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Weekend Makes

20 Monday Jun 2022

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Allegory Gallery, Artists for Animals Auction, Bronwen Heilman, CB&Co, Gaea Handmade, Handmade by JGL, Kimberly Rogers, My Elements, Numinosity Beads, pipe chain, Silver Silk, Supply Your Soul, Vintaj

My muse has returned! It feels so good. I had some ceramic cat beads from Allegory Gallery and connectors from My Elements on my bead table for quite a while. I thought they looked great together for earrings, but I wasn’t sure about the design. It suddenly came together. I love these.

Earrings with crystals, silver seed beads, pink peal bead caps, pastel connectors and white cats.

I made those for the next Artists for Animals Auction coming up in the fall.

Next, I was also very happy with this remake. If you read this blog, you know I hate to do a remake and have many lovely items I can’t wear because they need a remake. I’m determined to do remakes, take apart things to repurpose materials or give them away so I don’t have so many things just sitting around. So, first, a remake. Very simple, but perfect.

Semi-recently I put a fabulous Bronwen Heilman pendant on some equally fabulous vintage chain. I liked the look, but when wearing it, the way the pendant flippity-flopped was not good. Heilman shows the pendants on black rubber tubing. Then SilverSilk debuted a new product called pipe chain. It’s perfect for this necklace, and a little fancier than the rubber tubing.

Necklace on black cord with long silver pendant with orange, tangerine and blue lampwork.

It’s now absolutely stable and perfect!

Next is a very simple make; I just put this pendant on chain and added a clasp, but it was years in the making because I bought the CB&CO pendant at, I think, my first Bead & Button show, so that was some years ago for sure! I happened to see the pendant in a box this morning when I was looking for something, and I had the perfect chain on my table that hadn’t worked with something else.

Necklace with silver chain and mixed metal pendant that says "I can only imagine."

The pendant has mixed metals and all of the different discs move. I love the stamped phrase “I can only imagine.” It could mean anything from “I can only imagine the BS that goes on in your mind” about an annoying person to “I can only imagine the great things in store” about the future. I have long been a fan of Gaea‘s beads, and I usually buy one or more of her copper clasps when I place an order because I love those as well. She had offered them in different finishes at one point, and I’m glad I got some in the dark finish. It is perfect for this necklace.

I’m still working on some other things. I got a lampwork hand bead from Kimberly Rogers of numinosity. I am so in love with it. I really think I just want it on chain or maybe leather. It is heavy enough to flippy-flop, so I think it is best to have a design that has two connection points. I tried to create a form that would accommodate the hand with a couple of other loved items, but it wasn’t right. I might end up trying again. Then I took part of a repurposed earring (that I think I also got from Kimberly in a destash). I was trying to focus on grungy to look right with the top of the hand. But it didn’t quite work.

Two necklaces. One with pink glass hand on pink chain. The other a dark rose bead on a metal bar with brass chain.

Then I thought what if I go in my other favorite direction from grunge, kitsch. The hand has a pink cast to it, and I was so in love with this bubblegum pink vintage chain when I saw it. I do like it, but I’ve also ordered some ball chain in a patina called Cimarron Rose (grey, cinnamon and rose gold) from Supply Your Soul. I love the patina items from this shop. The color combinations are so great and the application makes things look perfectly grungy. I went looking for chain with the Urban Decay patina, but there was none. This one might be even better with some tones from the pink family. If I like it, I’ll have to think the best way to connect the pendant to avoid flippy-flop. I might go with leather.

The other necklace in this picture shows the earring part I was working with. It is meant to go vertically, and I had it that way with the hand at the bottom and the bead on that middle loop. It is a nice brass, and I used hematite and marble Vintaj patina to make it look old and worn. I didn’t like it with the hand, so I decided to turn it horizontally and just leave the bead dangle on there. I used a handmade headpin from Handmade by JGL. We’ll see if I leave either of these. The length of them makes them layer well together.

I got pretty long-winded on this post, so thanks for sticking with me if you are still reading!

