Monday Miscellany - Gunmetal and Jasper Three Strand Necklace

Hope you're all planning on Tweeting Your Studio today - information about the contest is on my Thursday blog post of last week. Great prizes for three winners have been contributed from The Beadin' Path and me.

Over the weekend we had another warm spell and I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked. I did, however, start the necklace below.

I believe the stone is leopard skin jasper, a somewhat twisty, large rectangle bead, some long, thin rectangular tube beads, gunmetal bead spacers and Crystal Volcano CRYSTALLIZED™ - Swarovski Elements from Artbeads. The gunmetal mesh tube chain came from Michael's.

It's still kind of calling out for something else. Not sure what yet. I kind of have an idea about creating a connection between the two chains, but not sure how I'll accomplish that.

I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries in tomorrow's contest! Hope you will enter!

Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

Last weekend of September already. Nights are getting longer, it's barely light out when I have to get up to get ready for work. I think I'd love living in a much more southern latitude. Had a great visit on Friday night with some virtual acquaintances - I'd only met one of them before in person. I'd had a pretty awful day up till I sat down for drinks and great conversation. I may blog about that on my other blog one of these days.

Then Saturday was a lazy day, talked to both of my kids and watched shows on TiVo, took a long nap mid-afternoon. Cooked a late lunch for the husband and me, too - if you can call making salmon patties, nuking a tray of store-bought mashed potatoes and opening a can of peas cooking. It was very yummy nonetheless. Sunday will be a jewelry making day, I hope, because I've got a lot of ideas to work through.

Well, enough about me...this is about all my neighbors out there in the Beadosphere - so let's check 'em out!

• Just A Tish has had a banner week - posting every day! Start on Monday with this plea for info on knotting elastic thread, Tuesday about fall color trends, Wednesday and Friday she shows some of her beautiful work, Thursday on bead contests and other places to showcase your work, yesterday she shared her cool design package of beads from The Beadin' Path.


• A Bead a Day's week was also jam packed with great posts - Amber shell beads, Brown ceramic disks, rubber tubing for memory wire work, and see what she did with them in Saturday's post! Of course you want to check out the other days too.


• Welcome Carolyn Weir to the Beadosphere with me - see her posts Skysetter's Handmade Holidays.


• ErtheFae's Cthulhu is nearly done! I've been watching the progress and love the design. For some time now a pair of lovely earrings have graced the upper right corner of her blog - well, she sold them and there's a new piece in their spot - be sure to take a peek. Also worth a good long look is the gorgeous necklace "Elvensoul" she featured on Wednesday.


• At Brenda's blog, The Jewelry Box "a hodgepodge of beaded jewelry" she shows off the design created with her Artbead selection


• Check out the Staffordshire Hoard via The Beading Gem's Journal - fascinating stuff!


• Kelley of Kell's Creations shares pictured of the Renaissance Fair in Santa Fe where she had a lovely booth (visible in her first picture).


• On the other side of the globe and down to Australia - Deez News reports that Davinia visited her favorite bead shop for a beading lesson - lots of bead eye candy on that post!


• Daily Jewel shares the winners of the Paragon Lake Inspired Design contest.


• Silver Parrot shares more luscious beads and some chain and wire, too.


• SmuTopia has some Halloween themed finds to share


• SCDiva - I loved these gorgeous pendants the first few using an innovative technique, and others featuring her various polyclay designs, including image transfer, and then three fall color palette necklaces with beautiful image transfer pendants. I so admire her designs!


• Happy belated birthday wishes to Pink Pooch's Staci!


• Margot Potter shares about Friendly Plastic and if you comment on the post, you're entered in a giveaway drawing.


• WillowWalker's Fall Festival report, lovely Ember earrings and a gorgeous pendant/earring set, The Willows - I also received my beautiful dichrotic glass pendant and earrings this week as well as a beautiful pair of amber glass earrings. She does fabulous work so visit her ArtFire store, too!

Just one little plug for me - I finally broke down and started one of those 'fan pages' on Facebook. I'd love it if you'd become a fan.

• Soft Flex Girl shares Fusion Beads sale


• I think Dave's been too busy on the road with the Rings & Things Bead Tour (next one in my general area is San Mateo in November) to post this week - I look forward to the blog posts to come, though.


