A beaded trophy

In my family, we're serious about our cards! As far back as I can remember, playing cards was a part of family gatherings on both my mother's and father's side. The games were never for money, but were still quite competitive. A year or so ago, my father, aunt, brother and I formed a sort of card club, in which we get together on a regular basis to play 500. My brother Rick is our official score keeper, and he has kept a running record of all the scores from every game we've played.

So a few months back, when I was thinking what I could make as a sample project in which to learn bead embroidery stitches, I decided the perfect project would be a first-place trophy for our 500 card club. It would be something we could award to the winner each time we played, and transferred like the pro wrestling championship "big gold belt" each time we met to compete. Since the Joker is so important in the game of 500, I came up with this:


It was officially awarded the first time to Dad, when he won our November 10, 2009 game. And although everyone loved the trophy, simply winning it wasn't enough for Dad, he wanted his name, score and the date engraved on it, too! So, I had to come up with something for that...

Rick helped me out, by printing up two cards to go along with the trophy: the first is a list of the top 10 scores ever, of all our games, and the second card is a running list of the winner, date and score for all the games we've played since we've had the trophy. Luckily, I won the next time we got together, and so had the chance to make a beaded frame for the "Top 10 scores" card and to permanently attach it to the Joker trophy. It hangs from a beaded strap, and can be flipped to the front of the trophy when one wants to display the scores, or flipped to the back of the trophy to display the Joker.

A beaded cuff

I'm playing around with different bead embroidery and bead weaving techniques, and this beaded cuff is the result. It appeals to me on several levels, the foremost being that I made it using only found or recycled items (with the exception of the beading thread). I have a prejudice in my respect of art that has been made using materials the artist has at hand...it seems more honest and real to me, somehow. I'm simply more impressed by art from common materials, like a basket woven out of native grasses or an image painted inside a cave somewhere in France...I may be wrong, but I think it's a lot easier to make something beautiful when one goes out and purchases the best materials to work with, and I feel that such art is done less for art's sake and more for mercenary reasons...not that that's a "bad" thing. I just see it as somehow less spontaneous and pure...

Not that I feel there is any inherent purity in the beer bottle caps I used in this piece, however! I used them because I wanted to learn how to attach cabochons with beaded bezels, but was lacking in cabochons and so substituted the caps. I did end up having to devise my own method of attachment, as the usual beaded bezel method did not work well with the caps. Overall, I'm pleased with the final result...visually, I think the beading pattern is reminiscent of shock waves and so compliments the "shock top" of the caps, and developmentally, I learned much in the process.

Some beading projects