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.

Art Bead Scene April Submission Aphrodite's Robe

My Art Bead Scene Submission for April is inspired by Botticelli's The Birth of Venus as that is the ABS theme for this month. I have been inspired by the colors of Venus' robe and the feathers of the Zephyrs. I think the use of crusted pearls and pearl sticks was also inspired by the painting since it is of rising from the sea, but it was not a conscious choice. Color is always the first factor when I design a free form peyote piece. This necklace features two of my handmade ceramic star flower beads which pick up the blues and reds in the size 6 transparent rainbow root beer beads.The orange teardrop carnelian beads are from Artbeads.com. The button clasp is a Victorian metal button that fits in well with the other colors.

Beads 2009

YEAH!! I'm in. Below are the photos of my pendants picked by Beads 2009--described by the editors as "the coolest beads and findings available on the market today."

I am so pleased. You can see these pieces on my website here. They are on a special 30% off sale to celebrate.

Many other ceramic beads and pendants were also picked. You can see the entire list and links of all of the Beads of Clay members who were chosen on that blog later this week.

Torched

I have been so busy with prepping, teaching and firing for my Making Fused Glass Jewelry Class that I haven't been blogging much. And then I had a free day and I tried out my Mapp gas torch on some 20 gauge copper wire and 24 gauge copper sheet. What fun. I had drawn a bead on fine silver but never on copper. I could have gone on for hours. And what an indescribable red the bead is. Like a ruby in the rough.

The pendant below is made by a student in my glass class. Great combo with the copper. What a vibrant pendant. She had never made anything in fused glass before.

Beautiful pendants and links for a bracelet by Mary K, a student in my class.

Beautifl color in these stunning pendants and brooch made by June.Marita made these intricate and wildly colorful pendants and earrings.These delicate tiny links for a bracelet were made by Laura.

How lucky I was to spend such an exciting afternoon with such a talented group.

Book Sale Find

I recently went to a book sale in a small village in Canada. I had a wonderful time despite the fact that there wasn't a bank in town for changing money and the wait in line was a freezing experience.

I found a wonderful book about the history of jewelry called Jewelry Ancient to Modern (with about 714 illustrations that are numbered and explained in detail) which I have checked and found is available on Amazon.com. (used). I was so excited to see the photo above which depicts Egyptian faience figures. I have always wanted to see how these were used in jewelery since I have molds of them from the Metropolitan Museum and have made quite a few in the past out of clay and Paste Clay which simulates faience quite well.

In any case, the book is just packed with illustrations from the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Etruscan, Byzantine, and on to the present with the more recent work being that of Lalique.

This book has more illustrations than any other historical book about jewelry that I have seen. Indeed a great bargain at $1.00.

Use the Muse Contest

Here are two photos of my entry in the Use the Muse Contest organized by Scarlet Lanson. I enjoyed making my piece as I had never used Filigree in my bead work. The Challenge kit came with many lovely swarovski crystals, pearls and tiny seed beads. I used my own size 6 and 8 seed beads for most of the bracelet and then used the small beads for more detailed decoration. You can view all of the entries in the Use the Muse and see the winners here.

Others that I know who are also in this contest are Lorelei, Melissa Lee , Christi Clothier and Andrew Thornton ( he won a prize).

Thank you Scarlet for doing the contest. I really enjoyed making my piece.

Below are some close up shots and a different view so that you can see the vinatage button and how I clasped the bracelet.

Carved tree pendant and wrapped felt bead

Today I am showing off a photo of a new tree pendant that I made and then strung with a wrapped felt and wire bead. I carved the tree into clay and made a mold. Then I fired an impression from the mold, stained it and painted with multiple colors. It is simply coincidence that the colors match the wire wrapped felt bead. The bead is one I learned how to make in a tutorial by Deryn Mentock which you can see here. The tutorial for making the wire wrapped beads is now on sale at her Etsy shop.What a wonderful tutorial. It has sparked so many ideas for me. Thank you again Deryn. The felt on the bead was made by me also. It was an unsuccessful flower that I have been cutting up to wrap around the metal bead frames which are then wrapped with the wire and seed beads. I love it the way something unsuccessful in one context is great in another.

New Colorful Clover

These are some colorful clover pendants that I made last week. I have them listed on my Etsy shop for now as they are one of a kind.
I think they go along with welcoming Spring after a long cold winter. In the Northeast we had more cold than usual. Colors look so hopeful and cheerful. I am glad that the weather is changing. This is the best time of year because we have so many months of great weather to look forward to.