MaryHardingJewelry and MarshaNealStudio Etsy Sales Today

LABOR DAY WEEKEND SALE ON MaryHarding's ETSY SHOP
and my friend Marsha Minutella's MarshaNealStudio Etsy Shop

We are both in the mood for a sale and want to make room for new work that will be coming soon in our shops. I hope you will stop over and join us in our exciting discounts for this very special weekend that honors all our labors.

40% off the listed price will go into effect at Noon Thursday Sept. 3 and continue until 12Midnight on Labor Day Monday, Sept. 7th . Prices listed will reflect the 40% off sale.

For example, the Vintage Heart above is now listed at $12.00. Once the sale begins it will be only $7.20.

Here are the rest of the price breaks you will see:

$30.00 will be $18.00

$28.00 will be $16.80

$26.00 will be $15.60

$24.00 will be $14.40

$22.00 will be $13.20

$20.00 will be $12.00

$18.00 will be $10.80

All sales will be shipped out on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

New on Etsy

Ceramic Pendant

Young oak leaves pendant

Fused glass ring on Sterling silver plate band and bezel

Vintage ceramic heart pendant

Fused glass ring


I am planning a 40% off of all my ceramic pieces on my Etsy Shop for the Labor Day Weekend beginning on Thursday, Sept. 3th through Tuesday Sept. 8th. I will have all the prices marked down by sometime on Thursday and will issue you a revised invoice if you get there before the prices are marked down on Thursday. The new fused glass rings are the only pieces that won't be marked down. Happy Shopping!!

Ceramic Family Time

My family has been visiting. My son, his wife and two children. We have been having fun with clay.

Their oldest child age 7 made the happy figure below. We are trying a smooth white stoneware clay (Laguna). My first time with this clay as I mentioned in a previous post. Here is a picture of a grape leaf from out garden pressed into the clay and pushed into a paper bowl for a mold.

I have an ancient kick wheel which they also have been trying out. The youngest asks: "Can we do pottery now." He made a small bowl.

I love this press bowl my son and daughter-in-law made from a giant brussel sprout leaf.

We always have a great time when they are here.

Lots of small toggles

Recently I rounded up a bunch of my small toggles and took a picture of them. They are clasped with a hammered copper bar I have purchased from ArtBeads or Fusion Beads. This weekend I have been trying out a smooth white stoneware clay with my family that is visiting. We have been making slump plates and bowls and I am trying it out with my small pendants. It is lovely and smooth and very nice to work with. Hope that it holds detail after the firings.

Looking for the Sun

When I first took this photo a few days ago, I called it Looking for the Sun. It was an overcast day and this was my lone sunflower that was in bloom. Miraculously, since that day, the sun has begun to shine. Yesterday we had a full day without rain, and more are predicted. I think five in a row. That will be a record. We have had rain almost every day, since June 25. I am very excited about the chance to go swimming and feel warm day and night.

Student Work

These are photos of student work from my recent Fused Glass Jewelry class at the Thousand Islands Craft School at the Handweaving Museum in Clayton, NY. Students were taught how to make a pendant with a hidden slide, earrings, pendants with bails and bracelets. I did all of the firing, and assembling of the jewelry after the class in my studio. It only takes about an hour to fire the pieces but way too many hours to cool to finish during the class time. Class was 4 hours. I have attended a class where the firing was done during the class but it was a 6 hour class and very little time was available for making the pieces. Teaching the hidden slide takes up quite a bit of time and I like to give students time to try out different designs and look at all the glass.

Here are two examples of the hidden slide and one of the bracelets. All the students did beautiful work.

Earrings and a pendant with a cold fused (glued on) bail. I love the thick rubber cord with some of these larger pendants.

Begin at the Ending

My daisy toggle clasp was chosen as a finalist for the BeadStyle Magazine clasp challenge. I was totally surprised by this honor. Now the 6 finalists are up for a vote. You can see all of them on page 52 of the current issue of Beadstyle Magazine. (September)

You can vote for your favorite (through September 1) at BeadStyleMag.com/challenge!

You can see my Daisy toggle clasp on my website.

Lots of Littles

These are some small toggles and charms that I glazed up a few days ago. I am still struggling with the toggle bar and have been using ones I have purchased from Fusion Beads. But in the back of my mind I am hatching a plan to try making some with the new Copprclay. Just have to get up my courage to commit to the expense of the extra equipment needed for firing them. I have the kiln but you need a stainless steel pan and some charcoal.

Work in Progress

A friend wanted these lovage beads for a bracelet class she is going to take. I made a section for her to see how they will look. I wasn't sure how square beads would be but I am pleasantly surprised.

A Winner Again!!!

I had no idea that I had won such an incredible assortment of Green Girl Studios charms when Andrew Thornton contacted me. In fact I didn't really know what the Giveaway was when I entered. I just wanted to make a suggestion and an offer to promote Cynthia Thornton's book Enchanted Adornments. And then a few days later, when I was in the middle of a blog giveaway winning streak these lovelies arrived in the mail. I just had to post a photo of them. And I am sure they will show up in my next newsletter as well. Way before the book is available for me to write a review. Thank you so much Cynthia and Andrew.

I'm The Winner!!!

I just found out that I won the beautiful bracelet above from the RoundRabbit giveaway. I am so excited to own this beautiful bracelet. I can't believe that I am so lucky. Thank you Nancy for having this wonderful giveaway. I'll be hanging out at the P. O. waiting for it to arrive!!

