Monday Miscellany - Vintage Glass and a Lovely Chunk of Amber

I've been playing with the amber colored vintage Czech glass that The Beadin' Path sent me as a design partner, below, between the yellow and red.

Like the yellow glass, I spent a lot of time trying various combinations until I saw something that I thought would work. Then I went to my stash of amber colored glass beads looking for complementary beads to fill out the design. I'm not 100% sure of the leaves - what do you think?

The beehive shaped beads and the saucer shaped beads are from the Beadin Path, the amber nugget and larger bead caps are from my local bead store, Global Beads. There are also tiny bead caps from Artbeads in there. The other glass beads were from Blue Moon assortments bought at Michael's.

some additional shots you can click on to see more detail:

After I finished this and photographed it, I did some photos of a couple necklace lanyards. I also worked on descriptions, the main photos for some other listings and a couple other little touches. I'm trying to get all of my work into my ArtFire shop. You can see the new listings in the Rapid Cart below my signature.

Until tomorrow -

Dawno

Sell Handmade

FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post, with the exception of the vintage glass 'beehive' and 'saucer shaped beads', were personally purchased for the express purpose of creating this necklace.

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.

LosCon Disappointment "All filled up, sorry..."

A lot of today's beading time went to going out to grab some stuff at Global Beads and Michael's then organizing what I bought. I did finish the garnet and amber piece I wrote about in this morning's untitled post.

(click for larger image)

It's 29" with 24k gold vermeil disks, 14k gold filled beads and donut spacers. I wasn't able to find large enough lobster claw clasps in gold filled or vermeil on my shopping trip, but I did find 1micron gold plate over copper clasps in a good size, so I've finished this and the other two pieces with those.

I heard back from the LosCon folk today, they say the dealer room is filled and asked if I'd like to be on the waitlist, I said ok, but I'm not going to get my hopes up again. I must say I'm pretty disappointed and it's harder having had to wait for nearly a month to get the bad news.

I'll just have to look for another convention to go to - not sure I'll find anything this year, though. It's been mostly a year of spending and not much return. I'll be better prepared for next year, though.

Yet Another One I'm Going to Hate Parting With

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had this idea gnawing at the back of my creative mind today. So after I posted I grabbed an empty bead design board (yes, I have several and they're usually all filled with either the remnants of the last project or a not quite there yet design I put aside to think about), my amber beads, my rutilated quartz nuggets and some gold-filled and vermeil beads I've been waiting for just the right design to use - it has to look rich enough to justify the cost of those components, which with gold at $823 (although that's down from it's peak at just over $1000 an ounce) will push the price point well above most of my other pieces.

While I was working on this a fun conversation happened over on Twitter - if you look at my sidebar you can see my side of the conversation with folk around the globe (well, most of us are in the US but one of the tweeters is on the other side of the international date line). I finished the stringing part, but I don't want to use my usual gold plated lobster claw fastners on this one - so I'm going to have to put off the hardware until tomorrow when I can go buy some gold filled or vermeil clasps. Finished length will be around 32"

So, here's the necklace lanyard in it's nearly finished state:

Yet another one I'm going to hate parting with.