I have prepared a new tutorial which is going to show you how to make an interesting bracelet with little of beads and with a little of time. This double strand bracelet instruction is super easy and if you didn’t follow my previous tutorials, you will still understand how to follow this one. First, you need to cut bracelet wire which will be about 50 cm long. Then, you need to feed it through the eye of the locker, bend wire half way and pull on a metal bead through both ends, and press it with the players to secure the wire in place. Then select your favorite color and size of pearl beads. Start with one seed bead at the beginning with both wire and then split them and count about 8 seed beads on each (this is for a medium size of pearl bead which is about a quarter of an inch big). Then you need to “cross” wires feeding through one seed bead on each side at the same time.
Now I have counted 6 seed beads on each wire and crossed them again on the next pearl bead with two seed beads, one on each side of the pearl.
You will have to repeat the procedure several times until bracelet will reach required length. I suggest you put one pearl less than needed because all of those curved wires with seed beads will get flatten a bit and bracelet will automatically get a bit longer.
To finish bracelet you will have to end it with 8 seed beads again, then, feed both wires through the single bead.
Now you add a metal seed and the other part of your locker. You need to be careful and not let wire to get loose and move segments of the bracelet. Then you pull both wires back through the metal bead and make it tight.
Press the metal bead with pliers and try to feed ends of wires through few of small glass seeds to hide it before the final cut.
What do you think about it? It was not difficult at all and the result is very unique. This double strand pearl bracelet can be made with any size of pearl beads and I think it looks really bold when pearls are bigger and small glass seed is in direct contrast to the pearl.
I love how it presents on my hand and believe me it works with any type of outfit. 
Author Archives: Kate
Happy 3rd Birthday TheOneWithArt
I’m sure it is quite funny to you that I celebrate my blog’s birthday each year but it is not so funny to me. I take it really seriously. I run some reports and do revision on this what was posted since January, and what else would be more interesting to share before year end. Happy Birthday wishes are around those areas which I feel could be worked on harder. It always helps me to re-group and focus on those projects which will be most beneficial for my readers.
I also see TheOneWithArt birthday as my reward day and I get to eat some lovely sweet. Without further do I would love to compose this year birthday wishes to TheOneWithArt on it is 3rd birthday.
I wish for better organized time line of articles, more vibrant content and more involvement in the artistic community. If this wishes come truth you will see more fantastic TheOneWithArt next year.
This chockolate cheasecake was so lovely I had to take a piece before I got to take a picture of it :). I hope you will forgive me. Thank you for coming back and checking my new posts and if you are a new reader please subscribe and have fun with TheOneWithArt.
Muslim Fest 2016
How exciting it was to participate in the Muslim Fest 2016 Art Exhibition. You got to see my oil paintings presentation earlier so now I can tell you a bit more about the event.
I can’t appreciate enough about the high level of organization and variety of different shows starting from spoken poetry, kids songs and ending on famous singers. Food stands were fantastic and my personal favorite, clothe boutiques with middle eastern designs and fabrics didn’t let me leave empty handed.
I also loved the artist’s corner which was set up in front of Art Exhibit hall. Various artists got to book about 1.5 h and paint in front of live audience. As you probably know not many artists like this kind of exposure but I always say that best way to concur your fears is by facing them. I have obviously participated and got very positive feedback which is so important for artists.
We had to bring our supplies and small format of canvas or paper in order to complete artwork in the short time frame. This is always quite difficult. When we start painting time passes by very quickly and even small format of art can be unfinished when we concentrate on many details. I did very quick three color background and blend it with the sponge in unevenly.
Then I have painted lovely daisy in the middle. I wish I did a pink background in the center instead of white one then flower would be better visible. 
Then just a signature and it’s ready!
Artist’s corner was about promoting of artists but also about promoting of art itself. I had a lot of questions from Moms asking where do I buy supplies, where to look for courses for their kids or how to even start with the introduction to art?