• Artbeads blog shared their top rated products, a visit to Boeing to see the new FedEx 777 freighter, lovely lampwork art beads and new free priority shipping for orders over $75.


• Dara's Weekly Beadditudes at The Beadin' Path chats about vintage beads at the Bead Forum.

Hope you're not too worn out from our little hike around the Beadosphere this week - lots of great places to visit. I highly recommend bookmarking or following the blogs mentioned so you never miss a post!

See you tomorrow for Monday Miscellany - I've got a good post planned! And if you're on Twitter, I hope you're going to enter the #TweetYourStudio contest - the contest runs tomorrow only and there are three great prizes being offered!

Special Feature: Twitter Contest with The Beadin' Path and My Contest Finalist Necklace

Contest? Did someone say contest?

On Tuesday I blogged about finally organizing (well, mostly) my workspace with some pictures and shared about it on Twitter, too. To share it on Twitter, in less than 140 characters, you need to convert the URL of the post, which is very long, to something as short as possible. To do that, I go to a site called Cli.gs and create a short link. Cli.gs also tracks the human clicks (discounts all 'bots) on each cli.gs link created.

When I look at the metrics for clicks on that link, I usually see that I get anywhere from 10 to 20 clicks and sometimes 30 or 40 if I'm really lucky. On Tuesday's link - over 200! (If you are back today after first visiting me via Twitter yesterday and Tuesday, thank you for returning) The point, though, is wow, people must like to see other people's studios!

Well, I was tweeting (that's what you call the messages on Twitter, by the way) about it with Heather DeSimone from The Beadin' Path (@beadinpath) and she said:

beadinpath: @AWDawno We should try to start up a #TweetYourStudio day. It could be fun. And inspiring. And scary.

That got some re-tweets and positive comments, so we are going to have a TweetYourStudio day on Monday, September 28th, on Twitter. To enter you have to do two things.

1) Go to one of the Twitter photo sharing sites (I'm familiar with yfrog and twitpic, but there may be others) and upload a photo of your studio. These sites allow you to tweet the picture and a brief caption to Twitter right from the same spot. You register there with your Twitter name and password. Signing up for Twitter is free. There may be other ways to share your pictures that those of you who are more Twitter savvy know how to do, feel free to use them.

2) In order to complete your entry, you *must* put the hashtag #TweetYourStudio in the message you tweet with your picture (or we won't be able to find it). If you don't know what that means, here's a great explanation of hashtags and how to use them.

Update from Heather on prizes! (promoted from comments)

The Beadin' Path & BeadinPath.com will be ponying up 2 $30 gift cards to The Beadin' Path or http://www.BeadinPath.com for winners in the following categories.
*Most Organized
*Most 'Holy-Cow-I-Can't-Believe-You-Get-Anything-Done-in-that-Space' Studio

Submissions are open to any artist working in any media. Just tweet your space.

Judges will be 3 BeadinPath staff'ers (but not me, sorry Tweeter friends, no favoritesies :). And we'll announce the winners on Tuesday morning here on this blog as well as on Twitter!
Submissions must use hashtag #TweetYourStudio or we won't see them.
And also - all entries must be submitted by midnight West Coast time on Monday night (we don't want to miss anyone who submits too late).

Wahoo! This will be fun!
Thanks Dawn for the superb blog!
:) Heather
The Beadin' Path

I am also offering an "honorable mention" prize for best use of a small crafting space. If you're stuck with a corner, a closet or have to do your crafts on the sofa, tweet a picture of the space in use (if you're camera shy, just show the stuff you craft with at the place you craft - you don't have to be in the picture) and use the same hashtag but mention "small space" or "sm.sp." to keep it short. I'll send the winner a special prize, something that won't take up too much space either: a Bead Buddy Dual Lap Desk.

So you have the weekend to tidy up (or not if you want to win Holy-Cow-I-Can't-Believe-You-Get-Anything-Done-in-that-Space) but post your picture and use the hashtag on Monday to enter.

Speaking of contests...

