Mid-Week Mutterings - Copper Crazy

Got on a copper kick tonight. Needed to order more Antique Copper Meadow beads from Artbeads to finish the necklace I was stringing, so that will sit aside until the order arrives. While I was at it, I also got some Antique Copper Woodland beads, too. The necklace uses hessonite and champagne freshwater pearls I got at the Rings & Things roadshow, sunstone faceted roundells from Lima Beads and tiny copper bead caps, which you can also find at Rings & Things, from my local bead store, Global Beads.

The other necklace features an 'add a bead' neckwire in copper and vintage copper coated steel twisted curb chain from The Beadin' Path, some frosted peach glass beads with textured triangular impressions, twisted copper loops, and copper wire I also picked up at Global Beads and copper beads and headpins from Rings & Things. I'm almost done, some minor tweeks still needed.

The vintage chain is really lovely - a satin finish makes it gleam rather than shine, looks great with the peach beads, and since I have 6 of them left and plenty of chain, they'll probably wind up together in another necklace soon.

And that's all for my midweek mutterings, it's late and I'm worn out. Tomorrow I have a great interview feature for you, so don't miss it: Lisa from A Bead A Day!

Friday Guest Post - The Beadin' Path's Heather & Her Phenominal Stash of Vintage Lucite!

The wonderful Heather DeSimone whose Twitter bio says: "Mama. Wife. Bead Store Owner. Lover of vintage and Lucite Maven." Has given me permission to reprint one of her blog posts from The Beadin' Path blog "What's In Store with Heather" in place of an original piece of my own today, as I am still a little too blue to be creative.

One of these days (maybe when she's not wiped out from moving her entire store!) I will see if I can wrangle her into being the subject of a Thursday interview post. Until then, I offer you a post from last summer she wrote that simply fascinated me. It's an inside peek into the bead store owner's world and a simply wonderful tale! It's the story of how they acquired their huge supply (over 40,000 lbs!) of vintage Lucite as well as information about its provenance and how it has been used.

Learn Where We Got Our Vintage Lucite Beads
by Heather DeSimone
Friday, 18 July 2008

Want to know where our vintage Lucite beads all came from? One of the most frequently asked questions when a shopper enters our store or shops with us online is "Where did you get all of those fabulous vintage Lucite beads?"

It could be because when one walks into our store at The Beadin' Path, they're greeted with a 18 foot wall full of it. It's colorized from left to right and spans almost the entire back wall of one room in our store. We try to merchandise our entire store & our website in color blocks so that each room or page is a virtual palette of beads. I think those who ask, expect a quick or secret answer. However, there's a much longer & more interesting story to how we acquired over 40,000 lbs of vintage Lucite.

We were approached 2 years ago in the early Summer by the manager of a plastics company in Rhode Island via. email. (You've got to love that world-wide-web). They did a search for vintage Lucite & saw on www.BeadinPath.com that we stocked and LOVED vintage Lucite beads. They were looking for a buyer to come and clean out a couple of rooms in their very large warehouse. We get approached all the time by exporters, manufacturers or companies that are liquidating jewelry components. Yet this contact really intrigued us. You see this company had not manufactured beads or jewelry components since the late 1970's and early 1980's. They simply had a 10,000 + square foot room stocked floor to ceiling with these pesky beads and hoops and cabochons that were just in their way.

Currently the company (Plastic Development) is one of the leaders in the industry for manufacturing earring cards & other plastic-based merchandising for jewelry and accessories. When you order these from many well-known companies that distribute them, chances are they're made by these folks in R.I. Because they had the need to expand their business and move some of their less physically-able employees to the first floor space, currently housing all of 'those beads,' they needed them moved out and moved out fast.

My mother Jan & I decided it would be worth a trek down I-95 South to at least check this stock out. And if it was a wash, we'd head on over to Providence Place & do some shopping (they have an H&M and a Restoration Hardware there!). Well we never made it to the mall! When we met with the manager of the company we learned more about vintage Lucite than we had ever known before. He had worked at the same company for over 30 years and was there when they had actually made these great beads & parts.

