Tuesday Tidbits - Sometimes It's the Beads, Sometimes It Isn't

Often I'll let a design come to me by starting off just playing around with different beads and findings to come up with the idea for a necklace or bracelet. This time I started out looking at the silver links, then pairing them up with some chain, then looking at a few of the piles of beads lying about (yeah, I'm still trying to get the workspace organized) and that's how I ended up with the necklace below.

The larger beads are Czech fire polished beads in crystal/aquamarine with a metallic AB coating on one side, from Rings & Things. Also from Rings & Things are the small opaque turquoise glass disk beads being used as spacers. I have had the opaque turquoise Swarovski bicones in my stash for ages, not sure where they're from anymore. The smaller purple beads are a light amethyst/copper roundelle from The Beadin' Path. The chain, tiny antiqued silver flower bead caps, and the silver Art Nouveau style links are from Accessories Susan.

I think this one is done, although I never know when I'll look at it and decide that it's time to fiddle some more. The biggest problem I have with this, and most of my designs, is coming up with a name for it. I suppose one will eventually come to me, but so far, nothing.

When I first started making my lanyards I would look up the names of cities that I felt somehow fit the look or the stones I was using. After a while, and especially when I started branching out to other types of jewelry, I stopped. I also gave some pieces names from Star Trek - characters, things, places from the shows or movies. Lately I've named very few pieces and stuck more to descriptions. I hope I'll eventually settle on something that satisfies me.

Pretty soon I'm going to have to start working on tags and things for the convention I'll be selling at in November. It would be great if I had a good idea of what to name things as I'm doing that. Wish me luck!

Hope to see you back tomorrow - I like how the piece I'll share turned out, hope you do to!

Right after I posted last night I got to work on another necklace lanyard design I've been thinking about. I mentioned (and showed a picture) of the smoky quartz faceted barrel beads I bought, those form the core of my design.

I used the last of the smoky quartz square cushion beads left over from a necklace you can view here, smoky quartz round beads, 24k gold vermeil rope pattern spacers, 24k gold vermeil disks, and 10k & 14k gold filled beads. 32" long. My scale says it weighs 3.9 oz., so it's not as heavy as I thought it would be, but still a necklace with substance.

As with the previous piece, it's unfinished until I get new fasteners. For some reason I thought of V'ger in the first Star Trek movie, so this one is tentatively named "Silicon Mind" and the quote for it will probably be "Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?" unless I find something better.

Shot with artificial lighting, the beads are a darker, smokier color than my computer is showing.

(click picture for larger view)

Conquering the Chaos!

I was up until after midnight yesterday working on labeling and setting up my necklace lanyards for display, so I woke up pretty late this morning. I've spent a few hours today just doing some tidying up of my computer desk - next I have to do the same behind me in my beading area.

As for the labeling and re-naming project, the thing that takes the most time is deciding on a name for the piece and then looking up a good quote! I'm using Memory Alpha Wiki a lot, along with the Internet Movie Database which has good quotes and other information on the characters and episodes - including a page of quotes - at least for some of the main characters, haven't looked up more than a few characters so far there.

Each piece, then, gets a tag with the new name and a quote to go with it (see yesterday's post), on one side and the materials, length and price on the other side.

I use my Dymo LabelWriter Pro to make the labels for the tag, which for now, is a simple paper tag I bought at Office Depot. Then I attach two clear badge holder pockets (also from Office Depot - I'm glad I got one of their frequent buyer cards!), a horizontal one to hold my business card, and a vertical one that I'm tucking the tag into for now to keep them clean and unbent. I've seen some lovely tags on fancy paper, but my handwriting has gone to hell from so many years of using the computer. Then there's also the time it would take to make those kinds of tags - well, I'm not sure I'm up for it and I think the ones I'm making look pretty good.

I also put eyeglass loops on the end-clasps of the lanyard, at least for the ones that aren't too heavy to be eyeglass leashes. The end clasps I'm using now are a larger swivel lobster claw clasp that will be easier to manage when taking off the badge or eyeglass hardware, and the swivel will help prevent tangles or the badge turning over to the back. I've also started using a larger split-ring for the loop that attaches the badge hardware to the leash clasps.

I'm also printing out a color photo of the badge on a full size label sheet, cut out the pictue and place it in a composition book I'm using as an inventory book. In there, I'm numbering each piece, putting the date I made it, with space for the date sold and where (BayCon, LosCon, Etsy, etc.), and putting a full description of the materials, length and list price. Then I leave space for notes at the bottom.

Little by little I'm getting more organized - whether or not I go to LosCon, there will be other opportunities and I want to be ready.

Soon I'll start figuring out what I want my display to look like and how to set that up. As for actually beading today - we'll see if I have any energy left after I finish my cleaning and organizing.

New Names for My Necklace Lanyards

For the most part I've been giving my pieces names descriptive of the stones or colors in them. I've lately seen a number of bead artists giving evocative names to their pieces, either from quotes or, perhaps, lovely sentiments they've created themselves. I am charmed by and enjoy the thought that goes into the naming.

My pieces sold pretty well at BayCon, so I'm (as mentioned on this blog) hoping to be approved as a dealer at LosCon and am going to look into other cons I can attend. Since most of the people at the cons are SF and Fantasy fans, using SF inspired naming seems like a fun idea, and it represents something I enjoy personally, not just a gimmick. So I was pondering where to get my inspiration for the names of my pieces.

Flash forward to a post about day lilies I clicked on yesterday. There are varieties of day lilies that have been given Star Trek names. I'm a fan, and I got a kick out of looking at the beautiful Borg Technology and Cloaking Device flowers. I've named my most recent pieces with a Star Trek theme, with many thanks to Memory Alpha Wiki to help me find information and quotes.

Here's Tears of Elaan, a short-ish piece at 24" in frosted Czech glass druk beads and iridescent glass seed beads with a larger iridescent Czech glass bead at the ends, best suited for an eyeglass leash. I'm going to also pick a quote from the episode that inspired the name, for each piece. This one comes with the quote from Spock to McCoy at the end of the episode:

"The Enterprise captured his heart long before the Dohlman did"

And almost finished (still need to attach the hardware) this morning, is a longer badge lanyard necklace - approx. 30 - 32", with two sizes of clear glass bicone (diamond) Czech pressed glass beads, separated by silver glass and iridescent glass seed beads. I've named it Treasure of Rigel XII, and the quote, from a conversation between Kirk and Harry Mudd:

"You either believe in yourself or you don't."

First commenter to tell me the name of the Star Trek episodes the necklace names come from, can claim these earrings (Enterprise-A not included), if they'd like: