Artfully Ornamental: beads

Showing posts with label beads. Show all posts

Monday, December 17, 2012

WOO-HOO! The Art Bead Love Tour is headed my way!

I am over the moon excited! The Art Bead Love Tour chain started by the lovely ladoes of Love My Art Jewelry is on its way to me!! I had a lovely surprise facebook email from Mimi Gardner of baubles, beads & other curiosities, the most recent holder of the chain, yesterday suggesting I take a peek at her recent blog post - I am ecstatic! I cannot wait to hold that beautiful piece of art in my hands and gaze upon it with my own two eyes. I'm not yet sure what I'll add to it, as I'd like to see what beauties I'd like to remove from it first! Stay tuned folks, your chance to win is coming up soon!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Andrew Thornton's September Readers' Challenge

This month's challenge hosted by Andrew was FUN! Purple/lavender are not colors I typically work with. I had a blast with this. Andrew is a master at combining interesting, colorful ingredients. I wish I lived nearby to him, I'd love to sit and have a conversation about creating over a mug of coffee or cup of tea (maybe he'll visit Maine some time).

Andrew created a luscious, luxury bead blend in shades of purple that also included some red-purple. In addition to the bead blend he included Swarovski crystals, vintage Miriam Haskell beads, purple Soft Flex beading wire, a dichroic bead, a Humblebeads small pussy willow charm from Heather Powers, two enameled flowers from Sarah of C-Koop Beads, a a "grow" connector from Heather Wynn-Millican of Swoondimples.

And, if this all wasn't enough, he included a mystery component and a length of silver plated chain. The mystery component, a handcrafted floral copper coin accented with gilders paste, created by Andrew himself.

Unfortunately, it took me a while to get to it. September is a complete BEAR at work (notice how gently I worded that Sarah ;) ) and I had committed to Andrew's challenge, Diana Ptaszynski of Suburan Girl Studio's Art Bead Earring Swap (loved it!), and Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party (fab! - Lori is amazing in my book). Can you say overextended? Thankfully for me, Andrew has had twso reaveal dates for the September challenge due to an unfortunate postal issue. He graciously let me extend my reveal to the second date. So, without further ado, my necklace (I'm not inventive enough to come up with names for my pieces):

The stacked focal of this piece incorporates two vintage copper flowers from my favorite bead store The Beadin' Path. The center of the focal is the larger of the two enameled flowers. I painted one of the copper flowers with enamel paint and wired them together. Ideally, I think I'd like to create a ball end copper headpin for the center. We'll see if I get to that or not. There's also a flaw that needs fixing. When I was punching the holes for stringing, one of the petals slipped and the hole was mis-punched, to salvage the flower I placed it at the bottom. Now that I've used ICE Resin, I'm going to use it to fill that little hole and use some copper leaf to repair it.

I added some oval brass links, vintage tortoise colored Czech glass two-hole connectors and red-purple dyed jasper coins from The Beadin' Path, a few other beads from various sources, and an enameled copper toggle. I am not sure the source of the toggle, I think I bought it at a bead show some time ago, but I can't be certain. It might be a C-koop, I'm just not sure.

I'm also in process with both a bracelet and earrings. This weekend is my weekend to finish unfinished projects (REALLY!). I'm going to finish this bracelet and earrings and my necklace from the BSBP. Come back next week to see! I need a clasp for this bracelet, I need to paint on the sea glass pieces and the vintage Czech glass pendant, drill the sea glass and change out the copper jump rings for brass. From Andrew's kit I've used the "grow" connector from Heather Winn-Millican, dichroic bead, his beautiful handcrafted mystery component coin and the small pussy willow pendant from Heather Powers. I really, really like it (I'll like it even better when I finish it!).

Please excuse the pictures. I should have taken them over the weekend while it was sunny, but I forgot. So you get early A.M. pictures on a cloudy day. One of these days I'll set up my light box. That's anothe story.

Thanks again for creating this challenge Andrew! Now, grab a cuppa' and visit the blogs of the other participants and check this link on Andrew's blog for his piece and a few others he posted on the first reveal day:

Lorelei Eurto

Sally Russick
Tara Linda
Paula Kramer
Melinda Orr
Beth Emery
Tracy Stillman
Heather Goldsmith
Lori Bowring Michaud
Rebecca Anderson
Debbie Price
Patty Gasparino

Have a great day!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Soup's On!!

Today is reveal day for Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party! YAY!! There are 362 participants in this event. To refresh your memory, this is the soup that my partner Marci Brooks sent to me:

Now, I haven't finished all of my projects. I know, I should have them all done, but life and my busy season at work has kept me from spending much time creating. So far I have used the clasp and the accent beads. The focal will be worked on this week & I'll post that creation in another post. So, what did I create? Well, using the clasp and accent beads I created a bracelet and earrings.

The earrings first:

I had made the PMC components about 6 years ago in a class I took in Hampden, Maine. I was going through my sterling scrap about a month ago to send to Rio Grande and came across them. I thought they'd make great earrings. I paired the PMC pieces with pink and green tourmaline heishi and 2 of the pearls Marci sent to me.

For the bracelet, I used pieces of seaglass and pottery shards I've collected and soldered, Marci's pearls, and the tourmaline heishi, and added two sizes of rose quartz rondelle beads.

I used the silver toggle in this piece (but I apparently did not get a very clear picture of it (sorry!). I love the colors of the bracelet. I've never made myself jewelry in pink/burgundy tones. I really, really like it.

The picture below is the soup I'm going to use with the flower pendant Marci sent me. I made a necklace about 5 years ago that I like a lot. It's a triple strand, and every time I wear it I tell myself I'm going to restring it because it's too short. The shortness is compounded by the fact that I've gained quite a bit of weight over the last few years. I've never put the soup away because I've always intended to fix the necklace.

I think the soup goes perfectly with the enameled flower! Below is a picture showing the soon to be restrung necklace:

Thank you again for my soup Marci. Be sure to check back in a few days and I'll post pictures of the completed necklace. Now, grab a cup of tea or coffee and go check out all the other Bead Soup Blog Party reveals!!

These are the partner pairs.

The Hostess, Lori Anderson and her partner, Manuela Wutschke

1. Aimee Wheaton and Barbara York

2. Alice Craddick and Sandra Richardson

3. Alison Sachs and Amy Severino

4. Allison Scott and Cynthia Abner

5. Amanda Cargill Austin and Charlene Sevier

6. Amanda Davie and Patsy Evins

7. Amber Dawn and Kim Ballor

8. Ambra Gostoli and Christine Hansen

9. Amy Freeland and Christine Altmiller

10. Ana Krepel-Novak and Eleanor Snare