Saturday, March 26, 2011

Design by Cassandra Does "Assassin's Creed"!

I was rather impatient on finishing the ideas I had mapped out from this week's BTW influenced by the video game Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood since they were rather fresh in my brain.  Fingers get so itchy, but they were rather relieved by Thursday's end.  I'm rather happy with they way they came together!

Amongst the historical figures in the video game, focusing on the corrupt power and influence of the House of Borgia, is Renaissance inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci.  Nick has a beautiful coffee table book full of da Vinci's illustrations, from his spiritual sketches to the war machines designed for the Borgia's troops, all replicated in the game itself!  (There's a level where you use Leonardo's 'tank' design to destroy Borgia cannons!  It's awesome!)  I had used pages from the book as a background to photograph the pieces, a great addition to detail for these geek-inspired pieces!

This is also me fully admitting that I'm a bit of a geek-girl.  Yup, my best friend says I should carve a niche for it.  Let see how these fare.


Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Bead Table Wednesday, Issue #2: DBC Does 'Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood'

Y'all folks are so kind with the previous - and my first! - BTW post, thank you so much for your comments!  If you enjoy my posts, you ought to check out the Flickr page featuring beaders and jewelry makers from across the world, sharing what's on their bead table every week!

Last week, you loved the Rockslide necklace, which will be available for sale in my Etsy shop very soon with other new designs.  This week is a very unique design concept and thrifted repurposed piece I picked up during a shopping spree at Value Village.  (Oh my, I will have to brag about that stuff in a later post.  Incredible finds!)  Nick has been playing quite a bit of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, an XBOX video game with its setting in 16th century Rome/'present day' 2012, with an epic yet complicated story about an ancient brotherhood called the Assassins and their lineage as they try to protect mankind from the Templars and protect an ancient 'biblical' artifact with the potential of great power to whoever possesses it.  It's a pretty damn cool game.  Eighty-five percent of the game's characters and events are historically accurate accounts of the House of  Borgia's power and influence through 15th and 16th centuries in Italy.  It's a pretty cool game, and he plays it a lot.  He's playing it right now.  (Not just as I type this, but probably as you're reading this a few days from now, too!)

You play as Ezio Auditore, a trained Assassino like his father, hailing proudly from city of Firenze, Italy.  The traditional Assassin costume is white and red, his traditional armour is patterned much like feathers of birds wings.  Nick had been bugging me for a while to make something inspired from the game, and I just happened across the coolest find at Value Village.  This'll be perfect for an Assassin's Creed-inspired piece.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Bead Stories in Pictures

So, I'm photographing away, bag o' beads after bag o' beads from my destash pile that I'll be listing on Etsy.  I've constructed a rudimentary 'white box' with natural sunlight, which is really helping capture a true colour representation.  I'm lining them up with the best features, excusable flaws, in groups, in pairs, in piles and all these fun configurations.  I had even included a prop; a white porcelain teacup from my Japanese tea set.  (It has the Japanese character for 'tea' on the side, hidden appropriately!)  It's pretty handy for keeping the smaller round beads together when I photograph them, especially when it's laying on its side.

The photos turned out really well!  The white made the colours and textures pop, and reflected light nicely around some tricky shadows.  Something else came from these photos, too - unexpectedly, I had created these little picture stories with the beads in the photos I took and ran with it.  These 'storyboards' were coming to life, putting personality into these little guys.

Here are a few of my favourites for you to enjoy!  Which one's your favourite story?

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Just Call Me The Bead Hoarder ...

It's the curse of most jewelry makers and beaders I know, that we're buying stuff left, right and centre for potential future projects.  I've amassed such a collection of beads I'm not even looking at anymore, it just seems like too much to do.  I've started organizing the beads I know I'll use and the beads I can separate with, and I've put in a good dent.  I figure with the beads I'm not using I'll sell on my Etsy shop to make a little money back.  I'd even be up for trading if anyone has any stuff they're looking to let go of, too!

Here's a look at some of the beads I'll be offering up!  (My photography skills are starting to pay off, too!)


More to come, believe it!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Bead Table Wednesday, Issue #1

Welcome to what's-on-my-table-this-week!  I had discovered Bead Table Wednesday, or also affectionately known as 'BTW' (ha!), through Sue at Hello Gorgeous Design.  I found a nifty button on her blog that lead me to a Flickr group of international beaders sharing the mess on their own bead tables!

I'm a little too embarrassed to show you my actual workspace right now, I really let myself go.  I'm in the middle of a mass exodus of bead-sorting and material-purging, some may find itself for sale on my Etsy shop.  I'm also happy for the opportunity to review what I have in my own stash and focus on what materials I've been using the most lately.  You know what they say, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."  This stuff certainly isn't trash, it just got lost in the mix and, consequently, I lost interest.  There are a few that, with fresh eyes, I find new ideas and stash it away for later, like these ones here!


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