Did I Miss Valentine's Day?

I don't know how it happened, but I'm pretty sure February 14th passed me by and I didn't finish my Valentine piece or blog about it yet.  And yes, I'm feeling guilty!  So just to show I have good intentions and really am working on it, here's a little preview.

 
This will be part of the pendant for a beaded necklace which I hope to have finished soon and I will post pictured of the completed piece - hopefully before next Valentine's Day.

I am privileged to be a member of the Artbeads blogging team and for January we were given the theme of Valentine's Day.  "No problem," I said to myself and I ordered these beautiful ceramic hearts to use in a bead embroidered cuff.

 

I also ordered several types of beads that I thought would look good with the ceramic hearts - some cute mother of pearl hearts,  sterling silver roundels, 1.8mm square cut beads, and 4mm Druk cherry red beads. 

 

Artbeads has a great selection  of Valentine's Day components which you can find HERE.

I have no pictures to prove I actually started on the cuff, but I did.  I even made a special trip into San Diego to find some other beady goodness to go on the cuff.  I cut out the Lacy's stiff stuff and glued the components onto it with E6000 glue.  Then I started beading around the large heart and found it harder than I expected.  The heart bead is about 5mm thick and I was having a hard time getting the inner "cut out" part of the heart to look good.   After several attempts I decided my idea wasn't going to work and I had to come up with plan B which is working out much better.

I receive no compensation from Artbeads for blogging about their products.  I am delighted to be a part of their blogging group and hope they will forgive me for this late posting.