They had been commissioned by well-known companies such as Avon, Coro, and Trifari to custom-create colors and shapes for their seasonal lines of jewelry. The quality of these 'plastic' beads was just unmatched. (Yes, I too used to be a 'plastic-bead-snob'!) He explained to us a little about the process where the beads are actually made in a relief process or 'carved' from a rod or cane of Lucite. They were not press-molded like many plastics that show seams and are lighter-weight. So, when they had overstock, slightly off-color beads from the special order, or simply orders that were not picked up, they stashed them in 'the bead room.'

After some research and much number crunching [we] decided to bring a group of helpers down to Rhode Island the following week with 2 20' UHaul trucks. Wow! We had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. We worked a 12 hour day with 10 people we brought down as well as many of the warehouse workers who chipped in to help us.

Sure there were lots of us 'bead girls', but our group also included many big burly guys, all bagging, packing boxes, stacking boxes, wrapping and loading palettes. We finally got the 2 trucks loaded to the ceilings. But we had only packed up about 1/3 of the stock! There was still a whole room of beads & parts: it almost looked as if we hadn't even been there.

A week or so later, Jen our store manager came to me and told me that her Uncle was a licensed trucker and could drive a big old, not sure what they're technically called, 'semi' type truck. And her dynamo of a mother Sue, who also worked for us was inspired to ride down there with him and get the semi loaded up if we could get down there in the days before & get the rest of the warehouse packed up. We were so overwhelmed by the first trip that (and I can't even believe this now) we had been contemplating just leaving the rest of the stock down there and having a rubbish company come & remove it. It was costly to move beads! So with Sue's encouragement, we made another trip down to RI and packed & boxed & stacked our little hearts out once again. Sue & her brother drove the 'semi' down a day later & filled it from front to back!

…and that's how it all happened. That's how we acquired over 40,000 lbs of vintage Lucite beads & parts. Surprisingly, two years later we have sold almost half of the stock. When we first brought it home to Maine, I made the comment that I would be that little old lady at 80 years old with a barn full of rotting boxes full of beautiful beads. I guess I was wrong… nah, I'll be that old lady who dies with the most beads yet.

For the last couple of years, a really fun gal named Danielle has been purchasing lots of our vintage Lucite stock for her very funky & successful line of jewelry. She has a great business and sells her wares mostly over in Europe (smart chic, considering the plight of the US Dollar right now). Anyway, this lady knows her plastics. She was teaching me a thing or two about our very own stock. And as we'd discuss the differences between Lucite and other vintage plastics, she kept using the term 'Best New England Warehouse of Vintage BeadsPlastics' to describe where our beads had been made.

I kept thinking "What is she talking about?" but I didn't say anything because I was afraid that maybe she'd misheard something that I said or maybe I'd misheard her. After all: the company we purchased the beads from was called Plastic Development in Warwick, Rhode Island. And Norm, the man who sold them to me had worked for that company for the last 45 years and knew his stuff. He told us all about making the beads himself back in the 70's and 80's. So for the first couple of conversations I didn't say anything to Danielle.

Finally, when I KNEW that I had heard her say very clearly "…and the beads that came from Best Plastics in Providence…" I interrupted. "What a sec, WHAT are you talking about? You keep dropping this name and I thought I was hearing things. I've never heard this name before. As far as I know, these Lucite beads were made by Plastic Development in Warwick, not Providence." There's always this veiled mystery that many vendors like to perpetuate. She was buying a lot of beads from us and I didn't want her to think I had anything to hide about where they were from and where we got them. Danielle's answer was "Geez, I don't know. I thought YOU told me about Best Plastics." I said "I'd never heard the name until you mentioned it." And we moved on.

Fast forward a few more weeks. I was at one of our favorite job lot warehouses where I had not been for over 2 years! And evidently I've missed out in the last 2 years too because we didn't find a whole lot. Between being pregnant and having a newborn, it's hard to travel a few hours each way, dig through dirty boxes that are 15 feet in the air, etc etc to do your buying. So we've been doing a lot of buying via our manufacturers overseas lately, because I can simply send an email from home and viola! Beads!