Quick and Easy – Holiday Edition

07 Saturday Dec 2019

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A Grain of Sand, Andrew Thornton, Cathy Collison, Diane Hawkey, Famous Vintage Bead Hoard Liquidation Destash, Gina Chalfant, Kelly Luttrell, Mary Redman, My Elements, Soul Relica, Suzanne Branca, Wendy Wallin Malinow, Yvonne Irvin-Faus

Nothing that I will show in this post took much effort on my part, but it doesn’t mean I’m not pleased with it or that I don’t love it. I do like some things that take more effort so that I can express my creativity, but some easy things are fun. And when I am using really beautiful materials, sometimes it doesn’t take much else.

First, I’ve been having so much fun going through some mixed boxes of vintage things I’ve gotten from Suzanne Branca of A Grain of Sand. As she sells off her vintage stock, she has included some monthly subscription boxes she had back in the day. It is so wonderful to go through them and see all the treasures. She is posting things on her Famous Vintage Bead Hoard Liquidation Destash page as she finds them, and I’m hoping that she will come up with a few more boxes since they have been such fun. One of the things I’ve gotten is color-coated metal (aluminum?) corrugated beads. They are so cheerful. 

These don’t have to be holiday depending on how one uses them, but they certainly read that way to me this month. I was in the studio cleaning and organizing, and I decided to go ahead and just quick make a necklace and an ornament. 

I have an ornament tree in my studio all year long to display lovely things that make me smile. You can see the simple red ornament I made with one of the beads between a Diane Hawkey creature and a Wendy Wallin Malinow sundae deer. You can also see a couple of ornaments by Andrew Thornton, Mary Redman, Gina Chalfant, and part of one by Cathy Collison.

Then I made a very simple necklace. I wanted just one of the big beads hanging from chain to wear around when I am feeling festive. I had the perfect chain, available from Yvonne Irvin-Faus‘ shop My Elements. 

Fun, right? Then as I was unpacking more of the vintage Suzanne Branca goodies, I came upon some beautiful chain. I have recently bought a couple of gorgeous pendants by Kelly Luttrell of Soul Relica. Here is one.

I decided they do not need anything except a way to hang around my neck. I was planning to go through my chain stash when this chain presented itself to me, so I cut it to size and slid one of the pendants on it. 

It’s really beautiful chain, so perfect for this piece. I’m thrilled to have found it.

With not much work on my part, I was able to feel creative and have two new necklaces and an ornament! It was part of a really good day.

 

New Makes

01 Saturday Jun 2019

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Earthenwood Studio, Lillypilly Designs, My Elements, Scorched Earth on Etsy, The Classic Bead, Tracee Dock, Vintaj, Yvonne Irvin-Faus

I feel like I haven’t been that productive lately, so I wanted to get into the studio today and make a couple of things. I decided to pick a bead artist, look at my stash for that artist, and pick something out. I chose Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead. I had so many good pendants! But today the polka dots spoke to me.

I decided to try some colorful chain. I had some rosary chain with several of the dot colors, but it was missing purple, and that felt really glaring to me. I recently got a variety of beautiful chain from Yvonne Irvin-Faus of My Elements. It included a mottled purple color, so I got that out. Perfect! 

I still had the rosary chain on my table. I decided to use one of the beads to bring out the other dominant color in the pendant by using it as a dangle. This is a fun one.

Also on my bead table was a resin piece I made last weekend. I had a connector bezel and asked my brother-in-law to draw something in his style to put in it. I love how it looks (I’ve asked him to do more for other bezels.)

I planned to use it in a bracelet, so I got out some other components. I used two Earthenwood square connectors in the same colorway and a round Lillypilly Designs wooden bead with a similar swirly design.

I also included some Vintaj pieces and a clear vintage plastic bead. On the square Vintaj component, I added a little Vintaj dragonfly charm I had pantinaed and a Scorched Earth on Etsy ceramic charm. While I often like bright colors, I love the subtle coloring in this.

 

Artists for Animals Auction – 2019

20 Saturday Apr 2019

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Artists for Animals Auction, Madison Cat Project, Miss Fickle Media, My Elements, SagaHus Components

The Artists for Animals Auction is coming up again from April 29 – May 5, 2019. I am going to take part. But that’s not all! Artists have different schedules, and it’s never a bad time to help animals, so there will be another auction May 27 – June 2, 2019. But let’s focus on some things I’ve made for the first date.