Some time ago I got the news that I was one of the ten finalists in the Step by Step Beads magazine Colorworks contest held in the Spring. The contest finalists' pieces (including mine!) will be featured in the November/December '09 issue of Step by Step Beads with comments by Margie Deeb.

I have wanted to post a picture of the necklace ever since I heard, but I'd removed one of the copper chains to use for another necklace that I sold at BayCon, because I'd run out of that chain and didn't have time to order more. I'd put the necklace aside to wait for the replacement chain. Now that I've worked my way through the organizing (mostly) of my workroom to the point where I uncovered the necklace, I could replace the missing chain and take a picture for you:

The rules for the contest were to use the green, orange and purple triad of the color wheel. I'd already started what is the top beaded strand in the first picture, with those colors, so I used that design as my starting point for the final piece.

It went through several iterations before I finished it. I wasn't sure about it having five layers, but I just wasn't happy with it and kept on adding layers, until I had five.

So, there's the necklace and its story. Hope it was worth the wait...

My apologies for not being ready to review the Wubbers yet, nor having an interview ready - I need to carve out time to do some research and email good questions to the potential interviewee - hope to do so this weekend.

See you tomorrow for my Friday Pick!

PS - Picture credit: The picture at the top of the page is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923. This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division under the digital ID cph.3b06083

Going to be Working Hard This Weekend!

I mentioned the other day that I gave myself a challenge to list one new thing each day on Art Fire. This week I've put up four new pairs of earrings. I haven't made any new ones lately, so I'll need to get busy with that soon, but first I have to get my workroom in order (again).

It's a complete disaster waiting to happen area. My goal for the weekend is to have it so wonderful by Sunday that I can take pictures and proudly post them as my Monday Miscellany post. Since I'm announcing it here, I'll have to do it because you all will be my motivation!

Because I'm working on that, I don't have anything of my own to share, but I can point you to some other great pieces being worked on by a couple of my Twitter friends and from some blogs I follow.

Wendy at Craft Dinner has a darling necklace in progress using Vintage Lucite Moonglow Heishi rondells from The Beadin' Path.

Tish at Just A Tish shows off a heap of shiny earrings.

And here are some really cute and clever soda bottle beads from Jan at Wire My Soul that she's made stitch markers with.

Don't forget that tomorrow is Wandering Around the Beadosphere Day - I'll have a lot more great links to creative blogs for you to check out.

P.S. Today's new listing at Art Fire:

Dawno

Buy Handmade

Monday Miscellany - Re-work Finished, Maybe...

If you read my Saturday post, you might remember I mentioned I was going to do some re-work on this necklace:

Before

Unlike the gunmetal and garnet, I didn't take intermediate pictures, although now I wish I had. The design went through several trial and error phases before I settled on something. Here's what it looks like now.

After

I took over half of the lilac cathedral beads off of the necklace, replaced them with round faceted Czech glass beads, added extra vermeil spacers and glass roundell spacers between them to go around the side and back of the neck. Then I positioned and re-positioned those lilac cathedral beads into various configurations using gold filled eye-pin links and a few clear glass beaded links as well.

This was very tedious work, but I think worth the effort. I've put it out of sight for now and will give it a fresh eye in a day or two before I declare it 'done'. Now I have to go de-list from Artfire since the original no longer exists!

Speaking of ArtFire - I posted on Saturday that I'd listed my lava stone and red ceramic necklace and put the word out on Twitter as well. Then I got busy doing stuff (mostly the necklace above) and didn't visit Twitter or check my email for several hours. I took a peek at Twitter and saw that PandorasBones had left me a tweet saying she'd bought the necklace and forgot to ask for the extender chain option. Call me gobsmacked! I'd never sold something so quickly and that I could attribute directly to mentioning a post on Twitter about! Needless to say, I'm pretty glad I use Twitter.

Another Contest!

Each month for the past couple of months, Rings & Things has had a contest on their blog. Yesterday the April winners went up:

Congratulations to the winners of our April contest, “DIY Display Ideas“, who are:

• Mary Berg, who had several great tips (check them out!).
• Lyn, who shared from her 35 years of experience.

And, announcing the May contest on the Rings & Things blog, which is a free-for-all comment raffle:

• You enter by leaving comments — so visit often.
• You find out you won by…? Visiting often! (2 winners to be announced at the end of May.)

