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Tag Archives: Crafty Hope

Bead in the New Year with Allegory Gallery – Week 4 Wrap Up

26 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by beadlove in Uncategorized

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Tags

Allegory Gallery, Andrew Thornton: Project Destash, art abandonment, artist trading cards, Bead in the New Year with Allegory Gallery, Crafty Hope, Hope Smitherman, One Piece at a Time, Vintage Bead Vault, Who Knows What

As I typed that title, I realized I don’t have full weeks in my wrap ups necessarily, so there will be five weeks this month. 🙂 On to the Allegory Gallery prompts!

Day 21 – Get together with some friends to create

My mom is my favorite beading buddy. This is at her house last weekend. It’s nice to have someone else’s opinion and exchange materials. She also pushes me to try new things by proposing dates to use patinas or finally try epoxy clay. Thanks, mom!

Day 22 – Construct a non-jewelry piece using beads

Many moons ago, I got a pack of artist trading cards from Andrew Thornton’s destash as a prize. I had never heard of such a thing, but when I read up on them, I thought it was cool. I had done some paper crafts (cards, scrapbooks) back in the day. Fast forward to me enjoying art journaling and other paper arts that Crafty Hope posts about on her blog. Combine those two things with this prompt, and I give you my project using some vintage charms. I look forward to doing more elaborate non-jewelry projects.

Day 23 – Do a random act of (bead) kindness

My intention was to do art abandonment with these earrings. I used to do it more often, but I’ve gotten away from it. Honestly, I don’t get to that many places, and I can’t always find a good place to drop. There was a big snowfall on this day, so I ended up giving the earrings to a co-worker who happened into my office. That was random!

Day 24 – Create a piece using vintage materials 

I enjoyed making this piece quite a bit. I used a vintage brass piece as a starting point. The vintage  glass drop (that has a nice purple cast you can’t totally see) and those perfect wedding cake beads are from the Vintage Bead Vault. I got the vintage purple glass pearls from Who Knows What, a treasure of a shop, and the green glass from One Piece At a Time, also a favorite.

Day 25 – Put together a piece using seed beads

I use seed beads mostly as spacers. I wanted to do something a bit different, but I wasn’t about to do any bead weaving. That requires a whole day set up with moral support. But I had gotten the Allegory Gallery Design Challenge Day of the Dead kit. It came with a great sugar skull wooden pendant that had an open weave at the top as well as a tube of really pretty colorful seed beads. I imagined using wire to weave those beads at the top of the pendant. That is one of the things I love about these prompts; it gives some of us to time (or the understanding that we already have the time) to do things we’ve been thinking about. Now if I could only find the strand of beads that came in this kit that I wanted to use for a necklace with this. I’m sure I put them “someplace safe.”

Day 26 – Use a color that you don’t normally use

I don’t think there are a lot of colors I don’t use. I love brights, neutrals, pastels, metallics, etc. The one color I think I use less frequently is blue. But I do have a blue and turquoise box (I separate some beads by color). I looked in there and came up with a design I really like!

I feel like this had the added benefit of helping use those very cute dotty beads I’ve had for years. I tend to shy away from color combinations that are associated with something specific: red, white and blue, green and red, sports team colors, etc. Now to me they just look cute!

I think I’ve been doing Monday through Sunday recaps, but I’m going to post this now and leave the last five days of this challenge for one last recap. Thanks for reading! I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am.

Another Patina Day and Mod Podge

07 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by beadlove in Uncategorized

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Tags

Andrew Thornton: Project Destash, Crafty Hope, Hope Smitherman, Mod Podge, Sondra Jackson, Sondra's Estate Beads Destash Depot, St. Katherine's Supply Co., Vintaj

My mom and I had another patina day! We were very pleased with the results. I also tried an idea I had with Mod Podge and was super pleased that it turned out as well. So, I will just get right into the show and tell. 

I got one of these lily of the valley stampings from Sondra’s Estate Beads Destash Depot. I have gotten a lot of great things from Sondra, so check out her page if you have a minute. Tons of stampings for sure; many of the older really quality, heavy duty kind. Anywho, I forgot to take a picture of mine nekkid, so Sondra let me use hers. I used Vintaj patinas in marble and a mixture of moss and seafoam pearl for the green. I used the Vintaj reliefing block because I always like stampings to look old. 

My mom patina-ed another lily stamping I got from Sondra with the same colors. Here are the original and color versions, with the original once again by Sondra Jackson.

I didn’t go in with a solid plan for this pewter dragon fly focal by Fire Goddess that I got from Andrew Thornton’s destash. I kept changing my mind, but in the end I think it turned out kind of fun. Here are three quick pics: the original pendant, with bronze patina and some reliefing, with white gold, ochre, and carnelian. 

I guess I didn’t get many before pictures. My mom had a silver face pin that she patina-ed with verdigris, ochre and cinnabar mixed with garnet. Here it is in progress and finished. 

My mom also had an old brass vase stamping; here is a picture in progress and finished.

I had these fish I was just going to lightly patina with sea colors, but they were smoother than I first thought. The patina didn’t take well, and I would have had to rough them up. They are way too cute to even consider doing something that could ruin them, so I decided to leave them as is. I just wanted to include them to say that not everything ends up needing patina! These are also from Sondra Jackson.

