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? 

Wherein We Recuperate from Bead and Button Shopping

Holy cow.  Y'all, I have been to some big bead shows in my day, but nothing quite prepared me for the wonder, the spectacle, the complete eye candy overload that was the marketplace of the Bead and Button Show.

Now, I used to live in Milwaukee, a mere hop and skip from where the Bead and Button show is held. But the annual show wasn't started until a few years after I moved away.  (I've always taken that a little personally.)  And I've always had it on my bucket list to go. When I moved to Chicago this year, it became a much more likely possibility.

So Sunday, I headed up the road. Got to the Wisconsin Center right as the show opened.  I was ready. Or so I thought. After two hours, I had only made my way through two rows of about seven or eight. And I had only four hours left. That's when I kicked it into high gear and power shopped.

Knowing that it would be WAY too easy to spend too much, I had decided that I would only shop for things I couldn't find at home or at regular bead shows.  So I concentrated on art beads, special findings, and things that I knew I'd kick myself the next day for not buying.  No seed beads (gasp!!), no Czech glass, no gemstone beads.  Ready?  Here goes:

First, the gemstone cabs:

Isn't this delicious? It's copper mosaic turquoise (that I grabbed the instant the woman next to me put it down)

(l to r, top row: ruby in zoisite, rhyolite, lapis. Bottom: crazy lace agate)

Two jaspers, just begging to be bezeled

And the art beads:

I've been lusting after Golem Beads for a long time.  I finally got some!

BeadyGirl Beads - fun!

Diane Hawkey - sublime

Beautiful paisley beads from Dyed in the Fire

Not technically all beads, but two Czech buttons and some new Czech shapes from Lisa Kan

Sharon Peters - not some of her great, whimsical creatures, but these beads will always
remind me of the hysterically funny conversation I had with this joyful lady

Time for the true confession - there were also some less visually exciting purchases, like lots of chain, some gold filled wire (now that the price has come down to nearly human levels), and some ultrasuede for backing.

If you ever have the chance to go to Bead and Button, you should go.  One of these days my schedule will allow me to go for some classes as well, but for now, I've got this one crossed off the bucket list. And I'm already planning for next year's journey!

She Who Should Have Been Shared Earlier

This little darling existed in an unfinished state for a while, but she finally got herself together.  Or rather, I finally got myself together to finish her and take pictures!

When I moved in October, she traveled in her incompleteness in a UFO box. When I started getting settled in, she was the first thing I reached for to work on.  The ocean jasper cab is one of my favorites -- but then, I'm a sucker for that gemstone anyway.

The challenge I set myself on this piece was to attach the neck strap to the pendant without weaving a bail or loop.  I incorporated the edging of the pendant into the tubular herringbone of the neck strap as I wove it, and I'm very happy with the result.  (Of course, I forgot to take a picture from an angle where you can actually see what I'm talking about....) Each time I used an edging bead in the strap, I did the whole round in that kind of butterscotch color.  You can kind of see the variegation in the part of the strap that is visible, showing that every other round is where a pendant edging bead was used as an attachment.  The result is particularly nice when wearing the necklace, because the clasp can't come squirreling down to the front of the necklace, and the pendant always hangs the way it should.

The picasso glass daggers were a serendipity -- I bought them "just because", and only by chance did I put them near this piece on the worktable.  They matched so beautifully, it was meant to be.

I ought to have shared her here before, but better late than never (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

The Queen's Tiara

Finally, after WAY too long, here is something relatively fresh off of the worktable.

This crazy lace agate cabochon has been living in the back of the bead drawer for years.  I love the beautiful colors and whorls of this stone.  The shades of grey and pink are so soft, but the striations make the whole thing graphic.  It looks like a designer topographical map.

I decided to surround the cab with soft pink freshwater pearls, but I wanted to make them a little playful.  So they're standing on end.  One's a little wonky in this photo, but he's since been disciplined back into line.

The final result looks kind of like a tiara of pearls surrounding the cabochon.  Or a starburst.  Or a crown roast (that last one may be because I'm hungry...).

I'm gonna go with the tiara comparison.

The Beading Equivalent of A Juicy Beach Read

I had a few days of vacation over the Fourth.

In addition to hanging out with friends and family, relaxing, eating WAY more than I should have, and nearly having my car shot up by a dozen cannons, I did a little bit of beading.

I concentrated on smaller projects that could travel easily. Low stress, easy on the brain (like a cheesy romance novel), quick to complete yet strangely satisfying (like a great whodunnit or thriller).

Things that could be put down and picked back up at a moment's notice.

Because frankly, you never know when an ice cream cone will call your name, so you need to be able to drop what you're doing and answer the summons of the praline pecan.

So I did some embroidered components that will become bracelets or pendants. Or perhaps the turquoise and floral vintage cabs will become cute little earrings.

And while I finish them off, I promise I'll jog in place to burn off the scoops of praline pecan that lured me during vacation. (Sadly, my friends, that promise is probably as fictional as any cheesy romance novel you may read this summer. But I will show you the final pieces when I finish up the cabs!)