May the luckiest person win!

I don't win many contests, raffles, lottos, etc. Although, I've had some runs of very good luck with the Wheel of Fortune slots at the Las Vegas Hilton...anyway, I encourage you to visit the Rings & Things blog and comment often in May. You'll reduce my chances of winning, but it's worth it to get you over there to join the conversation.

Been busy getting new listings up on Etsy and Art Fire. Etsy is where I just list lanyards and the occasional matching piece, Art Fire is for my other jewelry. I've experienced a few minor frustrations with Art Fire - can't delete pictures, things I saved in the new product edits aren't there when I go back to change something, so I have to add them all over again. New site, glitches expected, just hope things improve. The niftiest new feature on Art Fire right now is the button to "tweet this item". If you see something of mine you like, I'd love it if you'd tweet it! Happy to return the favor, too.

Speaking of Art Fire, here's a message from our sponsor:

Dawno

Buy Handmade

Hey, Another Contest with A Giveaway Attached...So It's Two Chances to Win!

Read about this giveaway to promote a contest first on Twitter: "@tammypowley New @ Jewelry Making Soft Flex Contest: Soft Flex has an interesting new contest running for.. http://tinyurl.com/cn5yqx" So I went over to Soft Flex Girl's blog and snerched the following from her post "Big Giveaway for Blogger Buddies"

Btw, if you aren't following me on Twitter and would like to, I'm @AWDawno - I don't post a lot, sometimes it's just chat with other folks I know from before Twitter, sometimes it might actually be interesting. One thing I don't do a lot of is push my wares - it kind of bugs me when that's all I ever see in other tweets.

Sure, you should promote your Etsy or ArtFire store, but every tweet is "see my beautiful new listing!" or "buy this!" - all the time? I have to admit it annoys me somewhat. Let's socialize and have some fun, too! Great examples of how to do just that are @beadinpath, @Rings_Things, @BeadGuy, @JustATish and @ABeadADay - to only mention a few. @Rings_Things posts links to articles, re-tweets other Twitterer's news and has made personal connections. That's what I look for in social media - being, you know, social.

Anyway, more about the contest and less my pet peeves. I've only ever bought a few rolls of Soft Flex, but because of the great color assortment they offer, and my new fascination with leaving long swaths of my stringing wire exposed, it's on its way to becoming staple for stringing. The black Soft Flex was featured in my bracelet a few days ago and the bronze Soft Flex in the necklace the following day. I want to get some bright colors next - red, green, yellow, turquoise.

OK, so, per the blog giveaway info, I'm posting about it here, adding a button on my sidebar and may post about it again for extra bonus entry goodness.

Just to tie up the loose ends - the blog giveaway is promoting a Soft Flex contest - two different things. You can enter the giveaway without entering the Soft Flex contest and vice versa (but why not enter both?) Deadline for blog giveaway is July 1, 2009 - enter by commenting at the post. Click here for Soft Flex contest details (link also found below). Everything below this is straight from SoftFlexGirl's blog - I take no credit for the content or art below.

Big Giveaway for Blogger Buddies!

Giveaway prize includes:
3 FREE Trios of your choice!
That's right ANY 3 Trios. You choose the colors!

Here's what you gotta do:

Help us get the word out about our new contest.

To enter to win, please blog about our new "Flex your Creativity" Beading Contest.

Save/Post details:

FIND OUT MORE HERE!
(link to: http://www.softflexcompany.com/BeadingContest.html)

Feel free to expand and say more if you like. The only big rule is that it must link to the details page on our website for your fellow designers to find out more.

In addition, if you use the fancy artwork that Kristen created in your sidebar, I will enter you again. 2 entries!

Grab the html code for the button artwork and display it on your blog at the bottom of the contest page. Then, leave me a comment with a link to your blog! I will enter you to win 3 FREE Trios in your choice of color combination! If you blog about it more than once, let me know. I'll enter you as many times as you mention and link to the details page.

All entries (comments) for this giveaway must be posted by July 1st, 2009.