Classes at the Thousand Island Craft School

This is the type of Right Angle Weave bracelet we will be making. Everyone's will be unique

Some examples of fused glass pendants I've made to give students ideas

Some of the stitches on my RAW step by step directions sheet that I made

I have been busy this last week preparing for my annual teaching day at the Thousand Islands Craft School in Clayton, NY. This year I am offering Fused Glass Jewelry Making and a Right Angle Weave Bracelet Class. I have spent a lot of time making a RAW step by step photo display for the bracelet I am teaching. It has come out well thanks to Picasa and Open Office. Great programs if you have not yet discovered them. I hope to have these directions ready for a PDF downloadable ebook before too long.

New Bracelets with Toggles

Bracelet made with wood beads, my raku and ceramic toggle. I have entered it into the ArtBeadScene July contest.
Wire wrapped square wooden beads, my ceramic toggle clasp
White wood beads, my raku and ceramic toggle clasp

My ceramic beads, and ceramic toggle clasp, metal spacer beads

New Work

Here is a newly created Maple Wings circular pendant with a slightly different coloring.
I have been working on some new ceramic pendants. Here is one I really like of some young oak leaves. It is so interesting that these just formed leaves look more like feathers than the image we have of oak leaves. This pendant does not have a hole in it. It could be a cabochon or I was thinking of affixing a bail to it. I wanted to see what it looked like first without a hole.

These have been added to my webstore for purchase here.

Backing Up

A fused glass connector or pendant
A riveted coppper pendant

One of my thistle pendants in browns.

A fun Lady Liberty I made a while ago. Now that we are having summer I thought of her.

Now that I have experienced my first computer crash and loss of so many photos and emails and documents, I am trying to be dilligent about getting my photos on Flickr! at least. Here are some I put on recently.

Learning a New Stitch

On Saturday, I was able to learn a new off loom beadweaving stitch at our local arts council. The pictures above are of first the bracelet that we were taught -- a wonderful elegant Victorian style cuff bracelet. This is one of Ginny Burnett's specialities. We were lucky to have her for a teacher. The bronze colored bracelet is the bracelet that I made later when I got home. I always like to do another very soon after a beading class so that I will be sure to remember what I learned. Now I will have a model.

The bracelet we made in class features an off loom stitch called Herringbone. This can be a very supple stitch and is often used for flat straps and bracelets. I have wanted to learn this for some time but I don't do too well trying to learn beading stitches from a book. The live experience is what works for me and Ginny did a great job.

My friend Sally Hartmann, Ladies First Gallery, came with me as she also enjoys bead weaving.
Afterwards we did some bead shopping at a great shop that surprised me beyond my wildest dreams. More on that later i.e. my newsletter.

Ginny taught the class using size 11 seed beads. Her choices of colors for each of the three styles: Peacock, Fire and Sea were exquisite. I chose Peacock and they were were so beautiful. We spent the three hours in the class learning the stitches and making part of a bracelet. And as you can see, I took photos as well.

But to really get that stitch into my mind, I needed to make another bracelet in my favorite size beads, 8 and often 6. I chose to make my bracelet in size 8 seed beads and used 4 different colors.

Mine is quite different from the elegant, Victorian style that Ginny is so good at, but I really like mine to.

If you want to learn even more about Herringbone stitch, you can visit Ginny's blog. She also has a wonderful Etsy supply store called Goblin's Market and a jewelry store.

Art Bead Scene Challenge for June

Above photo of my beading in progress.

My entry for this month's Art Bead Scene Challenge is a free form peyote stitch necklace featuring my handmade ceramic beads. The copper swirl beads that hang from the center and sides are wire wrapped with my own torched copper ball end pins. The central beaded flowers are ringed in tiny Tangerine beads. These colors are all muted expressions of the bright colors in our inspiration piece, Farbstudie Quadrate by Wassilly Kandinsky.

Back On Line

A bowlful of beads the only edited photo on my new harddrive

I am very excited to have a computer again and to be back on line.A special thanks to my son Brian who express mailed me a Linova Think Pad.

It is really true that I missed having one a great deal. Although I still had email, I didn't have access to my photos, or my photo editing program. Since I couldn't upload photos during that time, I didn't do any blogging. I was able to publish my newsletter since I had done most of it before my hard drive died--all I had to add was words.

Thank you so much, all of you who took the time to vote for me in the Bead Star contest. I have not heard how that turned out.

I am promising myself that I will put all of my photos on Flickr! now and back up my drive more often. Last time was a year ago.

RAW and Toggle

Here is a photo of one of my Right Angle Weave bracelets with one of my ceramic toggles. The suppleness of the beadweaving and the size of the seed beads seem to enhance my toggle. I love this combo. This particular bracelet has been donated to my daughter-in-law's school where they will be having an auction soon.

Those little copper beads (there are two of them) feature the earliest Spring flower the Trillium.

Riveting

Last week when I was recovering from the regular flu and spent a lot of time on the couch, I was able to view this DVD several times. I really like it and I have learned how to make rivets. It took a lot of practice as Susan tells us it will but I can now make a wire rivet with 16 gauge and 14 gauge wire.

As many, I have been an admirer of Susan Lenart Kazmer for many years. I have just recently purchased her book and now this video. I have never met her but I can tell that she is a very engaging person and in the DVD I found her to be a great teacher as well.

I bought my copy of the DVD from Beading Daily and it arrived speedily. I highly recommend this tutorial if you are burning to learn riveting as I was.

After many practice rivets, I made the piece below which I have enjoyed wearing. Metal is quite amazing. Now I hope to move on the riveting stones, glass and ceramics. We will see.