You might have seen a few of the things before.

Guitar pick and vintage Japanese paper beads.

Miss Fickle Media black soot patina chain sections and pearls.

A variety of colored Czech glass and carved bone cat pendant. I’m toying with the idea of restringing this one. I might want to knot in between the beads. Although this hangs nicely on, it is somewhat stiff, and I might like to mix up the colors more. Let me know if you have an opinion.

SagaHus Components fiber and wire components with complementary beads. These are nice and long.

Large glass pearls and leaves from vintage chain colored with Vintaj Seafoam Pearl patina. 

Extra large glass pearls with steel hearts from vintage chain. I love how the leaves look in the above picture, but I think these look even cuter on. You can see some age patina on one heart. You  know I love a little grunge with my vintage. These pearls are larger than the ones above and a bit more of a champagne white.

My Elements ethereals with acrylic beads from vintage chain. With this picture, I see I might need to replace the vintage wire on the beads, but that’s easy. These are cute for those who like a smaller profile earring.

These are a favorite. They look so pretty on. Metalized plastic flower beads with faceted glass dangles. The metalized plastic looks like metal but keeps the weight down.

Please join us for the Artists for Animals Auction starting April 29, 2019. It’s easy to bid; the auction page is public, so just comment! Artists add items starting on April 29th and continue throughout the week. Each artist’s proceeds benefit their chosen charity. Mine will benefit Madison Cat Project.

Hope to see you there!

Chain Love

14 Sunday Apr 2019

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Tags

A Grain of Sand, B'sue Boutiques, Joan Miller, Miss Fickle Media, My Elements, One Piece at a Time, Sondra's Estate Beads Destash Depot, Who Knows What, You Are Not the Boss of Me

I am currently smitten with chain. I just love a long necklace with one or a few great beads. It’s elegant and boho at the same time, and I like being able to use the pendant as a sort of fidget device during meetings at work.

For years I’ve been collecting interesting chain. I have a few places I love to get colored, vintage or other types of chain. Let me share those with you.

My Elements for colored chain in a variety of materials and Miss Fickle Media and Supply Your Soul for hand patina chain. For vintage chain: B‘Sue Boutiques Supplies, One Piece at a Time, You Are Not the Boss of Me, and Who Knows What. Right now, A Grain of Sand is having a half price sale to move out the vintage products (coupon code VINLOVE) including some great chain. Recently, I’ve gotten both vintage and colored chain from Sondra’s Estate Beads Destash.

The first necklace I made uses chain from A Grain of Sand called very vintage white. It is a shabby chic look I love. I used it with a Joan Miller kitty pendant on a hand patina hammered brass hoop from Miss Fickle Media (great stuff besides chain too!) I wanted to keep the blue patina at the bottom so that and the blue kitty eyes could play off each other, so I wire wrapped four labradorite beads on each side to be stoppers for the chain. That also helped bring in another design element and sparkle, and take up some of the negative space.

When ordering from Sondra Jackson, she always sends a little freebie goody bag. Oh my, this last time when I bought some black acrylic beaded rosary style chain, the freebie bag contained this fabulous faceted glass crystal.

Judging from the wire loop and the heaviness, it was probably a chandelier crystal. I used it with the rosary chain for a simple and really elegant necklace. The light weight of the acrylic chain balances out the heavy crystal to make a comfortable necklace.

It’s easy to make pretty necklaces when you have nice, interesting chain. I’m also looking forward to using patina on some of my more mundane chain to fancy it up.

Chunkalicious

02 Sunday Dec 2018

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Tags

Andrew Thornton, Dry Gulch Beads & Jewelry, Miss Fickle Media, My Elements

I made two necklaces today with the chunky beads I love! The first started with this wonderfully patinaed crown pendant from Dry Gulch Beads & Jewelry. I absolutely love its crusty rustiness. 

I looked at the different colors in the patina and thought some chunky, rough moonstone I have would work well. I tried a variety of other things to bring out some of the other colors – different seed beads, colors of linen I could knot, metal beads. In the end I decided to use both seed beads and some rustic metal beads. 