If You Live in Maine, You Can Visit in Person! (I'm Jealous)

The wonderful Heather from The Beadin' Path (@beadinpath on Twitter) ran a little contest on Twitter a bit ago, and I won a gift certificate! (I hardly ever, ever win anything and I was so excited).

I ordered some beautiful beads (Keith O'Connor Ceramic shells, and carved & stamped raku seascape mix beads) and some tiny round gunmetal beads (not shown)

as well as joined their monthly subscription to the Monthly Bead Club and got these beauties for this month:

And a darling pair of gift beads that I bet Tish or Lisa would have very clever ideas on how to use - me, I'm just thinking earrings...

My order came yesterday but I've been a bit distracted by RL stuff, and didn't post. But I really wanted to share more than just the beads - I wanted to also tell you a little story about making my order with The Beadin' Path.

During the ordering process I ran into some trouble - turned out to be user error, not their site, but before I figured that out, I clicked their live chat help. It was fabulous! I got a help person right away who was very helpful and once I figured out the problem was my own "doh" moment, stayed a bit to chat with me, because it turned out to be the wonderful Heather, who recognized me from Twitter, on the chat.

I am a customer for life. Anyone who is using the web tools as cleverly and helpfully and just plain happily as The Beadin' Path does deserves tons of kudos. Plus they have really great beads and beading stuff. I don't wish I lived in Maine, I'm not a winter person - lived in California all my life and the first half of it in Southern California and that mainly in the desert. I am not fond of snow or long stretches of cold. But I would love to be able to visit Freeport, Maine and visit The Beadin' Path. I'm going to have to figure out how to work that into some future vacation plans.

Ok, so what have I accomplished in the past few days I've been neglecting my blog? Bits and pieces of stuff - added some length to the lava rock bead and shell necklace I posted about the other day, plus a little Romeo and Juliet type ring I hand wrapped with 20 gauge gunmetal colored Artistic Wire I found at Global Beads:

I'm going to make more of those rings in different colors of wire with pairs of Czech druk beads, and put them out at my Bay Con table this year - I think they'll be popular - as well as offer to make more 'on the spot' for anyone who wants customized ones. The rules of Artist's Alley are that I have to be working on my art and interacting with people, not focusing mainly on selling. That worked out just fine for me last year and I think I had a successful weekend.

I also finished everything but the clasp on this necklace...

...with some beads from my trip to Michael's with my daughter over the weekend, before she headed back south. For the clasp, I'd love for you to suggest some links, if you know of anything different - especially if it's unique and hand crafted - out there that you've seen.

I Finally Made Something Else for the Gluable Challenge - Rectangular Frame

Finally, a sunny day! Got out the MagicGlos and one of my Rings & Things Gluable Challenge frames.

I used the Rectangular frame (Stock#: 49-440-0 Approx. 52x13mm rectangle brass picture-frame charms, 3.5-3.8 inner diameter loop. 1.3-1.7mm thick. Fits 48x9mm image. Back is textured.)

I cut out a piece of the label from my favorite drink, Arizona Diet Green Tea, and glued it to the frame with Mod Podge, smoothed to remove air bubbles underneath. Then I took some 26 gauge brass wire, bent it around the picture, hammered it lightly and set on top of the picture. The reason for the wire is that I plan to use cloisonne beads in the necklace, so now the picture has a cloisonne-like look, too.

Coated it with a thin layer of MagicGlos, took it outside. Learned how quickly Magic Glos sets in sunlight, had to sand with a fine grit sandpaper under water to remove the lump I created, put another coat of MagicGlos on. Needs work, but it's a start. (click to enlarge for detail)

Thanks to Carmi's Art/Life World blog for her post about using MagicGlos - gave me the nudge I needed.

One of the Twitter-folk I follow, mySA_beading, mentioned a contest - Step by Step Beads Colorworks Challenge.

Enter the first Colorworks Challenge!

Tertiary Colors

The orange-purple-green tertiary triad presents a challenge of bold and striking contrasts. Create a piece of bead jewelry (or a bead in any medium: polymer, beads, glass, etc.) using the triad from the color wheel. Black, white, or clear are welcome, but the predominant colors must be the orange-purple-green triad (any shades of those colors).

