Finished By Friday 3 bracelets



This week I set my sights on finishing 3 beaded bracelets that I started some time ago.  The pearl one in right angle weave (far right) must have been started at least 4 years ago and just sat around in an almost finished state all that time.  It really only needed a clasp and a few tiny picots added on the side, and one bead repositioned.

 My favorite in the batch is the peyote scallop shaped bracelet with my stoneware fired and tumbled handmade beads.  It came out so much better than I thought it would.  I had to add some of the beads to the surface of the bracelet since it was no longer possible to work them in as most of the others are.  But it hardly looks that way.  I also like the way the button fits in.  When the clasp is closed on the wrist it looks really cool I think.

 The necklace below is included in this weeks post because I repaired it and made it wearable again by today.  I am counting it for that reason.  I also made this one at least 2 years ago.

Thank you for stopping by and helping me be motivated to finish all these pieces.

Bead Table Wednesday Jan26 2011

Here is a picture of what is on my bead table today.  Beautiful glass lampwork beads from by Bead Soup Partner Genea . What a fabulous selection.  And in addition, she sent me findings, colored cord and stringing materials and some cool jump rings and colored o rings.  Amazing!!!  Thank you so much Genea.  I love every piece you sent.

My Bead Soup Partner: Genea Beads --- Lucky Me!!!

Love Daisy-Aster- Handmade lampwork bead glass daisy heart ring on an adjustable base by Genea Beads

I am so lucky to be been partnered with Genea Beads for the Bead Soup Blog Party.  Thank you, Thank you Lori!!!!!

I am showing you photos from Genea's Etsy Shop.  She is a very talented lampwork glass artist.  I love her use of color and form.  She is fun and innovative, as you can see from these pics.  She has already made up beads for my soup and they are in the mail.  Should arrive today or Monday.  I can't wait!!!  I am busily making a surprise package for her as well.

Hawaiian Lei- hand made lamp work bead fringe and dangle bracelet by Genea Beads

Amandas Rekkets- handmade lampwork bead set discs by Genea Beads 

Heart Burst Tabs-handmade lampwork set of 5 tab beads by

Genea Beads

  You can see a pic of her new  TriFlower Trumpet bead that she designed especially for me on her Facebook page.  I feel so honored!!!

This is going to be such a fun Bead Soup Blog party!!!

Lorelei's Fusion Beads.com Challenge Night Owl's Perch

clasp using the green leather cord

 As soon as I saw Lorelei's list of beads for this FusionBeads.Com challenge, I knew I was going to do a freeform peyote stitch necklace for my contribution.  I had never worked with those little tiny drop seed beads and I imagined a necklace with lots of fringe using them and the leaves.  But, peyote stitch has a way of being very bossy.  I mean bossy!!  Once I picked out the back ground seed beads which are a mix of size 6, and started stitching them together the style of the necklace changed. 
I was able to use the following from her recommendations:  The green cord to make the clasp; the fire polished glass beads, some Lucite leaves that I had on hand from the Beadin' Path since I couldn't  find the bigger ones anywhere; those lovely wooden beads ( there are a few worked into the beadweaving); the tiny size 11 drop beads ( they are used on the clasp, to attach the leaves and to fancy up the top front of the necklace); the owl clasp--I ordered it and it sat on my bead table but would not join in, so I kept its presence in the title of the piece:  Night Owl's Perch.  We do have a barn owl that lives in the trees around our house and I hear it hooting frequently and can imagine where it sits while it hoots--hence the name.

another pic of the clasp

closeup of the front of the necklace showing off the glass beads and the leaves and those wonderful tiny drop beads

An overview of the necklace

Another overview of the necklace

As you can see from the pics the necklace stands up on its own.  That is how it is made.  I have sewn it to be stiff and stand up around my neck when I am wearing it.  It looks good that way.  Actually I stressed over this while I made the necklace but went with it and enhanced what it was already doing by sewing in and out of the beads quite a few times.  I also used a double strand of Fire Line size D to make it stiffer.

I must say that I enjoyed making this necklace, shopping for the beads and dealing with the parameters of the challenge.  This has been such fun.