Anyway, I was talking to Anthony who has been in business in the Rhode Island area for many, many years and his business was handed down to him from his Father-In-Law so he knows the industry. I mentioned Best Plastics and asked him if he'd heard of it. He said "Yeah, that's that warehouse you bought out!" I nearly fell on the floor. I said "But that company was called Plastic Development…" And now you're about to hear a thing of fables… bead myths from years past.

Best Plastics had been manufacturing beads for years, right across the street from Anthony's warehouse in Rhode Island. In the early 1980's, Best decided to shift their focus to manufacturing pressed plastic earring cards and other merchandisers. You know the type: when you go into WalMart and you see tacky earrings on a rounder, they're hanging on these grey plastic earring cards with a patch of velvet on them that read "Fashion New England Warehouse of Vintage Beads Earrings."

No matter what part of the world you're in, when you see these, they're probably made by Plastic Development in Rhode Island. Anyway, when they decided to shift their focus, they moved their company from a warehouse in Providence to a warehouse in Warwick and you guessed it, changed their name to Plastic Development. Anthony said "you know, they offered me that lot of beads and I just had too much plastic." We purchased over 40,000 lbs so I can only imagine how many thousands of pounds they had offered him.

So, thanks to Danielle, I learned the real name of our beads' manufacturer. And thanks to Anthony, we have thousands and thousands of pounds of Lucite beads to sell. These are the things that intrigue me still after all these years in this business: the lore of the beads. The history. Sometimes you hear these things from vendors and you think "They must have made that up to get me to buy this strand of beads, but it's cool." But the great thing about buying anything vintage, is that it has history. And the most mundane story can seem so riveting when it's told in the context of something you love. Like beads.

Post and pictures courtesy of, and with permission from, The Beadin' Path - Learn Where We Got Our Vintage Lucite Beads (11 June 2009)

One final thing - last Friday I wrote about "Follow Friday" for bead/jewelry artist bloggers - here's the link. I didn't get any comments last week, but perhaps if I remind you, you'll have some ideas this week?

Today's WIP: Vintage Style Earrings

Haven't accomplished much today - found a TV show on Hulu that I wanted to watch, Damages (shown on FX), and I've been catching up to date online.

I did work on something, now and again, while I was watching. They need a little finishing work - couple drops of E6000 here and there - but I don't think I'll add anymore embellishment.

Filigree, chain and shell earring finding, from Accessories Susan, tiny brass bead from Ohio Beads and some champagne colored (not sure what the official name ofthe color is) Swarovski crystals from the Auntie's Beads "Tucson Mix" I bought almost a year ago.

No photography today - too overcast to get enough good natural light.

Vintage Style Turquoise Necklace

I started this last night and finished it this evening. Turquoise was a very popular stone in vintage jewelry and I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. It's about 20". I will make some earrings to match and maybe a bracelet, too. I am thinking about making the simple drops a bit more ornate or adding more ornate ones in-between the simpler ones.

I decided that the necklace I made last night was too long, so I shortened it to collarbone length and made a bracelet out of the leftover links. It's a very pretty set. Rather delicate because the eyepins are a pretty fine gauge - probably would have been better to use wrapped loops and I will next time.

I'm now pondering what to do next...I may do another rondell pattern lanyard.

I Found It!

As I was going through some papers to find the documents needed for a mortgage loan pre-qualification application (yes, we're trying to buy - been renting for over 10 years now) I found my lost screwdriver. I'd already taken one of the tiny Scrimps screwdrivers and affixed it with Aleene's Jewelry & Metal glue to the wooden handle of a broken pearl reamer (I'd snapped the tip and couldn't use it anymore) and it was working fine, but it's always nice to find a favorite tool.

Yesterday (and the rest of this week) was a very busy day at the day job. I rested, and watched some TV after work, so I didn't do any new beading to share here. I did work on my jump ring chains - I have 'built' a simple chain one loop into two loops and then continue in that pattern. It's 17" long now and I will probably stop at about 20", then add some dangly beads and a focal/pendant. It's another 'apprentice' piece, so it may never be for sale.