As it happens, I'd begun work some time ago on a strung piece using those colors and copper. I won't show the whole piece, just in case I decide to enter, but here's a bit of it:

The workspace is a wreck, so I'm going to listen to City Arts and Lectures with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen as I tidy up.

TGIF!

Tish from Just A Tish gave me a nudge today in a comment to the post below (Thanks, Tish!) - I have been caught up in "real life" stuff this week and haven't paused to post since Tuesday. So to recap the week, bead-wise...

I got some wonderful sunflower beads with a sky above them inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night, the other day, from Patti Stoll (I got an oval for a focal - she's still got round ones listed). Her work is really exquisite, I promise to post a picture of the finished work.

I *think* I heard about her through a tweet from Dave at Rings & Things - if you're on Twitter and haven't added him to your follow list, do! He has great tweets - not just "buy our stuff" but conversations with other Twitter-ers, links to great crafters and websites, and just plain good or fun information. If you check his follow list, you can follow other bead-y Tweeters he's found (like I did). I'm *days* behind on Twitter, too, so if you sent me a tweet, I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you yet.

Speaking of Rings & Things, I also put in an order for a book Dave recommended on their blog, and some "liquid silver" sterling silver tubes and beads for a necklace idea with coin pearls that I want to work on.

I hope to be back to my usual regular (almost daily) posting schedule now. Thanks for hanging around.

Spreader of Love

Dave Over at the Rings & Things blog, honored me by passing along the “Spreader of Love” award he & the Rings & Things blog received from Swati at the The Purple Flower blog.

As this is my first blog award for this blog (I also have kept another general purpose blog for years) I'm honored and thrilled to pass along the award. As Dave mentioned in his post, some of these folk have Twitter accounts and I discovered them via Twitter.

A condition of the award is that you go on to recognize 5 more people, who brighten your own blog, so here are my choices

• Because of her supportive and informative comments: Tish from Just A Tish Designs
• Because I just love the name "SmuTopia" and her breezy writing style: Jessica from SmuTopia
• Another supportive person, with a fun sense of humor: Bev from Bev's Jewelry
• For her joy and enthusiasm on every post: Lisa at A Bead A Day
• Because it's a joy to see her beautiful work, beautifully photographed Thyme2Dream

I tried to follow links back to see where the award originated, but at about 8 links back I couldn't find a link to the previous award after going back through a few months of posts, and I have to get back to some display prep (really almost there - and quite relieved!). So I Googled "The Love Blog" and found the originator's request (you have to scroll down about half a page). This award is over a year old now, so it's been all over the web!

The Love Blog, by Vancouver Blogger Barbara Doduk, says about this award:

THE SPREADER OF LOVE AWARD
from
The Love Blog

I great way to spread love and happiness around the blog world and just maybe get a little link love in return.

So here is my Badge for my Award:
All I ask in return for presenting this award to anyone blogging out there, is that you include the following information in the blog post along with the image below:



This blog has been awarded The Spreader of Love Award created by The Love Blog (http://iamlove.blogspot.com), for an outstanding demonstration of blogging love.

Nominate as many or as few as you feel you need to !

And she provides some html code, too. Along the way, some 'rules' got appended - link to the blog that awarded it to you, nominate 5 blogs, link to them, and leave your nominees a message about the award. I'm happy to pass those along as well.

Now it's back to work - the toughest thing for me is deciding how to price my work. I haven't come up with a formula yet, but it's more than just cost of materials + labor + a markup = price, unless "labor" includes all the time spent shopping for the materials, deciding which to buy, & the time it takes to get through the whole designing process - and then, what's the value of inspiration, artistic touches, uniqueness? Ah well - I guess I'll give it my best shot and see what happens this weekend!

Countdown - 2 days left!

OK, no pictures or long post tonight - I'm on my way into the dining room to work on finishing touches and organization for the convention this weekend.

If you see me on Twitter, tell me to get back to work!

"It was here that I decided to quit before I went embellishment mad"

Before I dive into this, thank you again to Margot Potter for the link to my "Mondrian" inspired choker, in her latest blog post, and to a whole bunch of new crafting/beading/jewelry artists I am following on Twitter and who so kindly have followed me back!