THANK YOU LORELEI

I hope you will hop over and see the other folks that participated.  Here is the list:  The links are live.

http://lorelei1141.blogspot.com/

http://www.blogger.com/goog_126855337



http://beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com/

http://beadhappytoday.blogspot.com/



http://thebeaddreamer.com/blog

http://dreamsomedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://fryestyle.blogspot.com/

http://www.madmaggiedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://reginaswritings.blogspot.com/





http://www.mylifeunderthebus.typepad.com/

http://jennibead.blogspot.com/

http://maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com/

http://silverrosedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://lindalandig.wordpress.com/





http://fireflymyst.blogspot.com//

http://www.awishandacloud.blogspot.com/

http://spiritrattles.blogspot.com/

http://formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com/

BTW Wednesday

Here is what is on my bead table this morning,  Wednesday, January 19, 2011.  It is a bracelet that is coming along but needs some major work before it is ready.  I am adding one more of the teal blue beads along the top with the others.  Then I will see what I come up with.  I may use one of the  buttons in the photo.  The sew on flowers in the photo are just there, but I am not sure if I will them.  It just occurred to me that I might use  one for the button clasps instead of a button.  Not sure yet.  I will probably work on defining the scallop shape some more and maybe make it a bit wider at the top.  Those are my ideas right now.
Thank you for looking.  Make sure to check  BTW Flickr! Group and see what others are doing.

New in My Etsy Shop

This is a small sew on bead which I think would work well on peyote stitch or bead embroidery.  I have been using them on my peyote stitch pieces and plan to do more.

It was 20 degrees below zero this morning when I got up.  Now the house is super warm and I am by the fire beading.  I don't think I will get to my barn studio before afternoon.  By then it may be above freezing!!!  LOL! Over the weekend I added these pieces to my Etsy Shop

These are also sew ons

This is a new toggle clasp in wonderful muted blues, purples, burgundies with a faint clover leaf pattern in the background

A small toggle in red brown with dark brown imprinted leaves and leaf toggle bar

These three sew ons went on Reserve right after they were listed. 

I love these colors together in this pendant SOLD

Hope it is warmer where you are today.  The good thing about cold weather today is that the whole sky is bright blue and the sun is shining its heart out.  What a glorious way to celebrate Martin Luther King.

Finished By Friday Almond Blossom Necklace

This week I made it to the finish line again.  But actually there was not all that much to do to finish up the necklace pictured above.  Almond Blossoms, as I call this necklace, was originally inspired by the Art Bead Scene March 2010 Challenge painting of the same name by Van Gogh . I just didn't get it finished quite in time.  I was intrigued by the combination of the blue sky, green leaves and cream colored almond blossoms

and felt challenged to try out some color combinations I don't usually use.  I made the necklace mostly with peyote stitch but seems I switched over to a loose kind of herringbone stitch on the straps.  All of the ceramic beads and sew on flowers were made by me.  Some of them especially for this project.  I like the idea of sew on beads and charms for peyote stitch and bead embroidery. 

 I have just now put a few on Etsy just in case your interest has been perked.

Below is a pic of the necklace before I finished it up this week.. Hard to tell the difference except that it wasn't quite wearable yet.  No clasp.

thank you for stopping by

Bead Table Wednesday

I am participating in Heather Power's Bead Table Wednesday.   Today is the the day to upload a photo of what is on our bead tables.  I am working on several pieces at once: one of them is my necklace for Lorelei's Fusion Beads Challenge.  That one I will share on the reveal date, Jan. 20.  So today my photo is of a couple of new pieces I am working on.  One is a necklace with this gorgeous pendant I received in the mail from my friend Stefanie of Stefanies Sammelsurium . It goes beautifully with some of the glass beads from the Lorelei challenge.  The other piece is a necklace I am working on for a friend in Arizona.  It is long overdue so I am happy to have this BTW group to spur me along.  You can see what others are doing at their bead table by checking out the BTW Flickr group.

