Friday, December 13, 2013

Cosmic Magma - crystal pendant

I caught some daylight today! It means that I didn't have to wait until tomorrow to take some pictures. So please let me show you one of my latest creations. It's a pendant (yeah... another one... boooring... ;) ), with a beautiful red magma crystal by Swarovski, surrounded by seed beads. I think I bought this crystal light years ago... I guess it has been waiting for long enough. :)

The shape of the pendant is determined by the shape of the glass. "Cosmic" crystal wasn't very symmetrical so I didn't even try to make a symmetrical pendant either. It is double sided though, with the back side being almost the same.

The pendant is 5cm (2") long without the bail and 4 cm (1,57") wide at the widest point.

And this is how it looks like:

beaded pendant
crystal pendant

beaded pendant

This is the back side:

crystal pendant

And this one is catching the daylight... :)

crystal red magma

Until next time, my friends, have a great weekend! :)



Thursday, December 12, 2013

Beaded donut

As it was promised, no more beaded spheres. It's time for another beaded donut though. A piece made from an old pattern introduced in this post, but I wanted to make it again, with some different colour combination. So there we have a black, hematite and copper donut... only the copper beads look too light in the pictures for some reason. They're a bit darker in reality, which I couldn't really capture. Unfortunately, it's not the best time of the year for taking good quality photos if you don't have any light tent and you count for a daylight only...

The pendant is made with Toho seed beads size 11 and 8 as well as fire polished beads (3mm and 4mm). It measures around 5cm (2") in diameter without the bail and the pattern is available in my Etsy and Craftsy stores.

It was the last piece made from an existing pattern. I have made a few new designs, only I'm waiting for the weekend to take the pictures. You should be able to see them soon. :)

Oh, and I've got one word to Asia! If you want to try the pattern out again, I might have a hint for you. ;)

Anyway, that's the pendant. :)

beaded donut pendant

 beaded donut pendant

Thank you for coming here and I'll see you all again soon. :)



Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Winter beaded sphere

Just as I promised yesterday, I come with another beaded sphere, made with the same pattern from this post. Only this time it's more cold, white and blue with a little bit of rose gold. Something for the winter... although I can't say I love winter really! I'm quite happy with the weather outside... at least it's not that cold. ;)

Even though this one wouldn't look bad on a small Christmas tree either, it is a pendant too. Nothing else you would expect, I assume. ;)

It measures 2,5 cm (1") wide in diameter. The pattern is available in my Etsy and Craftsy stores.

beaded sphere

beaded ball


And this is the winter beaded sphere with its Christmas "friend":

beaded spheres


Don't worry now, there will be no more beaded spheres for some time. Time to make another donut instead. ;)

Take care my friends! :)



Monday, December 9, 2013

Christmas beaded sphere

After a long while spent on knitting and crocheting I felt an urgent need to do some beading. I wasn't very keen on designing something completely new, so I returned to one of my old patterns instead - the beaded sphere from this post.

Used black Twin beads, silver-lined red Toho seed beads in size 11/o as well as dark gold/bronze Toho seed beads size 15/o. Thanks to the colours it looks a bit like a Christmas decoration to me. It won't hang on a Christmas tree though, it will be used as a pendant of course. As always. ;)

It measures 2,5 cm (1") wide in diameter. The pattern is available in my Etsy and Craftsy stores.

beaded sphere

beaded ball



And I'll see you again soon with another sphere. :)




Thursday, December 5, 2013

Anniversary soutache set

Some time ago my friend's husband asked me to make something special for his wife, for their wedding anniversary. It was up to me what to make though... and it didn't make it easier at all. I couldn't figure out what the best present would be and so I was wondering about it for almost a month. Luckily, just a few days before their anniversary I suddenly realized that I have heard Aga once mentioning some soutache jewelry that she found beautiful. My experience with soutache however is only slightly bigger than none, but I decided to give it a try.

After one long day, I came up with a set like this:

soutache jewelry



soutache earrings


The set was made with black and metallic gold soutache cords, metal beads and beautiful Swarovski coated rivolis. The pendant is 6 cm (2,36") long and the earrings measure 2,5 x 3,5 cm (1 x 1.37").