Speaking of Twitter, I tweeted this last night "I'm always wondering, while making vintage-style pieces, when I should stop adding stuff. It's like Granny Ogg and how to spell bananananana".

I really like baroque and complex work, but I also like symmetry, simple lines...it's like having some kind of multiple design personality complex. So when I use intricately textured or ornamental components, it's challenging for me not to just keep adding and adding more chains and dangles and detail, or alternatively, not to add any.

I think last night's work (which was the finishing touch on the pendant I'd started working on weeks ago and put aside unfinished to think about) turned out as a balance between my impulses.

I'll start with the pendant - I received a set of different colored cabochons (all called 'jade' but I think they're another stone that's been dyed, so I'm calling this one 'faux yellow jade') and thought I'd try using some of the brass stampings to wrap them into pendants. I chose a rather large stamping called Maltese Cross (Item S40, Accessories Susan) for the base, and another one called Filigree to Wrap Stones (Item S38, Accessories Susan).

I wrapped the filigree around the stone with the Maltese cross in-between to hold all three pieces together. Then I bent three arms of the cross up and then curled back over to get the setting seen above.

The next thing I did was start experimenting with the chain. At first, right above the pendant, I used some Japanese glass beads with pale yellow rose decals on them, and then put the filigree beads you see above, on the chain as well. I wasn't happy with the rose beads, so they went, but I liked the filigree beads. By the way, there are three tiny yellow faceted Czech glass rounds inside each of those filigree beads to give them a secret inner glint.

I still found the chain a bit dull, so I added the pale yellow faceted Czech glass bicones. Then I looked at it again and wanted to embellish the pendant just a teensy bit more and added the chain loop and then the two chain dangles with the same pale yellow bicones at the ends.

It was here that I decided to quit before I went embellishment mad.

My shipment of silver ox filigrees came the other day, so the next vintage style pieces I do will probably use those. As I mentioned in a previous post, I think the silver will be a better color for Spring and Summer, the brass just seems to say Fall and Winter to me.

Many hours have passed since I wrote that last paragraph...

I think I'll have one more choker frame idea to share soon - been working on another experimental piece, trying something new again, and the way it's deciding to design itself (yes, this piece is growing rather organically since I didn't know where I was going with it, I just started playing and off it went) is looking like it belongs on a choker form. I've been absolutely obsessed with this since about 9 PM and it's now after 2 AM. I think it's nearly done...

I'll leave it a mystery for now and you'll just have to come back and see what it is sometime this weekend.

Earrings and a new Embellished Retractable Lanyard Badge Holder

Didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to today - but I did make these new earrings - The one unfinished pair (far left first set of pictures) I'm still debating on how I want to finish them. the pair on the far right has rutilated quartz nuggets, amber chips and tiny amber beads dangling from filigree circles and may be my favorite pair of the day. All earrings are on leverback, shell embellished brass ox earring findings from Accessories Susan, which also provided the filigree, chain, headpins, etc. for all of them. The only thing not from there are the beads and stones.

For this set, below, on the earrings at the far left, I'm considering adding something to the bar that holds the dangling smoky quartz bead behind the filigree.

And this is another filigree embellished badge holder - I thought I'd show the side detail, too, as I've put a bit of stamping on the sides as well as the front. The filigree stamping on the front is one of my favorite patterns, by the way. The side view also shows the button on the back used to release the ribbon lanyard from the inside reel to retract and extend it.

I've only got a few of these badge holders left and I'm thinking of holding back a few for later experiments. Whether they become a permanent part of my inventory will depend on the comments I get from folk I meet at the convention or here on my blog. I did get one positive comment on the steampunk style one, over on my Flickr page (Thanks, justalby!) The particular shot of the new prototypes has had 11 views in just one day...I think because I tweeted about it on Twitter.

Update from Florida

Well, I've been too busy all week to actually miss beading, until right now. I've finished my conferences and spent the day today wandering "around the world" at Epcot. I put some comments about my day and linked to some pictures about it on Twitter (I'm AWDawno there). I've been staying at the Disney Grand Floridian, which is a gorgeous hotel. If I could stay a few more day's I'd love to do the Wild Animal Park and then check out the city of Orlando, but I only had today, so I picked Epcot as I'd heard there was a Wine and Food festival going on. There were great booths all around the World Showcase with wines and foods from all over.

