Dawno's Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

I'll start off with some of my favorite bead/jewelry/crafts blog posts of the week and wrap up with other sites of interest (I hope!) for you to visit and hope you'll consider adding to your RSS readers or bookmarks.

• JustATish had been rather busy, so her blog was quiet for a while, but she's come blazin' back this week - Father's Day ideas, Rings & Things challenge catch-up - silverplated serpentine chain, gold plated serpentine chain, Russ Troll (that guy gets around!) and this month's challenge where we each get to pick our own assortment to review (haven't even started looking yet, gotta get to it!)
• Lisa at A Bead A Day shared a lovely green stone she identified as Russian Jade, a "harmonious diversity" of glass hearts, some blue beads she's taking out of older pieces and re-purposing, a bead that looks just like her darling pooches, and you won't believe this gorgeous bracelet was made in 3 minutes! (the story behind it is a blast to read).
• Margot Potter shared her "Blogging for Artbeads" featured product Chagall Pendant and the design she created for it. She chose one of the Russian painted onyx pendant focals, like I did, but the necklace she designed - wow! I'll be making my final design for the focal I got one of these days, and I must say Margot's idea has given me some inspiration.
• I couldn't help but salivate over Humblebead's Bead & Button Show booty
• WillowWalker's experimentation with gold decals that she fuses into her glass pendants looks like a success to me! (I'm glad she's blogging again too - was quiet for a month!)
  
• Check out the colors in this Nikon Sniper picture! If I'm ever at a loss for ideas, his blog always has a lot of inspiration.
• Shoozles makes a really good point. Let her know you appreciate it, if you do.
• Melanie at Earthenwood Studios is going copper crazy with her Rings & Things challenge (and that Russ Troll is right in the middle of it - hope he avoids getting dapped!)
• More photographic inspiration (from England) on NiftyKnits - and earlier in the week she featured some beautiful work from a couple of very talented designers, too.
  

There is one other post from last week at A Bead A Day that I didn't mention above - it's her Friday Featured Designer post. The designer, Molly, has a lovely banner and does a great job with her Etsy store and photographs of her lovely vintage button (and other media) creations.

Then I visited Whimsy House's blog. I wish three things:

1. she'd post more - I like her friendly 'voice' and she's got a fascinating niche
   
2. she'd change from white text on black background, which is very hard to read, at least for me
   
3. she'd not center all her text which is also difficult to read.

Maybe nobody has mentioned it to her so she didn't know? How often do we visit blogs that might have promise but not go back and establish a rapport for any of the above reasons or others? I'm guilty as charged, but working on it.

That brings me to wish #4 but it's for myself - I wish that if you ever have constructive criticism to give me, that you will. I want my blog to be a place you'll keep visiting. If I'm doing something that might prevent that, let me know!

Apparently there's quite an overlap in the tech world and the crafts world - I guess I knew that some techie folk liked papercrafts (my husband helped me realize how many techies are into Origami), and I knew there were a number into Steampunk, but I really didn't know the extent of it.

Take Maker Faire, for example. Since it was the weekend right after Bay Con, I didn't go, but you can see from the Maker links at the 2009 website, where the two interests intersect.

Speaking of Makers at this year's faire, one of the crafters linked above (link: "two") was Absolutely Small who is a new friend of mine on Twitter. Get over to her site and get in the know about Chickenpants!

Another intersection of tech and geek and craft (and so much more) is BoingBoing, where many arts and handcrafts are often featured, like the Trekkie Meerkats or Steampunk jewelry.

Also, this week Wired magazine featured an article about Geek Art: Needlework Brings Together Programmers, Crafters and shows some beautiful embroidery and quilting with a techie slant.

Via a tweet from Dave (@Rings_Things), I wandered over to Flapper Girl, where she showcases this wonderful Vintage 50s Bead Kit.

Artbeads "Tweet your Prize" Twitter promotion is going strong - there's a new contest through Tuesday synched up with their Express Yourself sale.