I wanted to add some weight to the pendant (it is hollow in back) so I added a heavy clear rough glass bead and a little rough metal bead to round out the pedant before the strand. I finished it off with a coin toggle with its own lovely patina from Miss Fickle Media. I love the cool white with the warm metal.

Next up, I had these really gorgeous rough citrine chunks. I paired them with a fabulous Sovereign pendant by Andrew Thornton as well as another rough rondelle with a little gold accent also by Andrew Thornton. 

This pendant is beautiful, and I also love the inspiration behind it. Andrew speaks about art coming from head to heart to hands. For me, art made with love, intention and good feeling is as important – or more important – than skill. Maybe that’s why I love outsider art.

I used large brushed gold seed beads between the citrine. I only had ten of those beads, so I finished the necklace off with some enameled aluminum chain from My Elements with colors from the pendant. 

I am very pleased with both of these necklaces. They seem bold enough to make a statement with winter clothes.

The Beads Speak

23 Friday Nov 2018

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Allegory Gallery, Andrew Thornton: Project Destash, Diane Hawkey, Lori Anderson, My Elements, Patricia Healey, Yvonne Irvin-Faus

The beads do speak, and not just the beads, but the other components too. The two necklaces I’m featuring in this post had components that whispered the design to me, and they came together in minutes.

First is a necklace featuring a pendant by Yvonne Irvin-Faus. I love her work, and she constantly invents something new. Recently, she had a show with a new line called Toonz that had a distinct graffiti/cartoon style. I really wanted a large black and white donut, and I managed to get it! Yvonne is very generous and sends well-chosen prizes with each order. With this particular order, she sent me a generous length of her Funky Skunky black and white enameled aluminum chain. Perfect! The chain called out to be used with the pendant, and I was game. I only needed one other element for it to feel finished for me. I half-heartedly tried a couple of things, but I knew something would present itself. When I got an order from Lori Anderson’s destash page, she included the perfect thing, a silver (possibly aluminum?) faceted bead.

Each side of the pendant is different.

The second necklace I’m showing today started with a strand of faceted matte quartz rock crystal nuggets. I was putting away the order they came with, and they were so beautiful I just wanted to use them right away. They told me they needed a bold pendant, and I knew that meant one of the Diane Hawkey lentils I hoard. This bird pendant is large and so special I knew it could hold its own with these beautiful, chunky nuggets. I found some frosted glass rounds in a color to complement the pendant and used those as spacers. This is finished with a Patricia Healey pendant.

This pendant is also different on each side. 

These necklaces were so satisfying to make. I will enjoy them.

Resin

25 Friday May 2018

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Tags

Bead & Button Show, Carlos Sobral, My Elements, Yvonne Irvin-Faus

I like all kinds of beads, but I don’t always know much about them. Yvonne Irvin-Faus of My Elements was having a destash. I love a destash because, in addition to good deals, I can sometimes get unusual beads. Talented designers with good taste have been hoarding these beads but haven’t found the right project for them or whatever and have decided to release them out into the world. Score! I have gotten some really good beads this way.

Ok, now flash back to one of the first times I ever went to Bead & Button. I don’t know about other people, but sometimes I feel a bit jaded. I feel like I’ve seen all the beads. That’s why I get so excited over art beads, vintage and anything unusual. So, back at that Bead & Button show many years ago, I wandered into a booth that was full of resin and lucite, materials I didn’t have a lot of experience with. I fellllll in love with these beads. (I have more that I made into a bracelet I never wear, but these were easy to find.) 

Then flash forward to Yvonne’s destash and she had several lots of “Sobral resin from Brazil.”

I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it reminded me of my exciting find at Bead & Button. I did a search and found that the beads from the destash were by designer Carlos Sobral. I’m sure I’ve seen his jewelry and home design work in magazines over the years. I don’t necessarily think the beads I got at Bead & Button are Sobral (they don’t seem to be exactly that same quality, but they are still fun) but it was exciting to see this type of bead again, especially in the rounds as I find that shape easier to use. 

Although I have no desire to make jewelry for sale, I often think it would be fun to design a line of jewelry. For example, these wonderful Sobral beads could look so different even just depending on the accent beads I used. I decided to use yellow just because I like yellow and have a lot. But the necklace would look so different using brown, the wonderful forest green, turquoise, white or even the subtle, more translucent purple. I’d love to see the beads played out in all those different ways as they would be in a line of jewelry.

