Dear friends, recently, my partner and I were traveling in Mexico and we had another amazing adventure. Our trip went like this: Playa del Carmen → Valladolid → Campeche → Isla Aguada → Mérida. And we went on several day trips from those cities. Overall we calculated that we travelled over 1000 miles across the Yucatán Peninsula on busses, colectivos, and taxis. I was amazed at how smooth all the traveling and staying in AirBnBs went too.. It was such a wonderful experience - stopping at tiny towns, talking to the locals, shopping at the markets, and trying new foods.
On our last full day in Mexico, we traveled to the tiny fishing village of Celestún. We spent the day at the Ria Celestún Biosphere Reserve where we took a boat trip to see thousands of American Flamingos feeding on tiny shrimp! It was so beautiful to see them altogether, and funny to see them fly! We also saw Egrets, Magnificent Frigatebirds, and a crocodile, as well as many other water birds.
When I returned home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the flamingos, so I got out my flamingo sketches that I used to create my flamingo bead paintings. I redrew one of my sketches, got out my pink beads and started beading!
Beading the birds’ bodies was fairly straightforward - bead embroidery with some layering on the wings. But the legs were going to be an experiment! So, I strung some size 15 seed beads (and a few 11s) onto some very thin sterling silver wire. It took a few times to get the length as I wanted it.
Then, I stitched the legs to the back of the bird bodies. One they were attached, I used needle and thread to stitch through the beads on the bird legs until I got to the feet. There, I did a little beadweaving magic to create webbed-looking feet. Then, I ran the needle back up through the bird’s beaded leg and knotted my thread at the back of the piece.
Finally, my flamingos were complete and I stitched a tiny beaded loop at the top so that I could hang them from sterling silver ear wires. I think this experiment was a success! What do you think? (View these earrings in action on Instagram.)
These earrings are now available for sale on Etsy! Save up to 15% on all Ready-to-Ship beaded dog & cat pins, jewelry, bead embroidery art, prints, t-shirts, totes, iPhone cases, and more... Now through April 30, 2022. Please check processing times before placing your order. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! Thank you for your interest in my bead embroidery!
♥ Diana
