Struck by a Particle of Inspiration

I've had this lovely ceramic disk sitting around for some time now. I knew I liked it (and I bought two of them) but I wasn't sure what I'd do with it. Finally got hit by a particle of inspiration or two. The chain on this was made entirely from jump rings. Hope to find time to get better pictures of it and load up on Beadfly and Flickr soon.

Thinking About Vintage Style Jewelry

Finished the wrapped link piece - definitely a first effort and not for sale - but I think I might wear it with the necklace lanyard I did today, that I'm tentatively calling Zephram's Dream. It's 33" long, hemimorphite and howlite with sterling beads. I selected out the howlite that was entirely white or had the most minute gray veining on it for the lanyard.

Here's the lanyard necklace and linked necklace together.

My favorite kind of jewelry has always been pieces with a Victorian/Edwardian retro look, I've been fortunate enough to collect a few lovely silver and sapphire Edwardian pieces, 2 small brooches and a necklace so far. Some other examples of what I like are Michal Negrin (although mostly the simpler pieces - some are too ornate for my taste) and and the 1928 Jewelry Co. styles.

Today I was wandering around the web and happened across Accessories Susan a site that specializes in supplies for making Victorian inspired jewelry. Needless to say, someone should have hidden my credit card. I'm looking forward to experimenting and creating my own designs. If I like what I've done, I may add them to my pieces for sale.

The other place I discovered today was Beading Daily - seems to have some interesting items, so I bookmarked it and joined the forum.

Well, I've got an idea rattling around in the back of my mind and 4 or 5 hours left 'til bedtime, so I think I'll publish this post and get to it.

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).

Busy Day!

Spent a good deal of time today working on a necklace with amber chips, 8mm size 10k gold hollow round beads and smaller gold filled round beads, gold filled and gold plated spacers, miscellaneous stones, and metal beads, glass beads, and pearls. The design is asymmetrical and follows no set pattern in the distance between beads/stones/pearls filled with the amber chips. Sometimes it's a couple of inches, sometimes it's just a few chips. I'm now debating whether or not I like it or want to disassemble it and start over. If I continue, I plan to make it very long with the intention of wearing it doubled.

When I put that one aside, I grabbed the blue lace agate I ordered recently and started working on a necklace lanyard from that. I'm very happy with the results. This picture doesn't do the agates justice - the color is just a bit off.

I also decided to go and submit my application for a table in the dealer's room at LosCon. I got it into the Post Office before the final pick up time in hopes that it will arrive on Monday or Tuesday, at the latest, in L.A.

Spent some time posting new stuff on Etsy, and loading photos to Flickr, too.

Joined Beadfly today and posted one of my items. Got a review almost immediately - got a 6.8 out of ten from the site's "#1 reviewer". My goal shall be to see if I can post something that gets at least an 8. I like the idea of Beadfly. A social networking site that has many web 2.0 ideas - articles, blog, comments and photo posting. You can join (and start) groups, submit articles, vote in polls, list your store and more stuff I haven't investigated yet.

I recently began reading Katie's Beading Blog on my Google Reader and she's posted about Ornament Thursday. While I'm not one of the Ornament Thursday team, I do have a piece that fits the theme, "Red Hot".

Made from red bamboo coral ovals and large beads, with smaller red glass Druk beads and silver glass seed beads, silver plated beads and findings. The silver bead is one I've been trying to figure out how to use in something for ages - its texture consists of little circles with darkened centers - and for the life of me, I am reminded of a brain when I look at it, so it's been challenging to use, up till now - I think it complements the large silver bead in the Brighton necklace that I made this piece to go with:

Chunky red coral and silver Brighton necklace "Full Moon Rising". I also have the bracelet and earrings which I can wear with the lanyard alone if I don't care to wear the necklace and lanyard together.

Hanging Out With Other Beaders

I was told about the Craftster Community by my daughter and joined up. Seems like a fun, supportive place. She's posted about a scarf she knitted as her very first knitting project and the replies were adorable. She's also doing a "swap" event where she and another Craftster have exchanged little stuffed animals. The posts are clever and cute.

So where else should I hang out? What blogs should I go to, link to and comment on to get involved with other beaders? Things I want to read about and learn include information about showing at fairs, selling through co-ops or how to get local stores to carry one's work.

Networking is a great thing. I was meeting with someone through the day job who was very interested in taking some of my lanyards with him to his Rotary convention. He took a bunch of business cards, 5 of my lanyards and a brochure - I had to get it all ready for him at a moment's notice because he told me about it at lunch and was going to be flying out first thing the next morning.

Will it get me more business? I can't help but hope so. But even if it doesn't, I'm thrilled that someone was nice enough to offer. I won't be shy about talking about my work or handing out cards from now on. It's not natural for me, but I'll keep trying.

I'll be out of town starting tomorrow, so I probably won't post again for a few days.

I'll leave you with a couple pics of my other stuff. You can find all of these at my Etsy store.

I love the beads in this - found them at a shop in Westminster near Huntington Beach, CA. I've got a bunch of them, still and will be making more necklace lanyards with them.












Close up:












One of the members of the online writing forum I belong to saw this at my store and sent me a message saying she was getting married and would love to have a necklace like this and matching earrings, but with a blue stone instead of the malachite. I have some nice lapis and offered to make one with them. She liked the idea and I'll start working on it soon. I'll post some work in progress pics once I get started.













See you next time!