7/20/12

Zombie Crush

I fell head over heels for a Zombie. I drove across the state of Georgia to the South Carolina border yesterday to see it in person. The zombie in question is the creation of Lesley at Sweet Freedom Designs. An unfinished project brought back from the grave and given new life as the first in Lesley’s 2012 Zombie Project.

A Zombie no more, Sweet Freedom's elegant Iolite Fringe Necklace

It’s a stunner, sumptuous, lightweight and pure elegance around your neck. I indulged in the luxury of wearing it for a few moments in Lesley’s store, YaYa Beads, in Augusta. YaYa is a creative oasis where inspiration abounds, both in Lesley’s finished pieces and her fabulous inventory. If you’re not yet a follower, click over to her blog – you’re in for a treat!

We spent the lunch hour sharing our tentative designs for the upcoming Bead Soup Blog Party. I brought the Fire focal from the Bead Soup bounty I received from Evie and Beth McCord of EB Bead and Metal Works, and we discovered the perfect lampwork beads and pearls to round out my design.

My sister, who is my biggest fan, has a birthday coming up, and I knew I would find the perfect focal bead for an end-of-summer necklace. A survey of the store added strands of chrysocolla, pearls and some beautifully reflective firepolish beads for a little extra shine. Won’t these look fantastic with a pop of yellow-orange from my stash?

Time to head to the bead table. I have some pressing projects – and some Zombies of my own - to bring to life!

7/5/12

Bead Soup Bounty

Our mail carrier was very late making it down our street today. So late that my husband was home from work when I walked in from the mailbox with a large box that held what I knew would be my bead soup from partners Evie and Beth McCord of EB Bead and Metal Works. And, oh! What a bead soup! Six jewelry boxes were neatly stacked inside.

The first two boxes held these blue enameled copper pendants, handmade by my partners, which brought to mind the sky and sea. As you turn the pendant on the left in your hand, the blues change from inky to royal, and I love the cooler blue and bisque-white pendant on the right, inviting the eye to explore its contours.

The third and fourth boxes held these attention-getting focals, with the drama of red, black and orange and the burnished landscape palette on the right.

The final boxes revealed this fabulous and oh-so-generous coordinating collection of lampwork beads and a silver clasp. All but the clasp were hand made by Evie and Beth!

As I stood in awe of the bounty now glittering across my kitchen table, my husband said, “Those don’t look like the kind of materials you usually work with.” Exactly! That’s where the fun and challenge of the Bead Soup Blog Party comes in. I have never worked with enameled focals, and rarely use lampwork beads in my designs. I am certainly out of my element, far from my creative comfort zone, and I’m SO excited!

Our reveal date is August 11^th. But you don’t have to wait until then to check out the sites of the talented mother/daughter McCord team. You can see more of their enameled copper and lampwork designs on Etsy, savor their Flickr spread, and read all about this talented family on their blog.

6/12/12

A Time to (Herringbone) Stitch

When Therese of Therese's Treasures was looking for a way to celebrate her one-year blogoversary, she teamed up with Christine of One Kiss Creations, and their A Time to Stitch Challenge was born. The requirement was simple: both new and experienced beaders were encouraged to create a piece using herringbone stitch, peyote stitch, or both.

I'm quite sure I'm not the first beader to be captured by the seduction of peyote stitch. It was the first stitch I learned, and it was love at first sight. Herringbone and I had a more platonic relationship, until I began experimenting with different sized beads and realized how versatile and surprising this stitch can be.

One of my favorite herringbone patterns is Virginia Jensen's Spinner Rims from the October 2009 issue of Bead and Button. Spinner Rims got me thinking about herringbone in a new way, and although I'd created several earrings from the pattern, had never considered using it for a pendant. I had the perfect focal for it, a turquoise, orange, and deep chocolate brown flower disc by Susan Barnes of the Fire Goddess. I love the feeling of momentum this pattern gives to the pendant.

The second component in my necklace uses a smaller disc in the same colorway, accented by Mexican opal teardrops.

I used peyote stitch to create a cradle to stabilize an uneven bottom surface on the second disc, and to fill in around the bezel. Staying with my complementary color palette of oranges and blues, I finished the necklace with a leaf charm and chain in artisan coppers.

Thanks to Christine and Therese for inspiring us with this challenge. Click on the links below to explore the rich possibilities of these stitches through the work of the other challenge participants.

Therese Frank and Christine Altmiller

Emma Andrews

Kim Bender

Lisa Stukel

Mandy Duffy
Cynthia Machata

Shirley Moore

6/6/12

Staying Organized - Tray Simple

How do you organize your work(s) in progress? My first year of beading, I worked on one piece until the last bead slid into place and the final knot was tied. Once I started taking classes and participating in challenges and hops, I needed a system to stay organized while I juggled multiple projects.

My solution came in the form of trays from BeadSmith. At 11”x14”, they can accommodate most everything needed for even my most ambitious designs, although I wish they were a little deeper than half an inch. Best of all, they’re stackable. I have limited myself to five – one for my monthly Bead Journal Project , one for my latest class, two for challenges and one for experimenting.

Great for taking a project from room to room when I'm seeking inspiration, they also travel well - just slip one into a two-gallon storage bag, and you're ready to go.

I store my trays on a small built-in desk in my bead room, and gather all the information for each project in its own folder. The pattern if I’m using one, challenge rules and deadlines, inspiration and colorway photos, bead receipts in case I need to purchase more of something (also great for pricing, if I plan to sell the piece), any sketches and notes of design ideas. That way, I never uncover a bottom tray I’ve set aside for several weeks (months!) and wonder, why are these triangle beads here?

My top tray today holds all the beads I’ve been pulling together for next week’s A Time to Stitch Hop. It’s a beautiful afternoon in the mid-seventies – tray and folder in hand, I’m heading outside to the deck to make some design decisions and get started!

6/3/12

May Bead Journal Project

With winter a no-show in Atlanta this year, my May Bead Journal Project celebrates the earliest, longest-running, and most colorful Spring in memory.

"Spring comes: the flowers learn their colored shapes."
- Maria Konopnicka

In April, a reader asked if my Bead Journal project would be used as a pendant, and I thought, why not make that my goal for this month? I oriented May's project horizontally, pairing it with some enameled rounds, a bold crystal and some leafy chain. It's ready to bring a bright touch of Spring floral to the simplest of outfits.

5/18/12

Old is New Again

As evidenced by my dwindling blog posts, beading has taken a back seat for awhile. After 25 years and much use, our kitchen was begging for a makeover. Dan and I would both put cooking near the top of our favorites list, but we'd been making do with a cooktop that only had two functioning burners for years! We began renovating every square inch of our kitchen in February, and once it was finished, we knew we wanted to dive back in and update the rest of the rooms on the first floor. With our two youngest graduated and moved to new cities and jobs, creating spaces that reflected our new lifestyle was an important factor, but fitting in a place to bead in each space was essential, too!

Replacing our multi-tiered island with a single-level design opened up the room. Lots of windows provide great natural light, which I can supplement with new can lights when needed. My new favorite place to bead!

Office: Organization is a key factor in any room, but for me, an uncluttered office is essential to getting any work done! A coat closet off the main hallway serves as a file room, and my tendency to file or recycle whatever hits my desk daily helps keep me humming along and my office neat and tidy.

Living Room: This room had been essentially empty for the last year, since giving our living room furniture to our son for his first apartment. That made repainting easy, and relocating our old family room furniture here turned this space into a cozy and relaxing retreat. In fact, it’s now one of our favorite rooms in the house!

The family room got a much-needed facelift with new seating, a retiled fireplace and neutral-colored walls. That green square on the floor? It marks the place for a black leather ottoman/coffee table/ bead table, due next month. This space is not quite finished, but the remaining tile, paint and carpeting are on Dan’s to-do-list. It's back to beading for me!

5/5/12

It's the One Crayon Color Hop!

When Sally Russick of the Studio Sublime announced her One Crayon Color Challenge, I immediately joined in, choosing to create a design using the tints, tones and shades of black.

I challenged myself to finally use this pendant and string of rutilated quartz. When I purchased them nearly two years ago, I knew the pendant would make a dramatic focal piece, but despite much experimenting, hadn’t found just the right design for it.

Once I framed the pendant in a beaded bezel, I was stumped by the top center-drilled hole. After trying and discarding several beaded embellishments, I settled on a simple daisy spacer topped by a marcasite square. The marcasite added a little extra shine without full-bore bling, a perfect complement to the creamy sheen of the stone.

Keeping to the tints and shades of black, a beaded bead (from a tutorial by Sharri Moroshok) and quartz drop add some color contrast to the focal without grabbing the spotlight. To complete the design, I hung the focal from a black and gray herringbone neckstrap, finished with a bit of etched chain to echo the silver in the daisy spacer.

Much thanks to Sally for dreaming up this challenge and hosting our hop, and for inspiring me to conquer my design dilemma. If you haven’t already, take a few minutes to click the links below and take in the designs of all the One Crayon Color participants.