2nd Saturday State of Your Studio

Here it is the 2nd Saturday State of Your Studio post by MarshaNeal Studio on the Beads-of-Clay blog.  Now we have a banner we can post on our blog to make it easier for folks to see what we are all doing.  Everyone who wants to participate can, you can be any kind of maker, designer or collector.  The more the merrier.  Just grab the url from this pic by clicking on it and going to properties and copy that address to your blog Gidget editor for pictures and enter it in the web url slot and link it back to the beads of clay.

Here are my goings on in my studio since we last did this.  First a nice vacation over the Holidays.  Then my husband installed new high output  flourescent lights in my studio.  It had been a little dark and shadowy in there with the older, small flouresents.  Of course that was a bit of a mess on top of the mess so I have a lot of clean up to do still. 

Since I have been doing a few new things in the area of explorations.  I have been trying to rivet letter disks to a premade copper bracelet.  See pic below. 

 And turning 1/4 inch copper pipe into toggle bars.  See pics below.

As for plans, I am promising myself I will try out copper clay before the next 2nd Saturday State of Your Studio and have some new beads I am working on ready for display and sale by then too.

Art Bead Scene January Challenge

Brown River by Wayne Thiebaud

This month Art Bead Scene's Challenge is to create, using at least one art bead, a work inspired by the painting Brown River by Wayne Thiebaud.  The minute I saw the painting I knew I would participate in the Challenge this month.  I was immediately transported to memories of my childhood spent in Hanford, California  located in the southern portion of the San Joaquin valley, part of the same vast agricultural area depicted in  this painting.  I have titled my necklace Brown River Remembered.

Here is what I wrote about my entry

I have fond childhood memories of the San Joaquin Valley as I lived there during 2nd and 3rd grade. We used to play in the irrigation ditches despite being forbidden due to the possible danger of water being released and filling them up suddenly. We were very careful and never had any mishaps. Loved the warm weather, the summer days that stretched on forever, and as an adult the realization that I had lived near where Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat took place.

I also have a memory of tubing down a wide brown river, but don't know the name of it. My Dad went with us and my Mom picked us up later. Seems it was a slow easy current and plenty warm outside.

Brown River Remembered

I think of the copper chain in this necklace as the brown river and the colorful ceramic beads as representation of the multitude of produce grown in the San Joaquin Valley and my love for color.  The necklace is very fluid and the silk ribbon from which the charms hang adds to the feel of the movement of water as the necklace shifts and undulates quite a bit when I wear it.  The stamped copper tag "Create Art" with the heart hanging from it stands for my wish to be an artist which began in childhood long before I knew how I would make it happen.

Finished For Friday

One of the things I have planned to do for 2011 is to finish up some necklaces and bracelets that I have started.  I thought I might be able to motivate myself if I blogged about them on a specific day each week.  Hence the title for this blog post today. 

The necklace above is one I began last summer.  Got stuck and moved on to other things.  When I began to work on it this week, it look almost like the pic below:

I have noted in the photo some of the parts that were not on the necklace when I started this week.  It was actually not that much to do so I was able to meet my goal of getting finished by today.

closeup of the front portion with one of my stamped copper rings from Harbor Freight

those beautiful sea glass dark red brown beads are from The Beadin' Path and the seed beads are from Shipwreck Beads

close up of the clasp with one of my ceramic beads

Well I have met my goal for this week.  The one I have picked for next week only needs a little more to be finished so I should be able to get that one posted as well.

Thank you so much for joining me today and boosting my motivation to finish up.

Bead Soup Blog Party Sign Up starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Jan. 7 is the beginning of the sign up period.  Goes to Jan 14.  Party is on Saturday Feb. 26.  I am definitely in this time.  I was in the first one, skipped the 2nd one and am ready now to Party again.  Hope to see you there.

detail of necklace I made when I participated last time My trading partner was Lisa Oram.  Those are her beautiful glass lampwork beads

You can learn more about how the party works and sign up here

The Path

It snowed just a bit .  Just enough to make a path in the landscape.   I love the way it leads off into the horizon.  Certainly an invitation to get out and do some exploring.

Hand painting some new pieces

They come out of the kiln this morning

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!

My word for the year is Explore!!

May you have many wonderful explorations this year too.

Some wonderful winter plants found while out exploring.