Happy anniversary, Agnieszka & Paweł! :)




Monday, November 11, 2013

Another twisted pendant

As I am starting to receive messages in which you ask if everything is fine, I thought I might write a short entry, let you know that I am fine and in good health and show a pendant that was made long ago.
Unfortunately for the beads I took a short break from them. Instead, within the last few weeks I have made numerous scarves, caps, a half of a shawl and almost an entire tunic. I still have kilometers of yarn left, so I don't know when exactly I may return from knitting to beading again. ;)

The pendant below is made with Delica and Toho beads, using a twisted peyote stitch again. It is 3cm (1,18") wide and 6,5 cm (2,55") long, without the bail.

twisted peyote pendant

And I want to thank you for all the reassuring comments under my previous post. I just wanted to show you that you still can live and enjoy your life no matter what. I hope you will remember these words. :)

Have a wonderful day and I'll see you again soon, I hope. :)




Monday, October 21, 2013

A few words... :)

I wasn’t really planning to write such a post, but the messages I receive, the comments you keep writing made me want to share some thoughts about my illness with you.

Being diagnosed with cancer usually changes the life completely. Even the early stages of cancer, that are usually fully curable, cause fear, uncertainty and anger. It makes you ask questions “Why me?”. It makes you really scared of death, especially when you are young and there is still so much for you to do.

It is even worse, when you know that you just can’t be cured. I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, with several metastases to the liver. This stage is incurable, no matter how hard the doctors would try, they just can’t cure me. They can prolong my life with one chemotherapy after another, but this is all they can do. What a person is supposed to do in this case?

It seems there are only two solutions to this problem. It’s either fighting, at any price, or giving up and waiting for death to come. These two things, in one way or another, determine your life. And even if you choose to fight, or choose to give up, the illness has already won over you. You can say “No, I am fighting it, so how could it win?”. But what else can it be if you sacrifice the rest of your life to fight? The illness becomes the most important thing in your life. And I think you should never ever allow it to happen.

One can say, that sometimes cancer can teach you to appreciate your life. It wasn’t like this in my case. I learnt to appreciate my life long time ago. Many years ago, when I was barely over 20, I lost my parents and was left with no family at all. It taught me that only me and no one else is responsible for my life. I learnt how to live a life, because it is too precious to be wasted. So could I waste it on just being ill? No, I couldn’t.

From the very beginning I knew that my illness wouldn’t determine my life. Instead of asking myself a question “Why me?”, I kept saying “Good it is me and not a mother with little children”. Instead of being scared of death I kept convincing myself that if this is my destiny, I will just accept it. I went through six rounds of chemotherapy while still working full time. I could feel really awful during the first two or three days after the chemo, and then I was desperately searching in my body for enough strength to get up and go to work. You don’t really know how strong you are until you have to find the strength in you. I can’t say that the treatment was easy though, I paid a really high price and I still pay the price every single day. But I didn’t allow it to change my life. That was the most important thing I was aiming for and I succeeded.

My decision about not continuing the treatment was hard. Not for me though, but for everyone else, for people who just don’t want to accept the fact that I may die. But this time I know that getting another chemo wouldn’t just make much sense, because sooner or later it would make my life unbearable, more than cancer itself. I don’t want to prolong my life at any price, and I’d rather have the illness, not the treatment, kill me. It is my decision though, and I know it is a right decision.

But what I want to tell you isn’t about me continuing the treatment or not. I want to tell you that I hope that none of you will ever have to face such an illness. But if something like that will ever happen to you or to a member of your family, or to a friend, please just remember, that whether fought or not, cancer just can’t be allowed to win. It is life, that is the goal, the health, not defeating an illness. Can you see the difference here?

I meet many people suffering from cancer. When I look at 99% of them I feel like the illness is the only thing that keeps them alive. They can talk about it for hours. They spend entire days searching for information about cancer in the internet. They just live with cancer and for cancer. Maybe this is their way to cope with the illness, but for me the acceptance is the key. At least I can keep my inner balance this way.

I will be turning 35 later this week. I found out that I have cancer almost exactly a year ago. An average lifespan for my stage is three months. According to the doctors, I should have died long ago. Yet I still live. Of course, I don’t do heroic deeds, I don’t save the world, I just live a normal, everyday life which I enjoy – I live, I laugh, I love. Sure, I don’t know for how long, but this is something that nobody knows. But, the time I have left I’m going to spend on LIVING.

And on smiling. Because no illness can take it away from me.

:)

 
Edit:
After a few e-mails I want to add a short summary. Or maybe not a summary, but just one advice. Live your life and enjoy it, no matter what. Be happy with what you have. That is what I wanted to tell you. :)
 
 
 
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