My story wouldn’t be full if I did not tell you about Parya’s this year presentation in the category of Young Artist. She has prepared two acrylic paintings with bright colors and positive theme. I can’t believe they were both ready in time for submission regardless late start. As a reward this year kids got Certificate of participation – what a good idea! We are going to frame it and hang in Parya’s room. I’m so proud of her.
Muslim Fest 2016 was a successful event and I have plans for next year already. I can tell you that we will see lots of beautiful landscapes from special places in the world so please mark your calendar and come to see Art Exhibit in person or keep visiting my blog and I will show you all of my paintings as well.
Red Cup Oil Painting
I truly love working with oil paintings. I know it takes time as each layer needs from 5 to 7 days for drying but this time allows me to plan it in details how to apply the next one. You already got to see the sketch of this painting some weeks ago but I think it is always good to start with a small reminder and obviously, we need a sketch to show where I started. I have titled it: Red Cup, kind of obvious when you look at it once completed.
Some people ask me how I select an image which I want to paint? This is always a very difficult process. I look for an item which brings my attention (or sometimes it may be just a play of light in the water which I like to catch) then I look for something else which would complement it in the color and form, then I think how to bring them together on interesting background. Plenty of fabrics which I have in my sewing studio always helps. I’m trying to use fabrics without patterns but who knows, maybe some sort of composition with fabric and bold print on it could give an interesting effect.
I have outlined all darkest areas on the painting except a cup which I have find out later as a mistake because my red paint was transparent and didn’t blend well with black.
Then I have covered background with first layer of blue and added yellow and green on the flowers.
I had to wait couple of days to make sure that blue field is dry before adding red as I wanted to avoid any possible mixing. Flowers got their centers and pearls got their white color.
Best way to work on the oil painting (or acrylic) is to paint from external parts towards the center and from less detailed areas to more detailed. Thanks to this method you will see progress on your painting really fast which obviously gives more motivation to carry on with painting. All of the artists struggle with motivation sometimes, we tend to start artworks and don’t finish them for months. It is good to have an external motivations like an exhibition deadline or a partner to keep reminding you about your goals.
On the picture above I have covered most of the background with second layer of blue, added highlights ant the same time and smoothed out darker areas. I have used Persian Blue which is a transparent color and getting those folds of fabric painted was quite a challenge and I had to make 4 layers in total.
As you can see I have worked out the flowers with all of the highlights on them and added second layer of red on the cup incorporating black in the shaded areas.
I can see that colors of the below picture are quite different from the above one, sorry about that. Above photo was taken in the evening with camera flash and it has affected colors.
Below you can see finished painting.
The cup has few layers of red on it and I had to use a sponge to blend red and black and ad highlights were needed. Bracelet got it’s silver bling which is not so much visible on the photo and pearls got shades where they belong for realistic look and correct light reflection. This is my favorite painting and I’m already thinking where to hang it. Red Cup Oil Painting would look fantastic in the dining area or kitchen, so for me painting and for you story how I made it. I will share more interesting oil painting tutorials very soon.
Yellow Daisy Oil Painting
I thought that was the perfect idea for my next abstract oil painting. Yellow Daisy oil painting on a dark background should look spectacular next to my water lily don’t you think? I have started with a sketch.
Then I have added a black background and had to do it twice to cover it perfectly even.
Then I have painted a layer of cyan blue which is very transparent and made this super deep and background looks actually very dark blue not black at all. I have also painted medium yellow underpainting for daisies pedals.
Now I started adding al of the highlights and lowlights on the individual pedals along with shades of those pedals which are in front of the others. Little by little, pedal by pedal.
This is a bit better picture and you can see the color of background too and few pedals more with all of their distinctive lines.
Now I just added green heart to it and this little yellow daisy can keep our eyes happy. We all know that a picture makes for a thousand of words so I will stop talking and let you enjoy the view 😉
Water Lily Oil Painting on Canvas
I have presented a draft of 3 future paintings a few weeks ago and now I’m pleased to present my Water Lily Oil Painting on a Canvas. I have a few photos to show you progress of painting which may look a bit like an oil painting lesson. I hope you are going to enjoy it.
