Gorgeous, all of them! Now I should be inspired to make the two birthday cards that I need to take with me to my sister's house tomorrow...

All this talk has put it back in my mind again.

With the boy becoming a teenager and having to go away to school next year I should probably treat myself now before we apparently start haemorrhaging money.

Here's a card for a young boy whose birthday is next month. Getting ahead of myself for once. (Although tonight we are going to a 21st and I am still to make that card oops)

YOu lot are convincing me to go for it, thanks guys!!!

Nice card, copago!

I cheated a bit on the cards for my sister and her husband (their birthdays are just two days apart), and adapted these two cards that I had made previously from kits.

They're great, Liz.

Here's what I ended up with for the 21st last night.



edit to add .. can't really see in the photo but that front panel opens up like a normal card.
And I'm way too old to be going to 21st parties We left just as the 21 year olds were kicking off.

Whatever about your card, I bet the gift hiding behind it was welcome

The next 21st I'll be attending is my kids, now that is a scary thought, especially as it's in less than 2.5 years!

Edited to add: and the card looks great too

I bet that's the BEST 21st birthday card he got!

Great card/present Jill.

This is my latest piece, it took me two days to make just a bracelet, it is my first attempt at this stitch - Cellini.

Sue that is amazing! Absolutely gorgeous!

I am trying to decide what colours to do next.

Haha, sounds like you're hooked!

Teal??? ahem!!

So do you put each individual bead on or is it strands? That is so much work and it looks so good!

Every bead is stitched individually, they range in size from about 1mm to 4mm. The first few rows, perhaps the first cm is a right pain but after that it is fairly easy to do. It has a beautiful fluid feel to it and weighs 38 grams including the magnetic clasp.

Absolutely amazing.

Here is the one that I just finished. You can see that it looks completely different because of the sizes of the beads, using smaller beads next to the larger bead means that the grooves are smaller - both are nice though.

Fantastic work Sue!

Isn't it just? That's another beautiful bracelet, Sue!

Here is a necklace to go with one of the bracelets. I didn't have enough of the beads to make a complete necklace in Cellini so just made a section and a twisted necklace then threaded the necklace through the tube then sewed both ends of the necklace together and slid the Cellini tube over the join.

Oh my! Those clever fingers of yours have been hard at work!

Getting a couple of practice pieces out of the way and improving! I have started a couple for you to look at when they are done.

If your "practice pieces" turn as beautiful as that necklace, I believe you have left the need for "practice" well and truly behind you. It looks pretty perfect to me!

I have cut one of the pieces up, removed the beads and have started it again, I wasn't happy with the first attempt. I have done about five inches before I decided to scrap it, now that would be about 200 ish beads per inch so about 1,000 beads, each bead stitched individually... I would rather unpick it and start again than finish it and not be happy.

Something quicker and simpler! I was looking for something in my beading stash when I came across a small sealed bag containing some crystals and cord, obviously a Shamballa bracelet kit which I am guessing must have been a free gift with a purchase. There were no instructions with it so I looked on YouTube for a tutorial and this is the result.

Hey that looks pretty neat!