Alas, this is all I have of these beads. I like the way this turned out and enjoy wearing sunny yellow. I will also enjoy doing a little more research on Carlos Sobral. His colorful, graphic work is just my kind of thing.

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Artists for Animals Auction Begins Today!

14 Monday May 2018

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Tags

Anna Pierson, Artisan Clay, Artists for Animals Auction, Gaea Handmade, Kristie Ann Roeder, Madison Cat Project, My Elements, SagaHus Components, Sue-Lin Tarnowski, Yvonne Irvin-Faus

I am part of the Artists for Animals Auction. It is a Facebook group where artists join together to auction our handmade goods in support of our favorite animal charity. The auction runs through Sunday, May 20th. My proceeds will go to Madison Cat Project. They are a no kill shelter/foster program that finds homes for hundreds of cats who come into their care every year. 

This is my sweetie pie, MooKitty.

I’m putting a variety of necklaces and earrings in the auction. Here are pictures.

Tuxedo Kitty Earrings with striped beads by Gaea Handmade and charms by Mary Redman.

Blingy Kitty Earrings for when you want to have a little sparkly fun

Jasper and Pyrite Necklace with Gaea Handmade Accent Bead (This necklace is a favorite from the things I made for this auction!)

Hugs and Kisses Earrings with Charms by Sue-Lin Tarnowski

Queen Kitty Necklace with Gaea Handmade (Come see more pictures at the auction; it’s so cute!)

Skellie Friend Earrings with Bead and Fiber Drops by Anna Pierson of SagaHus Components

Necklace with Pendant by Kristie Ann Roeder of Artisan Clay 

Turquoise and Wire-Wrapped Key Necklace with Disc by Yvonne Irvin-Faus of My Elements on Leather

Royal Kitty Earrings with Kitty Drops by SagaHus Components and Drops by Yvonne Irvin-Faus

Knotted Necklace with Mother-of-Pearl and Repurposed Dangle Pendant

If you want to check out my auction or those of the many other artists, please visit the Artists for Animals Auction page. The other artists and I will be posting things through the day today and throughout the week, so please check back.

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Art Bead Scene Challenge April 2018

15 Sunday Apr 2018

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Art Bead Scene challenge, My Elements, polymer clay, Staci Louise Smith

The Art Bead Scene Studio inspiration art for April is Disks of Newton (Study for “Fugue in Two Colors”), oil on canvas by František Kupka. 

This is just the kind of bright, energetic painting that I love. So of course I was inspired right away, and why not? I recently got some brightly colored stacked disc beads in a Staci Louise Smith destash. I suspect she was experimenting because they are very different than her usual look, but they are just the sort of thing I would fall in love with. They look like glittery, tie-dye, watercolor moons in the sky. One of the main colors in the set is the same purple as the inspiration piece. Kismet!

What I was originally going to do (and realllllly wanted to do) was use some black and white cord I love from My Elements. It would have looked totally cool. But the smallest size of cord was a little too big. (I don’t know how to drill polymer yet. I looked at my rotary tool and didn’t think I had a bit long enough. That’s a lesson for another day.) I tried to use some other, thinner cord. The beads are hollow, and it just wasn’t going to happen. It was enough of a challenge to string them on beading wire. The picture below shows the stacked nature of them from the side as well as the other side of a couple – beautiful on both sides!

Not using cord offered me another design element. I still wanted that spaced look I would have gotten knotting them on cord, so I used tiny seed beads that were a mix of several shades of the purple from the inspiration painting. These polymer beads are super fun and on the larger side, so I brought out some larger Czech glass (pink beads) and vintage plastic (yellow and one purple). I finished the back with graduated size purple beads I got as a freebie! I hadn’t considered red in my design, but I love the color. Since it plays such a prominent part in the inspiration, I added red seed beads beside each larger bead.

This necklace is full of joy for me. I’ll be throwing this on over cute dresses…someday. Right now it’s all snowy. Visit the Art Bead Scene Studio website and see what the painting has inspired other people to make.

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