Just to remind you, this is how a pencil drawing on canvas looks like. I usually try to take time and draw it as detailed as possible as it always helps with applying colors correctly and finding all of those high lights and low lights in the right spots.
First I have painted all the dark areas of the painting and added some greys wherever needed. I know it’s a bit boring but it definitely helps to achieve final effects and contrasts.
With a second layer I have applied dark colors of the water and added some green with highlights here and there. I have also applied white and light grey on the lily with pink at the bottom of it. This is going to help me to cover unnecessary pencil lines. 
I have worked even more on the background. I wanted to make sure it reminds water with its movement. Now the lily pads got green. I had to make sure shapes are intact and all waves on the leafs.
Check this out! This is the finished painting with another layer of white on the lily and it’s reflection plus all detailed highlights. The lily reflection is in movement of the water too. It looks really realistic. How about leafs? When you try to learn how to do oil painting on a canvas you have to remember that paints are transparent and dry quite slowly so you can use under layer to blend and pull out color through white over it. Important is to study shape and position of each shed and if you make a mistake and something doesn’t seem to be right you can correct it quite easily. 
Oil paintings lesson may be expensive, so why don’t you just give a try by yourself and experiment with paints? It is all about paying attention to the details and distances between elements. If colors are a bit off from the original this is not an issue, I would say it is how you see it. Water Lily is one of my favorite flowers to paint, try to find your own favorite flower and get on painting.
T-shirt DIY Pattern
How great would it be to have a lovely T-shirt on every occasion? A great T-shirt means right color, right length, right sleeve length and right pattern on the fabric. The biggest problem is that T-shirt designers don’t come up with too many interesting designs and if you will happen to find some interesting T-shirts it is going to be expensive and it is simply not worth it. With Summer in the full swing, it is absolutely necessary to have a wide variety if colorfully fun T-shirts. I will show you how to get it done with a little of time. You will need a pattern of your favorite T-shirt design and super cute jersey fabric to work with. To get sewing done quickly make sure to follow this T-shirt DIY and let me know how it worked out for you. The easiest way to make a T-shirt DIY pattern is to use baking paper and trace individual elements of the item to be copied. You need to be careful and patient to get shapes right and remember to allow a centimeter for the seam. Now it is easy to copy favorite T-shirts one after another. Sewing doesn’t take more than 40 minutes with an overlock machine and 90 minutes with a standard home machine (please remember to zig zag the ages of fabric before using the home machine in order to reduce stretch of the fabric otherwise needle may skip some stitches).
The best part of your new pattern is that now you can make some small adjustments without any worry if the final result is going to fit you as a dream. You can change your T-shirt design by modification of sleeve length, length, neckline, and shape on the hips. From straight finish to triangles on the sides or maybe a wave?
Let’s get started with our pattern. Make sure to fold the T-shirt in half and aligned with an edge of the baking paper.
Take your time and cut off the shape carefully. I’m going to cut it a bit longer because the original T-shirt seems to be a bit short in my opinion. The neckline was too deep as well so I made some correction on it.
Now cut the little sleeve and we are ready with two the piece pattern and we can start cutting the shapes from fabric.
Remember to cut from folded fabric to get left and right side of front and back. 
The back and the front is exactly the same with one small difference. You will have to cut about a centimeter below the shoulder line. This will create a small shift of the stitch on the shoulder like on the original T-shirt design and it will help us to make a clean finish of the neckline.
Once you got the sleeves cut out, you can get on sewing.
First, you need to connect the front and back on the top of the shoulders. Then you can add sleeves. If you work with the home machine remember to zig zag fabric before sewing it together.
Can you see how the top of the shoulder got shifted? Now I can recognize where is front fo the shirt. Oh yes, I should mention that my front and back got the same depth of neckline so this little shift on the shoulders is the only way to recognize where is front and where is back of this T-shirt design. Next time I will cut high neckline for the back side of the T-shirt.
Now you need to zig zag the bottom of the T-shirt and sew along both sides to close it in.