The last thing I patina-ed is some copper chain. I thought it was a good candidate because it was so heavily textured, and I didn’t really like it that much in its natural state. I have a pendant I want to use it with, and I chose moss patina. Here is a picture of the patina (right) and then after I reliefed it (left).

I cut the chain, so I had some extra bars. I said I was going to throw them away because I can’t keep every little thing – that’s why my studio is the way it is (giant mess). My mom decided to keep them in case I needed them at some later time. Not minute later I broke one of the bars being a little too rough with my reliefing. My mom was able to hand me one of the spare bars (that I had tested the patina on, so it was already done!) and I fixed it. My mom is the smartest!

One last thing I did was Mod Podge some old flowers I have onto a wooden bead. Hope Smitherman’s blog showed a project with washi tape earrings. I think that in combination with another project I saw but really can’t remember made me think about a little table I Mod Podged with tissue paper. It turned out so cute! I figured I could do that on wooden beads. I looked through my paper craft supplies, and I really wanted to use some old flower items a friend had given me. I got the wooden beads from St. Katherine’s Supply Co. 

And here is the finished product in my first ever video on my blog.

Whoo! That was a long post. I hope you enjoyed it! You will be seeing these items turn up in finished jewelry in the future.

 

 

 

 

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Jewelry I Bought – Upcycled Edition

15 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by beadlove in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Crafty Hope, Firefly Design Studio, Heather DeSimone, Hope Smitherman, Leetie Lovendale, lucite, Michelle Ann McCarthy, Vintage Bead Vault

Here is another jewelry I bought post with a few things I’m currently excited about. First is a really clever and cute bracelet by Hope Smitherman of Crafty Hope. She makes great recycled/upcycled pieces and often mixes fancy and rustic, as she does here with distressed metal and crystal chain. 

The construction on this bracelet is perfection, so it fits like a dream and is even easy to put on by myself, kind of a miracle for a bracelet with a clasp! It’s really fun, and I find myself wearing it often.

I love buying vintage beads from Heather DeSimone when I get the chance. She owned the fabulous store The Beadin’ Path, and I was able to get some fun things from her online sales during those days. Now, when she posts on her Vintage Bead Vault Facebook page, I’m right there to snap up the wonderful, unique goodies. But her main creative gig is her jewelry company, Leetie Lovendale. She bought out a huge warehouse full of vintage lucite beads and makes beautiful jewelry with it. It’s all fun and upcycled! What I fell in love with first when seeing it on a sample sale video on her VIP page is a trinket necklace. These are simple, classic styles with one fabulous lucite bead. 

I love this one on a long antique brass chain. I like jewelry that I can fiddle with during the day; I find it calming. This is perfect for that purpose. It is a moonglow piece. I love moonglow. See a better representation of that below.

After I got this necklace, I love it so much I went back to see what she posted that was left from the sale. Two more moonglow trinket necklaces! I scooped those up. 

This bright pink (so me) curved component is on a ball chain. I haven’t looked at it through a magnifier, but the ball chain sparkles in a wonderful way that makes me think it is diamond cut, which I love. Below see the close up of the moonglow bubbles. 

I got a similar piece in a beautiful yellow. This one on a silver link chain.

All of these necklaces are different lengths and include extenders, so I can layer them together or with other pieces. I suspect my favorite way to wear them will just be alone; each one is perfect by itself. Each necklace also has this cute little brand tag.

There are a variety of single and multi-strand necklaces in the line, bracelet stacks and lots of post, hoop and drop earrings. Leetie’s hoops even made a list by Harper’s Bazaar about this summer’s lucite hoop earring trend. You gotta love a company that was trendy before the trend! I’m currently lusting after a Bauble style necklace on the Leetie website.

Here are all of my Leetie lovelies in a beautiful dish I got from Michelle Ann McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio. The flowers are a departure from her usual themes, but I love it. It looks to me like something passed down in the family.

An additional benefit of my new love of Leetie is renewed inspiration for getting out some of my own vintage lucite beads and adding them into my designs. Stay tuned!

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Kind of a New Collaboration

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by beadlove in Uncategorized

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Crafty Hope, Diana Ptaszynski, Mary Harding, Staci Louise Originals, Staci Louise Smith

I’ve written in the past about how when I buy curated mixed lots of beads and materials, I often see a design primarily using the lot. It feels a bit like a collaboration with the artist who put those materials together. This time, I got a lot of beads from Staci Louise Smith. She has a Facebook page where she sells a variety of things – her beads, her finished jewelry and sometimes mixed lots of materials. She has fabulous taste and I love her work, so the mixed lots are really fun things I love. Here is what I got.

Photo and dish by Staci Louise Smith

The dish the beads are in was not included, but Staci makes great bowls as well. Check out her shop. At the time of this writing, she had some lovely finished bowls in her shop.

I didn’t use the cool spiral glass beads made from wine bottles or the large and lovely prehnite, but I used all the rest. 

I used the Suburban Girl Studio ceramic bead by Diana Ptaszynski as the focal. Diana recently retired Suburban Girl and is now doing business under her name. Check out her fun new stuff. I attached the focal bead to a handmade copper and solder jewelry stringing bail by Mary Harding. I used the green kyanite, peridot and olive jade beads from the lot. I rounded it out with a few mixed beads that Crafty Hope tied onto the package when I bought one of her bracelets (I love using packaging beads!) I had this great mixed metal chain on my table that was perfect to finish off the design.

It’s fun to be able to use materials another artist put together. It helps expand my design sense.

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