The Beadin' Path has finally opened for business in their new space - here are a couple "work in progress" pictures Heather posted - from the floor and the next day - wow, the colors! I wish it were possible for me to visit in person (and probably break the bank on vintage beads).

SoftFlexGirl Sara posted about Beading Wire Diameters - extremely helpful! Thanks, Sara!

I got a Lima Beads newsletter the other day informing me of the creation of a new community section: The Garden

This week, we launched an exciting section on our web site. It's called The Garden, and it's a community section dedicated to meeting new beaders, sharing ideas, asking questions, and more.
...

Get started by seeing who's online, creating a profile for yourself, checking out groups to join, or browsing the beader directory.

Ok, I think that's plenty to keep busy with for today - see you tomorrow, I hope - I'll be showing a re-make I've been working on this weekend, if you visit.

A Slow Starting and Lazy Saturday

Started off waking up a bit late, was a cloudy morning, I'm exhausted from last week, and the DH planned a movie (Ghost Town - lovely movie, funny and romantic) and pizza lunch, so it's 2:30 now and probably won't get much done creatively today.

I do have my Patti Stoll Starry Night Sunflower beads sitting out, the ones with the bright yellow sunflowers and swirly sky of blue and white above them. I cannot for the life of me decide what to do. I want to use the two small beads as earrings and the larger one as a pendant. Other than that I'm stumped.

Maybe Russ Troll will inspire me? Yes, my Russ Troll bead showed up the other day. Here he is examining my photo studio and being examined by the cats. Lying down and "playing possum" was probably the right thing to do with my fierce felines.

(Pudding at left, Jello at right)

I am got a bit of photography done today and listed this necklace that includes brown lava stone beads from Rings & Things that I've named Hale-a-ka-la is Dreaming. I've had this out at both shows this year, gotten lots of compliments, but no sale yet. Not sure why, but I'm going to put it out on the web, maybe it'll find a home.

Update, Saturday Night: Wow! The power of Twitter - this piece is now sold!

I'm also going to re-work this one, showed it at BayCon and got some positive reaction, but there's something about it that's just not doing it for me yet:

Do come back tomorrow for the weekly round up: Dawno's Wanderings Around the Beadosphere!

Update! Update! Update!
Russ Nobbs shares the Russ Troll Story!
(promoted from comments)

Russ Nobbs said...

Wonderful pictures of your cats with my ceramic likeness. Literally made me laugh out loud!
Those "russ troll" beads are one of the best and funniest things we've ever done. They've created laughter amongst beaders all around the globe.


Exactly why the the design came about is shrouded in mystery. *we can't remember* Some years ago, Michelle, who now heads our problem resolution and quality control sections, asked her dad to do a caricature of me. No one remembers exactly what for. Just for fun? to use in the catalog? To throw darts at? Whatever..... He did a cute one. I do remember using it in a catalog as a coloring contest. I still have some of the better entries. An airbrush artist even sent in a T shirt with the design airbrushed on it. It happened to arrive while I was in the hospital trying to survive an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs. The wonderful shirt went a long way towards restoring my health and sanity.

I think the hands are behind my back just because it's hard to sketch hands if they aren't doing anything. Maybe I should be fondling some beads?

A few years ago, Kim and a couple of the buyers got together with another strange bead icon, the guy who has the ceramic beads made down in Peru. They thought up what was supposed to be a surprise for me - a hand painted ceramic version of the Russ "troll."

As it happened, when the picture of the prototype bead came in most of the people who were in on the plot were out of town. So they asked me to "approve" the sample for production. After I stopped laughing, I said "Yeh! Sure! Why not?" It took a few months and now we finally have them "in stock" available for sale to anyone. Even our competitors are allowed to buy them for their dart boards or to hang from their cell phones.

There's talk of making a few more styles.... one with the worn out denim cap I like, one with my glasses propped tackily on top of my head, one with our logo on the shirt, one with a huge strand of chevrons, that sort of thing. Then we'll put it out there that it's cool to collect the whole set.

I hope this one inspires you!!!!