A Beady Holiday

It's been a nutty six months. Seriously crazy. Upheaval at work, family job changes, losses of loved ones, moves - all said, not a lot of time or brain space to be creative in the bead room.

So when I had the day off yesterday for the 4th, I was determined - determined!! - to spend some time at the work table. Rather than jumping into a new project (there's one of those on the horizon, which I'll share in a couple of days), I completed a few simple necklaces that I'd strung up months ago. Several of them were ways to use up some beads that I'd had in my stash forever. Easy peasy, but I needed to make clasps and finish them all off.

This one has faceted carnelian (pretty big - about 12mm), amethyst and sterling. I am obsessed with the luscious richness of these two gemstones together.

This too a little extra planning and fiddling, to figure out how to incorporate the copper filigrees into a knotted necklace. With the rhyolite marquis and green jasper rounds, I'm pleased with the result.

Czech glass beads - clear with white cores swirled with black and gold stringers - paired with faceted clear beads with gold cores and onyx rounds. Nice and long to slip over your head without a clasp.

About as simple as it gets - a dichroic pendant that's been at the back of the bead drawers so long it's probably eligible for a driver's license. Hard to see here, but it's a lovely deep purple with a flash of dichro blue at the top edge. A couple of coordinating beads, chain and a sterling clasp. Done.

Again with the substantially sized beads - this time with gorgeous black fire agate, faceted and nestled into pewter end caps with onyx and glass spacers. It looks so elegant.

One of my favorite gemstones, flourite, kept simple with Bali sterling so that the variety of the gemstone colors is the focus of attention.

Mavis Smith may have been one of the first lampwork artists I ever purchased art beads from. Here's a focal of hers that I've been hoarding for way too long.

Aah, a vacation day, cooking out and fireworks, and some completed UFOs. A good day all around!
So what did you do for the 4th?

The Silver Lining To Packing The Bead Room

The hardest part of moving into a new home? (I mean, aside from the whole selling the old place and finding the new place. Or remembering your new address. Or driving home only to find you're in the wrong place....)

If you're a beader, it's got to be the whole process of packing up your bead room.  Dear heavens. Talk about getting slapped in the face with your hoarding tendencies!

But then you get to the new place and discover all the treasures you forgot about, including the Un Finished Objects that had been stashed at the bottom of the drawer or in the back of the closet. I found a couple that would work up pretty quickly, so here they are, the first completed UFOs of 2017!

First up, some cabochons that I had glued to backing, in order to embroider the into a pair of earrings. They sat on the backing, unfinished, for an embarrassingly long time. When I finally got back to them, one of the purple glass cabochons had cracked, so a matched pair of earrings were out.

So, with the addition of a nice little jade round, the earring and a half became a pendant.

The second UFO was a red jasper cab that I had prepped as an illustration for a class that I taught. About 15 years ago. Yep. It only had the peyote bezel, with no backing or edging.  With the addition of modest fringe (I am SO not a fringe gal) and a necklace of faceted carnelian, faceted glass, and coconut heishi with an antique brass toggle clasp, she's ready to come out of the drawer.

Do you have any UFOs lurking in your bead room? 

Serious Sparkle, Part 2 - The Earrings

So if you're wearing a fancy evening gown, you need some fancy earrings, right? Of course!

As I wrote about yesterday, we recently had a big formal fundraising event at my job, so may of my colleagues were looking for jewelry to complement their evening wear. You've already seen some of the necklaces and bracelets that I made especially for them to choose from, so as promised, here are a few of the earrings.

Freshwater pearls with some vintage rhinestone and pearl components

Who can resist blue crystal disco balls swinging from their earlobes?

Shoulder dusters

In case your formal tastes run more to the gemstone, these are lapis, forest jasper and freshwater pearl.

These big, bold beauties are vintage marcasite pieces from an old necklace that I found in an antique store.
I took the necklace apart, and used the various component parts in lots of different new creations.
Here, I added just a few crystals at the top and as dangles.

Weekend Sneak Peek

Cooking up something for the Bead Soup Blog Hop has had to wait for a bit, while I get ready for a show I'm doing this weekend.  Here's a little peek at one of the new pieces I made in preparation for the show:

 

 Jasper with quartz inclusions, onyx, gorgeous pearlized Czech glass, silver 

(just imagine this rotated 90 degrees clockwise, which for some reason Blogger won't allow me to do...)

Best news of all is that the weather is supposed to be considerably cooler for the show this year than it was last year -- so happy at the thought that this year we won't again be whimpering masses of overheated pathetic folks!

And if you happen to be in the northern Kentucky/ southern Indiana area this weekend, come visit me at Art in Speed Park in Sellersburg.  It's a great show!

A Box to Berea

Today, I sent off a necklace to be included in an upcoming exhibit at the Artisan's Center in Berea, Kentucky. The exhibit is Works by Members of the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen, opening March 5 and running through August 20.

The Artisan's Center is one of the greatest one-stop-eye-candy-overload-places you can imagine. It's chock full of some of the finest artisan crafts you'll find. Honestly, I have done some serious damage to my wallet shopping for gifts in their shop, and enjoyed every moment.

To say I'm thrilled to have a piece in an exhibit at this location is like saying the East Coast has seen a couple of snowflakes this winter.

"Understatement" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Check out the Artisan's Center website: http://www.kentuckyartisancenter.ky.gov/index.aspx

Or, if you're ever driving on I-75 in Kentucky, by all means take exit 77 and treat yourself to a wonderful hour or so of great art. I promise you won't be disappointed.

What I Do

Beadweaving. Creating fabric, structure, texture from myriads of infinitessimal seed beads. Madness? Maybe. Frustrating? Frequently. Obsessive? Magnificently.

While I do a lot of stringing, beadweaving is a special kind of love. So here is a sample of my recent beadwoven work. This one is a poppy jasper donut as the delicious centerpiece of a freeform peyote necklace. Freshwater pearls and some red jasper add spice.