It's PARTY Time! Bead Soup Blog Party 8 Reveal

It's finally here - the big reveal for Lori Anderson's 8th Bead Soup Blog Party!!  This is an event jewelry makers like myself anxiously await all year.  It's like the Thanksgiving of handcrafted jewelry where you can gorge on images of beautiful pieces until you can't stand it anymore.  It's like mardi gras and New Year's rolled into one.  Can you tell I'm excited?  If you're not familiar with the concept (Bead Soup Blog Party, not parties in general), it's pretty simple:  our hostess-with-the-mostess, Lori Anderson, assigns partners from the massive list of participants; the pairs exchange "bead soup" consisting of a focal, clasp and a few coordinating beads; each designer makes something using at least the focal and clasp (they don't have to be used in the same piece); and then we have a party!  This is where you get to see all the amazing things everyone has made.  

This year I was paired with Marianna Boylan of Star Girl Jewelry & Lampwork Glass Designs.  I did this blog post all about her, in case you missed it.  She sent this gorgeous "soup" for me:

Marianna made the lampwork bead and that photo doesn't really do it justice.  I'll give you a closer look:

Isn't it beautiful!?!  I really wanted to use it in my piece this year and I think I just tried too hard.  I had an idea in my head and I just couldn't get it to translate into reality.  I spent hours on it and it just didn't do justice to that focal.  Lori did a blog post about the time I was struggling with it called Don't Be Afraid of the Do-Over, do I decided to take her advice.  I thought I would try my luck with the other focal Marianna sent, the ceramic mermaid pendant by Gaea, so I pulled out some cord and beads and came up with a palette.  

And this happened.

My mermaid goddess.  I'm really excited about this piece.  I messed with a few different design elements and I think the piece has flow and movement.

All the flow and all the movement brings the eye back to the star of the show, the mermaid pendant.

Want to see more?  You can check out my reveals for the 6th Bead Soup Blog Party and the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party or you can hop over to Lori's Bead Soup Blog Party page where she has the entire list (almost 500 participants!) of blogs to visit.  I don't know about you, but I plan on visiting every one of them.  It might take me a few days, but I'll get there!  Happy Hopping!

Riding the Waves, Swept Along in the Tides

I'm trying really hard to go with the flow; trying my darnedest to relax and enjoy life and let it happen.  Today is my daughter's very last day of high school.  It doesn't seem possible.  I swear it was just a few months ago that she was heading off to her first day of kindergarten!  

 

I couldn't figure out why I've been so exhausted lately and then it dawned on me:  I've been trying to keep up with her!  She plays tennis, so I try to go to all her matches.

 

 

She just finished up with Speech and Debate a month ago and dove right into the spring play.

Then this past weekend she went to Prom.  I baked and decorated a cake so they could have an elegant dessert for their pre-Prom dinner, and took her to get her hair done and helped her get ready.  After helping with the dinner, I had to go to the grocery store again and get ready for the second wave - I served breakfast for her and her friends at four in the morning!  She had such a good time, though, that it was all worth it.  And she looked so beautiful!

And if all that isn't enough, this coming weekend is graduation.  I'm too old for all this excitement!  And I'm tired :)

I haven't had time to do very much with my jewelry lately and that's a bad thing.  Micro macrame is how I relax and I feel so much better when I get a little "me time" in.  So after I served breakfast (and took a little nap - don't tell on me), I spent the afternoon doing this:

Ahhhhh..... it's like a trip to the beach.  Soft sand under my toes, sparkling teal waters...  It's my happy place.  Nothing to do but relax and sip my margarita.  A girl can dream.

Artists' Charm Swap 2014

Bead Swap USA usually does a swap once a year or so where the beads or charms have to be handmade by the participants.  It is my very favorite swap!  It took me awhile to get brave enough to participate because I'm not a bead maker by any stretch of the imagination, but I am so glad I got up the courage!  It's not only encouraged me to try a some different techniques to make my own charms, but it's also netted me some awesome handmade charms from others!!

