractive by itself.

Many people are wondering about the size of the beads which I’m using. This picture will give you exact image of differences in sizes between contemporary beads size 11 and antique little ones.

Materials, used in this necklace: glass ruby cabochons, antique Italian glass  micro beads (sizes 18-22), Czech glass micro cuts, black pearls, haematite beads, Swarovski crystals, gold-filled clasp.

[singlepic id=346 w=320 h=240 float=left] [singlepic id=349 w=320 h=240 float=right] [singlepic id=352 w=320 h=240 float=left]This brooch is a distillation of finesse, elegance and luxury. Very rare and astonishing materials and the finest workmanship make this piece of art absolutely unique and unbelievably beautiful. To create this brooch, I used the smallest natural pearls which you could imagine – less than 1 mm in diameter, larger pearls, antique glass beads sizes 18-24, very small silver beads and Czech glass micro cuts. The flower was netted on the silver base, which allows to turn this brooch into the pendant for a necklace by sliding the necklace through a special slot made from silver, a very easy and fast procedure.

[singlepic id=353 w=320 h=240 float=left] [singlepic id=354 w=320 h=240 float=right] Here it is – my finalist of Bead Dreams 2010 competition! Official site of Bead and Button magazine had published all the pictures of the finalists of this prestigious bead event, and you can see there the picture of this necklace also.

This necklace was made by motif of P.Bajov’s fairy-tale “The Stone Flower.” I wanted to express the attraction and intangibility of the mythical stone flower, whose living beauty was impossible for Danila, the rock-carving master, to make out of malachite. In my necklace you can see the Malachite flower, turning into the difficult to catch butterfly…

This necklace was created using my own technique “Tatiana’s MOTIF” (“Microbeaded Openwork’s Tastiness In Fitzpatrick’s Fancywork”). Work on this project of beading art took over 100 hours.

Materials, used in this necklace: malachite cabochons and beads, Japanese beads size 11, 15, antique Italian micro beads sizes 18, 20, 24; gold-plated charlottes, black-greenish pearls, Czech micro cuts, Swarovski crystal beads, Onyx beads, gold -filled findings.

Materials, used in this necklace: Japanese glass beads sizes 10 and 11, Swarovski glass pearls, Czech glass drop beads, Crystal beads, “cat’s eye” glass beads, sterling silver clasp.

This last weekend we spent some time on a beach and she was the star.  Everyone had to come by and watch her playing in the sand.  It was really funny one time when I was concentrating on flying my new kite and she knocked a chair she was sitting on over.  I heard about 20 Koreans all inhale sharply all at one time and could hear them start running.  I turned and saw her looking up at me startled but then she laughed and there was a collective sigh of relief that she wasn’t hurt.

I’m attaching a video here of what a typical reaction to foreign kids is like here in Korea.

[video filename="http://www.jandtdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Korean-Response-to-Anastasia.flv" /]