It’s been almost a year since I blogged. I find it hard to believe, but in many ways 2015 was a year that got away from me. Way too much time working, not enough time creating.

I want to make sure that in 2016, I take the time to be creative — and finish all those half done projects that have piled up over the years. After years of working with beads professionally, I have a huge stash, a nice stockpile of gemstones, seed beads, pearls and fibers.

I’m starting out today with something really simple; I found a beautiful strand of stick pearls that I’ve never used, some 3mm light gray crystals, and a leftover clasp.

One thing that I love about stick pearls is that that make such a quick and easy cuff with big visual impact. You don’t even need to add other beads or spacers and they look good.

I simply strung irregular groups of stick pearls with crystals on .014 lb beading wire, and used crimps to attach a clasp to each end.

Here’s to hoping 2016 has lots of beautiful small victories.

The last month has been really busy! I did a little editing work for a certain beading magazine I used to work for (kumihimo! soutache! lots of fun techniques I had to master and test!).

My garden had reached that insane time of year when its covered with greenery and requires constant harvesting. I love it, but it’s really incredibly time consuming.

And, I’m moving! It was kind of a surprise. Just some changes and uncertainty around my building…and I decided I didn’t really want to be a property manager without any type of compensation. And my awesome neighbors decided to move. So I was done. I’m very excited about the new place, but I’m going to be busy packing, moving and unpacking, so the blog will be a little sporadic for the next few weeks.

Enjoy the end of summer!

I picked up a small hank of these simple and earthy mixed seed beads at one of our local bead shops. I loved the texture that the mix of sizes and colors offered, the blend of earth tones with pops of turquoise. But the hank sat around for months because I could figure out what to do. Stitch them? Make a thin simple strung necklace?

Eventually I realized that you don’t mess around with what’s already working: I loved the way these beads looked on the hank because the small strung bundle captured the best features of the mix — the variety of colors and sizes and the texture of them hanging freely together. The hank was just about the right size for a bracelet, so that’s what it became.

Multistrands aren’t quite as simple as they look: You’d think you just need to restring the beads, but you do need to make a few decisions first. What do you want the final length of the bracelet to be? Do you want it loose and dangly or neat and orderly? Should all the strands be exactly the same length, or do you want a bit of variety so they’ll layer and overlap? Should the clasps be unobtrusive or a centerpiece? Do you want the ends to gather or lay somewhat flat?

I went with a slight variation in length in a loose bracelet that was primarily flat with an unobtrusive clasp —basically, I wanted it to look like I’d just wrapped the hank around my wrist. Casual and earthy.

Casual multistrand bracelet

Materials:

• 1 small hank mixed seed beads
• 1 multi strand slide clasp (4 strand)
• size 10 beading needle
• strong but thin and flexible beading thread, such as Dandyline, silamide or Fireline

Instructions:

1. Measure your wrist and add 1 1/2 in. (3.1 cm)—this is the length of your bracelet. Double this length and add 6 in. (10 cm) — this is the length of the thread for all your strands. If you are using sharp beads, triple the length of the thread so you can add another pass for security.
2. Attach a stop bead to your thread and string a few beads. Go through a loop on your clasp and back through the strung beads. Continue stringing until you are 1/4 in. (.5 cm) short of your desired length, and pick up the corresponding loop on the other end of the clasp. Go through a few beads and check the length by clasping the bracelet. Adjust as needed by adding or removing beads.
3. Continue back through the beads and the opposite clasp loop. If you are working with a shorter thread, tie of the ends using a few half-hitch knots and trim. If you are using the triple-length thread, go all the way back through the beads and the other clasp loop again (so there are two threads on each clasp loop), then secure both ends with half hitch knots and trim.
4. Repeat steps 2 through 4 working across your clasp one loop at a time, then follow the same steps to add additional rows.

…Back in November.

That would be me.

You know I’ve thought about it before (In the CSA days and the garden overflow days) and I finally decided to give it a whirl…oddly at a time when I actually didn’t have an overflow of produce to juice.  So far, I love it.

I’ve tried short juice fasts and I’ve tried adding juice to my regular diet — I personally prefer the short fast approach. If I’m feeling out of sorts or like I’ve over indulged, I’ll just juice for a day or two (usually I also eat little bits of real food too, particularly nuts and seeds), and I feel a lot better. I usually tend to drink a lot more juice than eat food on those days (Juice actually is a lot of calories). I’m usually not hungry, and when I am I start eating again. It’s been great and I’ve felt healthier than I have for a long time. (Hopefully this isn’t TMI, but I’ve found juicing at a certain time of the month really cuts bloating and cramps for me to almost nothing, which alone makes it completely worthwhile for me.)

That said, it’s definitely not for everyone — if you are looking for information on juicers and juicing there are a million out there with a lot more information it than I can give you. Some people definitely experience negative side effects (I haven’t) and it’s not exactly cheap to buy all that produce.

But, given how much I’ve been enjoying it, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite recipes and discuss a complete failure of a recipe. So here we go!

Follow the directions for your juices and make sure you clean all your produce first.

Great green juice:

• 1 cucumber
• 2 cups packed spinach
• 1 lime
• 3 pears

Ginger Carrot:

• 6 large carrots
• 1 inch ginger root
• 3 apples

Beet Berry:

• 3 medium beets (peeling decreased bitterness)
• 1 pint berries (mixed or one variety)
• 1 small orange
• handful of carrots

Now, this next one doesn’t look super appetizing (mixes the reds and greens, resulting in an unfortunate brown).

Red leaf juice:

• 1 bunch chard, beet greens, or other red veined leafy green
• 1 cup berries
• 2 apples