Friday Pick - Just A Tish

Normally for my Friday Picks (when I do them), I feature selections of beads from suppliers, but today I'm going to kick off a new feature where my Friday Pick is an artisan. In the future I'll feature the glass, stone and ceramic artists whose beads have caught my eye and been incorporated in my designs. For the premier pick, I've chosen Just A Tish, whose work I greatly admire and am proud to own.

Tish is a true friend of beaders and jewelry artists - she's so supportive and eager to share her knowledge, trials and tribulations and promote others, too. She's often given me ideas that encourage me to try something new, take a chance, be a bit less straight-laced about designs.

Tish has had her designs published numerous times in Bead Trends and has done jewelry for fashion shows and gallery shows. She also has her work at Gifts With A Heart, in Raleigh, North Carolina and other stores, including one here in California (Sherman Oaks). I need to find out what store so I can stop in when I'm down in Southern California!

Back in October, I was the *very* lucky winner of drawing at Just A Tish's Facebook fan page. Do click that link and be a fan of hers, if you're not already - she's had great offers and giveaways there.

The prize I received was a gorgeous heat treated agate pendant that Just A Tish had made. It is adorned with garnet, citrine, crystal and sterling charms. I've been looking for just the right beads to make a necklace to hang it on and the other day at Lima Beads I found these gorgeous 6mm faceted carnelian rounds which looked like a good match and turned out to be perfect. I've put some sterling silver saucer spacers from Artbeads in the mix, too.

So, Tish, I hope you know how special you are and how much of an inspiration you are to me! Thank you for the encouragement you give and the beauty you create. Here's my new favorite necklace:

See her work for sale at Just A Tish's online store, check out what's new on her blog, and at Facebook (check out the photo albums, too!). And, if you're on Twitter she's @JustATish.

See you tomorrow for the Supplier Sales Saturday feature!

Tuesday Tidbits Today

My apologies for posting late to my regular readers - had a busy day yesterday and didn't have time to write and schedule a post for early morning today.

And, today's post is just a tidbit - Earthenwood Studios posted a note on their blog about putting some new items up at Etsy and I just had to have this:

The pendant is from the "Toolbox Treasures" collection and it's gorgeous, and I got those cool gear links as a free gift! I'm really looking forward to figuring out what I want to do and making something very special with them.

I've finished stringing the necklace with the hessonite, pearl, sunstones, Mocca Swarovski briolettes and copper - as soon as I get the clasp done, and if I don't decide to make a multi-strand necklace (which I'm pondering) I'll take a picture and share. Hope you have a great day and a wonderful week. See you tomorrow for Mid-week Mutterings!

Steampunk - What Does That Mean?

Steampunk Theme Pendant

As I've probably mentioned way too often, in three weeks I'm going to be at Bay Con 2009, Santa Clara, California. The theme of this year's con is "The Lost Sky City of Pyrocumulon" and as the official newsletter of the con said: "- steampunk is key". This text from a link on my Google search into steampunk is apt, "Steampunk is the intersection of technology and romance." I would elaborate that it's the intersection of pre-electronic, pre-silicon based technology, i.e., late 19th Century.

While steampunk can be realized by adopting a Victorian look and style, with the right kind of accessories, one can also imagine it as how one would look if they had descended from an alternate timeline which has led to a present day where steam engines and mechanical devices are still the backbone of industry and electronics are a curiosity, a side show. Per this, snipped from Wikipedia, "Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of "the path not taken" of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers (such as Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine); these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or with a presumption of functionality."

Those of us old enough to remember the TV show The Wild, Wild, West should easily be able to envision the look and feel of steampunk - Artemis Gordon was definitely a steampunk scientist. My first introduction to steampunk (although I'm pretty sure I didn't know that term, nor associate this with it) was the book, The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling published in 1990. I frequently re-read it just for the fascinating imaginings of a world where steam is king.

If steampunk still puzzles you, some visuals might help and I've done the Googling for you:

In General (gadgets, home decor, costuming):
The Steampunk Workshop
Brass Goggles

In Jewelry:
Earthenwood Studios - Melanie is going to Penguincon and shares one of her pieces.
Rivka's Mom - the absolute master of the look
Nouveaumotley's Etsy store - lovely pieces
poetsummer's Etsy store - vintage look, romantic and steampunk styles

Steampunk themed comic (one of my favorites)
Girl Genius

Tomorrow I'll be posting my Wanderings Around the Beadosphere again. I haven't seen anyone take me up on last week's offer to share these links around on their blogs, but I'll still post links, and the offer remains open!

More New Stuff In Today's Mail & A New Steampunk-ish Pendant

My mailbox brought more joy today. I needed some extra stuff for BayCon (and the other cons I hope to be attending) and the last of it (yesterday's haul was part 1) came today - as well as the Swarovski Tahitian Look pearls from the dollar sale at Artbeads, which I mentioned a few days ago. I've left a review of these pearls on the Artbeads site as well; I'm very pleased with my purchases!

Speaking of which - here's the bracelet I made using the pearls and gold filled beads, shown with my earrings and necklace (the ones my husband bought for me):

The other package was from Accessories Susan, and I made a pendant base awhile ago with some of the oxidized brass she offers on her site. This evening I've added some additional bits and pieces to complete the pendant.

The stamped brass lady's hand and watch pieces are from a wonderfully eclectic assortment pack I got from Melanie at her Etsy Steampunk Supply shop, the "gem" is recycled from an old piece of costume jewelry I have. It needs a chain, which I may embellish with tiny light sapphire faceted Czech glass beads. This picture definitely needs to be clicked on for the details. There's a tiny steel blue minute hand attached to the big gear, the "gem" is set in a smaller gear.