In one of the stores in the China section there was a container of (mostly) cloisonné beads and I scooped up quite a few of them. Not having any other materials to work with here on my trip means I'll have to wait until I get home to figure out how I want to use them.

In the Italy section, I visited a store with a lot of Murano glass jewelry but didn't see anything I liked all that much and, of course, the retail price made buying something already made and then de-constructing it for my own use rather silly.

I have a long day ahead, going to get to bed soon and take advantage of that extra hour! Even though this will show a post time of 7:00-ish, I'm three hours ahead and tired from walking around Epcot for about seven hours today.

Getting Ready for My Trip

I've done a lot of washing, and between loads completed a couple new lanyards and put the hardware on some others that I'd put aside complete but for their clasps, etc. Got in a short trip to Global Beads this morning, and picked up some new turquoise because I had some ideas and not enough turquoise to make what I was thinking of.

Here's one of the pieces I've made with one of the new turquoise strands, and some tiger's eye beads I've had for ages, it seems. I love how these colors look together - it has a vintage feel to it - and maybe an ancient middle eastern flavor? Not sure why I think "Persia" when I look at it. Used up all of my purchase of that size/color of turquoise with it and *whew* it came in at 28" which is the shortest I find comfortable for a lanyard necklace.

I've 'post dated' as couple posts for next week so the blog won't be 'dark' while I'm gone - so don't stay away! Since I figure I can do one or two more pre-posts tomorrow which will take me through Friday, I'm going to leave this one up for tonight. I've also posted most of my lanyard pictures on my Flickr photostream and decided to send out a Tweet on Twitter to draw attention to it. Might make a habit of doing that, say, once a week or so. Bad idea or not?

OOOOH Goodie! New Beads!

I love finding packages in my mailbox or opening the door to the smiling delivery person (I'd specify, but I get UPS, FedEX and DHL depending on the supplier I order from and how fast I want my shipment).

Yesterday what I found was a package from a new place I thought I'd try, beadsonsale.com, which popped up in my gmail header as a 'sponsored link' and I succumbed to the temptation to click it and just peek, mind you, I had no intention of buying anything, really...

I ended up with the beads in the picture below, plus some lovely smooth, round 6mm amber and very nice Lapis (the color is deep blue, and the majority of the beads have a good amount of 'gold' pyrite flecks) 8mm round beads.

The beads below are (starting at the top) 24mm Hemimorphite disks, one was badly chipped and the others may or may not have gotten a bit banged around, I'm not sure how hemimorphite should look, this is my first purchase. But, beadsonsale didn't pack the stones as well as my other suppliers do - and the bits of stone in the bag was the evidence the worst of the chipping happened in transit.

Next is a strand of 12x17mm rectangular blue Amazonite, then 9x10mm Brazilian "flashy blue" Kyanite, which I really like and am looking forward to working with. Then my favorites, lots and lots of simply gorgeous vertical faceted smokey quartz 10 x 15 mm barrel beads - the color and clarity of those beads are stunning and fortunately they weren't chipped or scratched. My fuzzy picture doesn't do them justice, but when I make something from them, I'll make sure I get a really good quality photo.

Only new thing I've made recently was a royal blue and gold eyeglass leash - thirty tiny blue seedbeads, then a tiny seed bead sized, gold plated metal bead, before thirty more seedbeads and so on until I reached 30". The reason I did that particular eyeglass leash was that I spilled the blue seedbeads and as I was cleaning them out of the carpet one of those tiny gold beads ended up in the mix. Right then I decided on the pattern I wanted and started stringing the beads.

Before I go, I'd like to recommend my Absolute Write colleague, Jenn Nipps' site Creative Tips, the forum, the blog and on Twitter.

I simply love getting her inspirational tweets on Twitter - they never fail to make me smile and they're all ready encouraging me to try and stretch my self a bit.

If you're on Twitter, you should definitely follow creativetips there. If you're not, well, go join so you can get these wonderful little encouragements on your cell phone or via the web (and you might think about following me too, just for the heck of it).