If you have a triangle cut on each side, like I do, you will have to be careful while folding up the edges. I usually start away from the pointy corner and work toward it slowly pulling on the fabric a little bit. Then you need to make a smart fold like on the photos below.
It looks really good and clean inside out.
T-shirt would be almost finished at this point if not my daughters last minute idea to make a twist on the sleeves and change them from straight short to open and longer. It is a bit tricky to change it at this point but what are you going to do? This T-shirt is for her so I need to manage somehow. 
I have cut off a piece of the sleeve and sew a wider piece of the fabric as an extension. Then you need to gather the fabric to match the width of the sleeve and extension.
Yeah, it looks pretty good. To hold those little waves in place I have run it on my home sewing machine otherwise, it is all moving around and it is difficult to hold it for an overlock machine.
Make sure that stitch of sleeve and extension are in line. Pin it all together and you are ready to stitch it together.
It looks like a little bell sleeve, so adorable. My daughter had a good idea, I really like it this way.
My model did her best and all 3 T-shirt designs turned up fantastic from my T-shirt DIY pattern. I know there are lots of free t-shirt templates in the net but it is not easy to take a copy from screen size picture. I really wish somebody could show me how to make this paper patterns when I was taking my first steps in sewing, I would have been more successful for sure. 
It is so much fun to make small adjustments and it really makes you feel like a designer for a day. Now I have to sew some of those T-shirts for myself! It would be so great to have a couple of them but I will have to go for fabric shopping first. Have a great weekend and fun with your T-shirt design.
How I Prepare for the Art Show
The past few weeks were so busy I even didn’t have a chance to start working on the paintings which are going to the next Muslim Fest Art Shows in August. There is so little of time left and so much to do not mentioning I’m running into the same time problem each year. I love to paint with oil paints and I should start preparations much earlier to have enough time for drying of individual layers. I will probably have to switch some of the paintings to acrylics which are so much easier to complete in shorter time frame.
Never than less, I will have 2 special “paintings” and I can’t wait to show you the final idea. I came up with it just yesterday before I feel asleep. You probably know that the best ideas are somewhere between conscious and sub-conscious and the best way to unlock this potential is to daydream and imagine as much as possible.
For now, I’m going to show you the sketch of first 3 canvas which is going to be finished in oils or in acrylics as soon as possible. Deadline is mid-August so it is really 3 weeks to go and I don’t have a chance to sit in the piece and concentrate on the painting! All because of the new website and the big project I’m working on – this is going to be a surprise! I will share it with you sometime in September and I think you are going to be shocked! I will finish here so I will not spill some details by accident if you know what I mean.
Right, let’s get back to my sketches.
All of them are around floral composition, very neutral and optimistic accent. I’m planning to use mostly primary colors. This one is set on the fabric which makes so many interesting shades and shapes around flowers and the cup. I have placed one of my bracelets on the top of the cup to bring some more light in this area and bracelet will be my primary point of focus as it is sill stands out dramatically on the red cup. By the way, it is quite difficult to take a good photo of pencil drawing on the canvas (or paper), I took a lot of them before selecting those which I thought are the best and I still should apologise for quality, it is not good at all.
Next two paintings are going to present flowers only. One of them shows lily on the lake. I love how flower reflects in the water. Lily will be white with a bit of pink and water will have very deep dark color. It will look amazing, I have a feeling this painting will be sold first, I even hesitate if I should put it on sale at all? I have some sort of weakness for lilies. They look so gentle and perfect I hope I will be able to capture it.Last painting shows a daisy with big close up. I got to take a very good photo on the other day and I thought that large painting of this daisy should make a good impression on the viewers. I would like to make sure that visitors of this Muslim Fest Art Show will remember me somehow not mentioning there are a couple of prices to win and one of them is awarded by the audience.
As you can see my little daughter Anna was trying to draw with me and I have lot’s of finger marks all over the canvas. Sweet baby girl, she is going to be an artist for sure! I have to wash walls regularly after she is done with her pencil drawings on them. I gave her acrylic paints once but instead of putting them on the paper she was playing with consistency and made a lot of mess around. I guess we will have to wait few more months before she will let me explain to her how to use them.
