Featured !!! Bead Chat Magazine - Jan 2014

Here it is ...!! Bead Chat Magazine - Jan 2014  has featured my article... Huge thanks to Melinda Orr, Cynthia Machata and team, for inviting me to contribute.

The magazine is bursting with fabulous work of brilliant artists..so please go through it and feast your eyes...

To make it easy , I am sharing screen shots of my article here . They are on pages 86, 87, 88.
I wrote about the lovely stone Inlay work of Pietra Dura at the Taj Mahal. I had taken a lot of photographs some 5 years ago..and it came in handy ...

Just click on the pics to read them. 

Pietra Dura Inspired Necklace.. WIP

Pietra Dura or Parchin kari is the art of making beautiful pieces with stone inlays... I made a pendant with Cold porcelain, inspired by this style of work.

Obviously, the process is not anywhere near as complicated as inlaying stone into a base piece, by painstakingly carving out shapes and then grinding and fitting pieces into the hollows.. 

 I wanted to go for a Mughal motif , and so decided to make the shape of the pendant a half moon. While it was still soft, I added flower shaped depressions on the surface to mimic the cut out shapes in the stone base.

I let the base dry a bit before starting on the 'inlay'. Instead of adding colored bits of Cold Porcelain  I decided to go completely white and then color it later.

The whole design filled with white Cold Porcelain and then smoothed out. I also put in three holes, one at each end and one at the center of the portion that would face down. At this stage, it was left to dry for about 24 hours. 

  Once it was dry, the edges were sanded, and then the inlay work was painted . White portions with a touch of brown to indicate white marble. Blue, grey , black and gold for Lapiz Lazuly and banded green in shades, for Malachite.  The edges were given gold for an ornate look. 

 Glaze was applied and left to dry. Then the necklace was made by stringing a rectangular glass bead on each side and double strands of beads in off-white and Green, with gold spacers, to duplicate the shades of the white marble and malachite.

Munnar trip

Just been and back at my folks, from gorgeous Munnar ....

will be back with more details.. but meanwhile, check out the sights ...

Mountain trail

 The tea estates

One of the three lakes 

A re-design

I was asked by a fellow blogger friend if I could re-design a necklace she had bought some time back. then it took a few months for her to send it, and for me to get to re-working the necklace.

Actually at first glance,it  is a very common style seen in most fancy stores these days. I have seen every color of these necklaces under the Sun... ! Usually , though they are on seed bead ropes with some really cheap looking gold beads interspersed in between...and even the lockets have those really gold accents..

It was a pleasant change to see a locket with silver accents and some really decent faceted and deep rich red beads.  Great choice.. !

The combination of silver and deep red looked very pleasant. I guess it is time you folks took a look at it...

So  the pic above , is how I got the pendant and beads...And below, I used all the beads, plus really embellished the silver accents , and added a few more seed beads in that lovely shade. So I could make a second layer too, to make it look really ornate. 

The dangles I added on both sides so as to give the pendant a little company and tie it all together.. Now it is all packed and ready to be sent back in a new avatar.

Re-stringing and repair, is a daily task here with my little one taking apart her stuff with regularity. I even have a tiny bag filled with beads and broken bracelets and necklaces, courtesy of my daughter. So it is not something that I usually like to do...

But this was a pleasure.. I think I gave the necklace a new look.. what say you?

2014 is here !!

Another year is here .. bringing with it , a renewed energy,  a big purging of negativity , and a huge dollop of hope ... !

I usually list out a lot of resolutions.. on a New Year, and end up reading it out , the end of the year , and laughing out loud at most of them..

SO this year, I decided to keep it simple.. just do a bit better than the year before...

..things that were unplanned, and rewarding, have happened the year before.. all I did was follow my heart and do the things I loved most..

So this year, I know the way a bit better ... and will wait to see what  happens. Meanwhile, here is the last piece I did in 2013.

A necklace with lamp work beads, that reminded me of honey and vanilla..with sprinklings of crystals and seed beads...

Wish you all a fabulous 2014...