This year there were 27 of us and we (bravely) decided we would keep it all as one group rather than splitting it up.  That meant each of us had to make 27 charms, which isn't too bad for some techniques, but for others like bead weaving...  Boy, those ladies are incredibly brave to even try to take on a project like this one.  My hat's off to them!

See?  I told you there were some really cool charms!  And there were also several lamp work and ceramic ones:

We have some folks in the group who work with polymer clay or resin:

And there are still more!!!  Here are the offerings in the metal, wire and soldering category:

A few of those pieces were "extras" added as hostess gifts and a couple others were from another swap in that group, but mostly they are charms from this swap.  Pretty cool, huh?  

The charms I made this year were epoxy clay and that was a first for me.  It was lots of fun and I did a post about it here.

I made a charm bracelet using some of the charms from previous swaps and a few other treasured pieces.  It's really jangly and noisy and fun to wear and each one of the charms on it has special meaning to me.  It doesn't get much better than that!  If you'd like to see who gave me the charms on the bracelet, I've tagged them here.

Think I can find room on there for my new treasures?

Beads of Clay Artisan Beads

The members of the Beads of Clay group did a giveaway a few weeks ago and gave away an incredible array of handmade artisan clay beads.  Take a look:

You might recognize the work of some of these talented folks:  Vladislav Ivanov from Golem Studio, Beada Hendrix of Sasijuhls Things, Diana Ptaszynski of Suburban Girl Studio, and Tracee Dock of Classic Elements.  

The "catch" that went along with winning these beads was that I had to agree to make a piece of jewelry using one of the beads within a month of receipt.  Don't tell anybody, but with this kind of inspiration, that wasn't really much of a catch!  What was harder was trying to decide which piece to work with first.  

I ended up choosing the largest focal piece by Tracee and I set it in the center of a micro macrame bracelet with cord and beads in shades of blue and mauve.

It's a real pleasure for me to work with artisan beads, handmade by people who take pride in their work and produce unique and beautiful beads.  I may or may not have a shopping problem, but that aside, I can tell you that I recognize the work of these folks by their own individual signature styles.  And to me, that's a mark of a true artist.  It's obvious they are each doing what they feel passionate about and creating pieces that mean something to them.  I admire that greatly.  I hope you will take a couple of minutes to visit the pages and shops of these folks and support them.

Collaboration

Melinda Orr of Melinda Orr Designs makes the most awesome components for jewelry makers in addition to her jewelry designs.  She does some amazing things with metal (I've had my eye on these textured components with patina forever), and now she's branching out into leather.  I was looking for a clasp that would work for micro macrame and just look what she came up with:

Is that great, or what!?!  She was even kind enough to send me a couple and I won't lie... I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning when they arrived.  I took my color cues from the green foliage pattern in the leather and paired that with the spring vibes I've been feeling and came up with a lilac color scheme.

This pattern takes a long time to knot and adding a bead in the center of each of the shapes drug that out into eternity.  I do think it was worth it, though. 

Even the back side of the bracelet is cool:

If you would like to try your hand at this pattern, you can find a version of it in my Marquise Micro Macrame Cuff class on CraftArtEdu.com.  If you are interested in some of Melinda's components, you will want to check out her shop.   I'll show you the other things she sent to me, but you have to promise not to be jealous.  Promise?

Those little circles?  Those are OWL EYES!!! How cool is that!  I can't wait to try them out in an owl design.  And I definitely will be ordering more clasps!

TWO New Micro Macrame Tutorials!

Yes, I know it's been over a week since I last posted, but in my defense, I have been busy.  I finished not one, but two new micro macrame tutorials!  I finally finished one for the bracelet in the photo above - the one I've been promising for a couple of months now.  I couldn't decide what to call it, because "Funny Little Pointed Elliptical Shapes Micro Macrame Bracelet Cuff"  just seemed to be missing something.  I finally figured out that those shapes look like a marquise cut stone and logically, if somewhat predictably, named the class "Marquise Micro Macrame Cuff".  It's a little more manageable.  I have included something like 110 still photos and 5 videos along with step by step instructions and narration.  No matter what method of instruction works best for you, it's in there!