Last night I submitted a necklace with those emerald green Swarovski crystals I showed in yesterday's post, to the Bead Star competition in the crystals category. My friend Lori Basiewicz helped me name it "Emerald Rain". I'd love to show you a picture, but just in case it makes it to the competition, I'm going to keep it off the web for now. I still need to make something for my SIL's birthday with the rest of them...and they'll probably show up late now, since her birthday is Saturday.

I may yet submit in one or two other categories before tomorrow's deadline. I don't know if my work is ready for "The Show" as they say in baseball, but it really can't hurt to try.

That's all for tonight - lots to do, little time to do it! Thanks for dropping by!

Delights from Earth and Sea & "Moonmist"

I love it when a fun surprise arrives! I have some very cool new beads to play with from Rings & Things just in time for the weekend. I've already got an idea of one piece I'm going to use in a necklace design with some red bamboo coral I had in my stash...going to play around with it some more - decide if I want to add some spacer beads or maybe some stick coral or biwa pearls, but here's a early sneak peak at where I'm starting...The lava stones came from Rings & Things - the roundels are here and the rounds are here.

The colors of the beads are very consistent from bead to bead in my batch, the pitting of the stones varies from fine to coarse. I've got another idea for something using the round ones, riffing off of the way they look like little brown moons...I'll save that for another post and there were two large-ish square stones as well - one almost certainly will become a focal pendant for something - I'm thinking about a bamboo theme...the creative side of my brain is very active tonight!

There were two other items - I'll save them for yet another post, when I've at least got a start on how I'm going to use them.

I forgot to mention that a couple days ago the mail brought to me a purchase I made on Art Fire from glass artist Willow Walker (you can see it here) towards the end of March. The piece is called Moonmist - it's so lovely I can't wait to wear it.

For now, I've put it on a chain made with a 24" length of gold filled hand-made bow link chain from Artbeads that I just added a clasp to, but I think I want to make another chain with some tiny iridescent crystal, faceted bicone beads I have. I've got gold filled eye-pins, and even though they're just an inch and a half long, I'd still be cutting off quite a bit of the pin to make a simple link with just the one 4mm bead - and that cut piece would be too small to use again, I'm afraid. With gold fill being rather pricy, I'm not sure I like the idea of that much scrap left over...I'll probably invest in some gold filled wire and make my own links.

Need Inspiration? Just Follow the Links!

Have you seen Just A Tish's gluable bracelet form ideas yet? Check out her Gluable Challenge 4&5 (collage, fabric!), Gluable Challenge 2 & 3 (a Yummy Candy Inspiration) and for a giggle (Oops!) - Gluable Challenge - FAIL! I love the picture of the squished clay...I get this flashback to SNL's claymation dude, remember Mr. Bill? "oh nooooooooooooo!"

Or how about Lampwork Diva's ideas? Copper Kisses for $4.00. and also Glue is not my BFF

Another fun one was A Bead A Day's Fun With Bracelet Blanks - has a very chainmaille look to it.


I'm still trying to figure out what to do to finish the one I showed yesterday - and I have two more bracelet blanks to do - one is gunmetal, and then work on the two frames, which I think I'm going to do some mixed media collages (Tish beat me to it, but GMTA!) with to use as pendants, so I need to buy resin.

Free Earrings Giveaway - Help Me Finish a Necklace

I want to make a pendant on black rattail satin cord with these beads. They are gunmetal beads in 3 sizes, largest is about 15mm and ~10mm cobalt blue glass barrel beads. I will probably put decorative knots on the cord but no other embellishments. I need a focal piece/pendant for it and I'm so brain tired from the weekend, I can't even contemplate searching right now without wanting to take a nap.

So, if you'd please leave some links to a focal or pendant - the specific item, please - that I can go see (and maybe buy) from Etsy shops, Artfire shops, other online shops, or bead suppliers of focals you think would look good with these.

If I buy the focal you suggest, I'd be happy to make you a pair of earrings as a thank you gift...either out of these materials or we can work out what you'd like via email. If I don't buy a focal suggested, I'll do a random drawing from commenters. If the winner doesn't want earrings, we can work something else out, but I really do want to give away a prize!

And yes, this may get me some traffic and comments, but it really isn't my intention. I'm truly so brain and body tired from last weekend that I can't seem to figure this out on my own right now and really would love your ideas!

Dragon on a Leash

Months and months ago, I started fiddling with two brass stampings from Accessories Susan - one is a dragon and one is an "Art Deco Style Framework Setting Piece" in brass ox and the other is a "Gothic Style Dragon". I finally figured out that I wanted to make a pendant with them and an aventurine cabochon.

(click pictures to enlarge)

First I folded the dragon around the stone. Then I folded the framework piece. This was the tricky part. I folded it up in half and then half of that half back down again and wedged it under the dragon folds in the back. It still wasn't completely stable, so I used E6000 glue (rather thickly) to hold all the pieces together and onto the cabochon.

Next I put a textured brass cable chain on it using jump rings. It was too plain. So I thought, why not make a toggle clasp out of another framework piece and another dragon (using one that faced the opposite direction) the dragon is attached to the chain with a jump ring - kind of like a collar and leash. Then I decided to use two chains at the bottom to attach this part to the pendant.

Better, but still missing something. So I took some filigree chain and some large aventurine beads with filigree bead caps and added them to the other side. I like it now!

The total length of the chain is about 30" around, and pendant hangs 1.5" so it drops about 16" from top to bottom.