Although I have tried to close each ring well, it still feels a little rough because the links aren't soldered. I don't know if there's an alternative to actual soldering, but it would be nice if the links were smoother feeling.

I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with the techniques, I may try something more complicated soon. There are a number of lovely pieces I've seen, for example, some of these shown in the customer gallery at Spiderchain.

I've just finished a piece using light weight eye-pins to hold table cut oval glass beads in pink and tiny, faceted pink/peach iridescent coated ovals which I'm linking together.

I think it has quite a vintage look to it with the brass filigree flower at the end.

Made some matching earrings as well.

Fall Has Officially Arrived and I Celebrate With Fall Color Projects

I finished my vintage style filigree and amber glass bead necklace today and have set up a fall display for photographs. I've also been playing with making jump ring chains and some earrings. Wanted to share the new necklace - there's a 'hidden' touch, I've put four faceted amber glass roundells inside the large filigree bead - they're barely visible at close examination, but I think they will glint inside a bit in the sunlight. The clasp has an extender chain with a tiny amber glass bead at the end. It hangs about 9 inches from collarbone to the end of the beaded focal piece.

I wish my weekend wasn't nearly over - there are a number of ideas bouncing around in my head and I might get them started, but I know that next week is going to be busy at work, so in the evening I'll be rather tired and don't know if I'll get a lot done. Nevertheless, I have a number of great fall color beads, ambers, garnets, browns and golds that I look forward to working with.

Less Talk, More Pictures

First, here's a chain using silver loops, jump rings, howlite nuggets and small round howlite beads. I made it so it could be worn with the toggle through any of the small loops, like a lariat or at the back.

Next a peridot glass necklace lanyard using the roundell and larger bead pattern.

And lastly, my vintage style peridot glass gem and filigree necklace. I may move the larger brass filigree bead that's near the neckline down a bit, but otherwise, I'm done.

Peridot Glass "Gems" and Filigree Work in Progress

Only one of the small peridot colored glass 'gems' has been set in the filigree and one in the center oval, but I'm liking how this looks so far. Not sure how I'm going to finish it. I've done a couple wrapped link peridot colored glass beads but they seem so plain in comparison, I'm not sure if I'll use them in the piece. May have to find some faceted beads, thinking briolettes, and maybe a chain tassel...I guess there's a trip to the bead store in the near future.

I used four filigrees to frame the center oval piece. The two between the large eight pointed backing and the large visible oval frame are practically invisible, but add to the depth and detail.

If the test setting for the small gem on the outer filigree is solid enough, I'll do the rest of the gems tomorrow. If not, I'm going to have to puzzle out how to add them. Right now I'm using the E6000 glue suggested in the 'how to' section of the Accessories Susan site, we'll see if it holds.

I Hope it Doesn't Get to be a Habit

Missed posting last night, too. Again, busy with other stuff and very little of it was beading. I did finish stringing the gold glass and pearl lanyard, just have to add the hardware now.

I got an email from Accessories Susan saying they had the large copper lobster claw clasps I've been looking for in stock, so those are on their way now. Many thanks to Accessories Susan, not only for taking customer requests seriously, but for great service. I'm looking forward to playing around with design ideas this weekend and hope to make a few vintage style pieces I can show off.

I also found a source for tablet cut rectangular beads to match some of the ones I bought at the Arts and Wine festival last weekend so now I can make sets - thank you Mermaid's Cove! One set I bought from Mermaid's Cove was just beads I liked, no mates from the festival purchase, these are "Seafoam Opal" and I'm really inspired by the colors - thinking about matching them to some of my hemimorphite stones.

Still practicing loops - found a bundle of thinner brass wire (might be 21 or 22 gauge - it's not on a labeled spool) stashed away and have run about 8 loops with beads in a string. I'm still very clumsy, wasting a lot of wire, too, but the loops and wraps are looking better and the wrapped end is pretty snug to the bead. Before I start doing work with sterling wire (thinking about Argentium Sterling) I want to be confident and certainly not waste any of the wire - that stuff's expensive. I can't even think about gold filled yet.

