Back in the SF Bay Area!

Although I moved to Pasadena last September, I've been up north since then when I went to FOGCon in March. This time I'm in Santa Clara for BayCon. As I think I mentioned, this is my 5th BayCon and I'm really glad everything worked out so I could be here.

I don't have any pictures to share today, but I wish I had one of my packed car (I could go take one, but the condition of the old Mustang is not something I'm particularly proud of). I manage to get everything in the trunk and back seat - including my trolly (Rubbermaid with a collapsible handle), except for my purse and little insulated tote to carry my Arizona Diet Green Tea. I can even see out the back window...a bit...there's a sliver - honest!

Lots of CHP on the Interstate today. They're getting ready for the big weekend, I'm sure. It's so annoying that people actually going pretty close to the speed limit slow down 5 to 10mph (so now they're way under the limit) as soon as they see the flashers ahead. Yeah, there might be an accident, but on I-5 you can see for miles ahead and none of the 4 times we passed CHP at the side of the road were they attending to accidents that I could tell. I did make it here in pretty good time and I hope that Tuesday won't be too busy heading south.

Well, I need my beauty rest - have to go set up at 8:00 am. Oh, although you're reading this on Friday, I'm writing it Thursday night and scheduling it to post. The wonders of technology!

Last Creative Night before Bay Con

Tomorrow I head to Santa Clara for Bay Con. That means that for the rest of today I will be packing and loading up the car. Last night was my last night of creating new pieces to take with me. I'll bring along supplies and beads so I can work at my table or in my room, but there's only so much I can take with me, so some stuff just either gets made before I leave or waits for next time.

This set I finished over the weekend and finally had a bit of time to photograph it yesterday. I love the way the small matte beads, from Global Beads in downtown Mountain View, are set off by the copper. This is two separate necklaces and a matching 30" lanyard/necklace (shown with the lanyard hardware in the back).

Posting may be infrequent during my trip - but I'll try to do some live blogging with pictures while I'm there. Hope you have a very pleasant Memorial Day weekend!

Turquoise with a Decorative Clasp

Hi again! Today I finished a new piece featuring turquoise and ceramic with ornate brass spacers. As I was trying to decide what clasp to use it occurred to me to try something different. I grabbed a large brass filigree piece and stacked a circular piece and a patinaed butterfly filigree to it. Then I added some Swarovski crystals. The lobster claw closes on the loop end of the filigree.

I will try to get a good picture of that purple set I spoke about yesterday and share it soon. Meanwhile, I leave on Thursday morning, so I have about a day and a half left to make some new pieces then it's time to pack everything into bins and duffles, load up the car and head north.

A Study in Contrasts

Only a few more days until I have to stop making things and start packing them up for the trip north to BayCon. Of course before the packing I have to create descriptions and do pricing then make price tags for each new piece. It's a tedious, but necessary step.

The necklace below features more Beadin' Path and light amethyst beads with copper bead caps for accents. I really love this one - it seems kind of 'ancient' - Babylonian, Egyptian, Minoan? I'm not really good at identifying things like that. Anyway, as I mentioned yesterday I love working with colors that have a striking contrast; this necklace is a prime example.

I finished the necklace, pictured above, today, along with a set of necklaces and a matching lanyard which I'll photograph and post tomorrow, I think. With that set I was working entirely in purples.


I'm trying to get back in the habit of posting as close to daily as possible, and eventually doing some of the little feature posts I used to do.  I'm really looking forward to setting up my new studio at my new home where I'll have more room to work and photograph my work - wish we didn't have to wait until the middle of June to move!

Used 'Em All Up, Now on to a Different Color...

Everyone has a different style of organization. I tend to sort by beads by color then type so blue glass is one box, blue stone is another. I also do the same with metals, gold bead caps in one box, silver in another. The other day I got an idea for a necklace with some aqua-tinted glass beads that had an unusual, bold geometric shape and grabbed the box of aquamarine and similar stones plus the aqua glass bead box. I didn't stop with the necklace...I made three plus a lanyard.

The 'workhorse' beads for these are either from a strand of really nice aquamarine roundells I've had for quite some time (in the top and middle necklaces), and the last of some strands of a rounded, organic triangular glass bead that's got a bit of shading that reminds me of the blue/green-ish glass from old Coke bottles. That's the bead in the lanyard (the long necklace is also a badge lanyard) and the middle shorter necklace, below.

I should have fiddled more with the staging of the picture to straighten out the glass dangles...

I like to work with bright colors that aren't necessarily close to each other on the color wheel - like purple and orange or purple and green (or all three) or bright accents with muted neutrals like grey, brown or black. Sometimes, though I just use up all the beads I have in the same color family, like above.

If you want to see this set in person, come to BayCon next weekend!

Getting Ready for BayCon 2012

Well, it's less than a week away now and I'm so excited to be going back to BayCon for the 5th time. I look forward to visiting with the other vendors and seeing repeat (as well as new!) customers. If you are in the San Francisco Bay area over Memorial Weekend (including Memorial Day) drop by - we're in the Santa Clara Convention Center/Hyatt and it's a lot of fun.

Here are a couple new pieces to give you a little sample of what to expect:

From Left: Faux Ivory Rose and Petal beads with Swarovski
Copper and Silver circles
Vintage Faux Carved Coral,  Coral Glass, Swarovski and TierraCast Gold Plated Lead Free Pewter 

I particularly love the Faux Ivory petal beads from The Beadin' Path, they were part of a recent bead of the month shipment and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them the minute I opened my package.

Well, it's back to work - have another fun piece featuring Beadin' Path beads, copper and amethyst to finish up!