My name is Jeanine Bollen and I live in a little village in a Dutch speaking region in Belgium. I have three sons and seven grandchildren. After my high-school graduation I studied mathematics, physics and computer science, and for many years I have worked as IT software developer and later as IT system engineer. There was a very little space for creativity in my job.
But I come from a family of architects and creativity has always been with me. In my spare time I did some needlework sewing and knitting for my children and myself but my favorites were art knitting and crocheting. No pattern was too difficult for me!
In 2007 I retired but remained active in the computer business for a few years working as a web designer for the school of my grandchildren. Developing children's games and drawing pictures on the computer led to creative media of my childhood: drawings and beads. As a child, I liked little beads, I still have a box of pony beads and a wooden loom, so no wonder that now when I have free time, beading have become my passion.
In 2009 I bought a book about jewelry making because I wanted to replace the old freshwater pearls in my mother's golden necklace. It was a little book but I liked the examples there and purchased the pearls, some glass beads and findings.
I repaired the necklace and even strung a few necklaces from the glass beads, but surfing over the Internet I discovered what could be done using seed beads. I've learned the basics of beadweaving by myself and participated in several contests in a local bead shop and won a few first prices with my strung and beadwoven items. My family was enthusiast and I awarded my loved ones with the necklaces and bracelets. I could even sell some.
Trying to learn more jewelry techniques, I gathered a lot of documentation in the Internet, took a class in making glass beads and also an art clay class. I made a small bead embroidery piece "Blooming Pond" and entered a Swarovski contest in the UK to test my skills and was selected as one of the finalists. The year after I sent in a bead weaving Mystic Night necklace and again I was selected as a finalist.
But I wanted to make more complex and out of the box jewelry. Fascinated by bead embroidery, I bought "The Art of Bead Embroidery" by Heidi Kummli and Sherry Serafini, and "Beading with Cabochons" and "Dimensional Bead Embroidery" by Jamie Cloud Eakin books and collected a lot of pictures of bead embroidery from the Internet.
I admired the beadwork of the Central Europe and Russian beaders although I did not understand the language. I was convinced this was what I wanted to make. I tried a bead embroidery cuff and created a pendant. The pendant did not take much time but the cuff took much longer because I had to redo it twice, but it was a good lesson.
I consider myself a novice beader but bitten by the "contest bug" I've looked for all the different contests over the Internet because I like the challenge. So, in 2014 I found the Fashion Colorworks contest. For that year contest deadline there was not much time left and I sent the pendant I had made before. I knew this was not good enough for the contest, and my feeling was correct, I didn't make even the final so I knew the next time I had to be better.
My next challenge was the IBA 2015 contest and it was my first big design. I always make a sketches of my ideas, but this time the final outcome was completely different. I was pleased with the end result since the collar I designed gave me a place among the nominees.
For the Fashion Colorworks 2015 contest, I was well prepared. The color combination I selected was cool, turquoise blue is one of my favorite colors. The idea came to me from two blue dolphins figurines, a shell that one of my sons gave me when he was a child, and a photo of dolphins at sunset from my inspirational collection of pictures. I changed the sunset by the deep blue water in the sketch and the project was ready to be executed.
My skills were improved, and with a lot of tries, errors, redos and comments from my family "Dance Of Dolphins" was made. This time I had a good feeling about the design, especially when I got into the finals. I saw all the beautiful designs of the other participants and First Prize was more than I hoped! I thank Fashion Colorworks, all of the judges and kind Zoya Gutina from the bottom of my heart for the appreciation I got for my design!
My gallery on MyLovelyBeads.com
About author:
| Jeanine Bollen, Bekkevoort, Belgium | |
| Email: | jeanine.bollen@telenet.be |
| Facebook: | facebook.com/LadyBeetleBeads |