Daisy is going to be yellow with a dark background, maybe navy blue will look good? I really have to start painting soon and I love that The One With Art will get to present art this year. I was told that we were missed last year so I will do my best to prepare perfect presentation this year and Muslim Fest visitors are going to enjoy it. If you are somewhere in the neighbourhood please come for a visit last weekend of August at Celebration Square in Mississauga.
Double Strand Crossing Bracelet
As I have promised I have prepared another tutorial on a double wire beaded bracelet which I have named Double Strand Crossing Bracelet to highlight the difference between those two tutorials.
You will need about half a meter long wire, locker, pearl beads and glass seed beads.
You will have to prepare the wire exactly the same like we did it for the previous bracelet by securing the wire on one side of the locker with stainless steel seed which has to be squeezed with players to keep it in place.
Then we need to add 9 seed glass beads on each string and cross the wire on the pearl bead.
Then you need to add another 9 seed beads on each string again and cross them on the single seed bead.
After that you will add another 9 seed beads and add another pearl bead and cross the wire through it.
You will go on with same pattern until bracelet has desired length. My pearl was about 1 cm big and it took 6 of them to complete the full size of the bracelet.
Then I have added second part of the locker and secured the wire with steel bead.
It is not to bad but I was not happy with those wires coming out from the pearls. There was no simple way to cover it up. I have tried to feed wires though singe seed which should cover top and bottom of pearls but then wire got dis-formatted and it didn’t float nicely between the pearls anymore.
Then I thought we can spice it up a bit and make same patter but in fancy setting. I have used glass beads and charm beads.
First change to the earlier pattern is that instead of single seed bead to cross wires I have used two of them, one on each side of crystal bead.
Another difference is that I have managed to hide the wire which is crossing the charm beads. I have added 5 beads which are going through the bead opening and both wires crossing each other at the same time while crossing inside of the charm bead.
You may have to use 5 or 6 additional seed beads inside of big bead. All dependence on the thickness of the seed beads as they are not even with each other.
This picture shows clearly how I have crossed the wires.
Then you go on and on until bracelet is finished. 
It got a bit longer than the first one due to the additional crystal beads in between those big once but it was maybe 1 cm longer which doesn’t compromise functionality.
It looks better than the first one with white pearls and the pattern is so similar.
It is my new favorite one! Which double strand crossing bracelet would you prefer?
Double wire beaded bracelet is so much more fun than single wire. It opens so many new possibilities and gives much more interesting results. I got in love in it so you should expect more tutorials coming up soon.
Picture Frame Jewelry Holder
I have made a Jewellery Organizer some time ago and my daughter kept asking me for her own jewelry hanger. I came up with this nice tutorial to show you how to make picture frame jewelry holder which is super easy and quick to assemble.
It will make you and your daughter happy as there will be no more jewelry on the loose all over the house. We have to start with a few supplies. I got all of those pieces in dollar store.
We need a wooden frame (make sure it has wide frame so there is enough space for hangers), some paints (I have used acrylics), a paint brush, your favorite photo, and stick on hooks. First you need to paint the frame. I have let me daughter to do all this job and she has truly enjoyed it. We are making a kids jewelry holder after all , so let your kids to be involved and have some fun.
While the kids are painting you can have your tea or coffee break in piece 🙂 It is going to be about 20 minutes depends on the size of the frame.
Add any decorations or patters to make it more interesting. We have painted bunch of white polka dots but you can really paint whatever you want. 
Then we have planned how to place all the hooks to make most sense out of the available space.
The frame is all dry now, so we can put the picture in and get on sticking those hangers.
We are almost there. Now we have to add some sort of hanger on the back of the frame so we can hang it on the wall.
I have used a matching ribbon and wood stapler. Some frames comes with hangers so you can skip this step.
It is so an easy jewelry holder. It took total of 1 hour of fun for my daughter and she feels truly proud of it. Give it a try! You can obviously design your own picture frame jewelry holder and organize all of rings and bracelets. I have noticed that since I had mine jewelry displayed I have started using it more.