There are two beading techniques I still want to learn - one is knotting. A number of my favorite purchases from this and past festivals have been made with lovely knotted thread instead of wire or chain. I'm going to wait to learn and practice that until after I feel accomplished enough with the wire loops. Lastly is chain maille. I have also seen some lovely work using a Byzantine pattern as well as some jewelry that has beads or pearls inside little cages of links, and I'd like to learn to do that, too.

Well, I'm going to finsh off the hardware on that lanyard and maybe play around in my beads until something inspires my next design.

Caf or DeCaf?

Made a beaded badge lanyard necklace that compliments the eyeglass chain I posted about yesterday. All glass beads, the small cream beads are Czech druk, the lozenge ones are from the local Global Beads store as well as the flat oval light mocha colored ones. I'm temporarily calling it "Cafe au Lait" but not sure that will stick.The silver beads are glass seed beads and silver-tone disk spacers, that I use a lot and hope I can keep finding them.

Here it is with the eyeglass chain - I think they make a nice pair.

I'm working on something with my vintage style beads and some very nice faceted disk rhodonite beads and small rhodonite oval beads. I have a couple rhodonite cabochons as well, they may work with a filigree setting...we'll see.

Will Practice Make Perfect? My Aching Hands Hope So

Very brief post - I finished the wire loop necklace yesterday and have worked on two more today. My hands are a bit battered and sore. I need to get back to making necklace lanyards soon and I want to make at least a couple vintage style pieces, too - but the making of little wire circles is strangely hypnotic. The center necklace has a glass fish that came from the Botmo gift beads, by the way. All the loops are made from the same copper wire I talked about in yesterday's post. I have red, blue and purple glass ovals left and may make more practice necklaces with those colors, too.

I'm glad tomorrow is a holiday!

Where Did It Go?

I've misplaced my favorite screwdriver. This is a bigger deal than it might seem at first. I use "Scrimps" instead of the usual crimp tube or bead at the ends of my necklace lanyards. The Scrimp has a tiny screw in it to clamp down the stringing material (usually Beadalon 19 strand satin bead stringing wire). Scrimp kits contain a mini-screwdriver, but they're short and it's hard to get a good grasp and good torque with them, especially if the screw is a bit stuck - I've ended up with a still stuck screw and a completely deformed screwdriver tip. I've sliced my finger a time or two with them, as well.

So last fall I was in Dallas at a conference and needed to tighten the Scrimp on a lanyard I was wearing and didn't have one of those screwdrivers handy and thought that maybe an eyeglass repair kit would have one that would work. I went to the hotel sundries shop and, sure enough, they had a nice kit with a wonderful screwdriver - the tip was just the right size at the tip and it was longer in length (I think about 4" long in all) with a plastic handle that gave me a good grip. I've tried to take very good care of it and always put it back where it belongs when I'm done with it so I won't lose it.

Well, today I have 5 necklace lanyards that need hardware and was at the point where I was ready to apply a Scrimp to the first one when I looked around for my screwdriver and couldn't find it. I've pretty much combed every inch of my office now to no avail. So I'm back to using the smaller one that came with the Scrimps and not enjoying it one bit.

Here's my latest necklace lanyard, 30" long, made with frosted colorless glass Czech beads, very tiny, copper colored, glass seed beads, two sizes of lightly satin-brushed copper oval beads and copper bead caps. I apologize for the poor picture quality - I'm definitely going to need natural light and experiment with the background color, to do this one justice.

The picture above shows it draped as a necklace. Below is where I show it with a badge to give you an idea about the way I maintain the pattern idea, but make it just a bit more interesting, (at least to me) at the ends.

You may also have noticed that the lanyard attachment isn't a large lobster claw, like on my silver and gold designs, because I hadn't been able to find the large ones in copper. Until recently! In my post a few days ago about vintage -style designs, I mentioned Accessories Susan, and while she didn't have them posted, I emailed her about the possibility of getting some, and she said she'd order them! I am obsessively checking her 'new arrivals' list for them.

I know I said I'd post the shell lanyard today, but since it's still unfinished, and I'm pouting about my screwdriver, it's not going up tonight.

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.