To give you a little taste of my teaching style, here's an example of one of the videos showing how to mount the cords to get started on this design:

The Marquise bracelet is a bit of a challenge.  It only uses a couple of knots, but it takes some concentration to keep track of the cords and make sure you are working with the correct ones.  If you don't think you're ready for that, I also did an easier class:

The Micro Macrame Stack Bracelet Class is easy enough for beginners.  It looks like a stack of several bracelets, but it's really one easy-to-wear piece.  I love how the simplicity of the square knots really lets the colors take center stage.  The bracelet I made while taking photographs for the class was done in five graduating shades for an ombre effect, but you can vary the color scheme to fit your style.  Try springy pastels or a bright colorful rainbow or experiment with adding beads into the mix.  You can even substitute a different knot and make a bracelet like this:

The nice folks over at CraftArtEdu.com are celebrating the release of my two new classes with a super duper sale through the weekend.  You can find the details here.  Happy knotting!

Experimenting With Epoxy Clay

I have supplies stashed around my house for projects I really want to try.  Someday.  That darned loom is taunting me from the corner of the closet and the torch fired enamel supplies have clearly demonstrated their superiority over me.  The kumihimo disk, on the other hand, is just hanging out waiting patiently.  I like that in a craft supply - patience.  

At one point I decided I'd have to give polymer clay a whirl.  I mean, some of those talented folks make it look so darned easy, surely even I could make something passable.  Right?  So I rushed out and bought some clay paraphernalia (okay, mostly I rushed to my laptop and ordered it, but I will admit to taking some liberties in the name of good storytelling). While searching for all the things I had to have, I came across epoxy clay and thought I had to have some of that, too.  

Months passed and more months and more months and..  well, you get the picture.  I actually did get a package of polymer clay out at Christmas time intending to make an ornament to preserve my grandson's adorable little hand print for posterity, only to discover that it was hard.  Well, I guess it took the pressure off me to use it, huh?

Anyway, I got a wild hair the other day and decided to mess with the epoxy clay.  Apparently since it's packaged in two parts that have to be combined before it will harden and set properly, it has a longer shelf life than polymer?  I don't know that for a fact, but my epoxy stuff was fine.  I worked the two parts together, then rolled little pea-sized balls and pressed it into bezels.  To get a smoother surface and get rid of any fingerprints, I dipped my finger in a little water and rubbed it over the surface of the clay.  It seemed to work pretty well.

You might have noticed the rather impressive array of mineral powders in that first photo at the top of this post?  That was another little collection/obsession of mine - mineral makeup.  I don't know why I thought I needed to have every color under the sun, nor why I hung onto it for all these years.  Apparently it was just for this project.  I smeared it on the surface of the clay and did some rather impressive blending, too.

I used some stamps I had laying around here to stamp a design into each of the little charms.  I didn't have too much trouble with the stamps sticking in the clay, and that might have been because of the mineral powder.  I even dug out my letter stamping set and stamped words into the clay on some of the pieces.

I really like the sheen and the subtle colors, but I was hell-bent on experimenting and using more of my craft supplies, so I busted out the Vintaj patinas.

These I have used before.  I even used them to paint lucite flowers and wrote a little step by step you can find here.  I don't profess to be any kind of artist when it comes to painting, so I didn't attempt anything too complicated.  Mostly I just covered the charms in patina then wiped it off.  After that I hit the high points with a little sanding to reveal some of the clay color underneath.  I did get some nice results with that.

All in all, I think the experimentation was pretty successful.  I probably should have taken pictures of some of the not-so-successful pieces, but hey, it's my blog.