Enamel Bead Sets

I took some time yesterday to clean up and examine the beads I enameled on Wednesday, and lo and behold, I had enough beads to put together 27 sets of beads!

And don't they look pretty on display in the shop?

Now maybe my enamel addiction can start paying for itself!

Tell me, would you rather buy beads like this in sets, or mix and match them as loose beads? I'd love to hear from you on this!

Tangle Challenge

I know I just started tangling 2 weeks ago, but I decided to enter a tangle challenge anyway. It's called the Diva Challenge, because it's hosted by The Diva! She hosts this challenge every week, with each challenge centered around a particular aspect of Zentangle, like a particular pattern, or maybe a string.

This week is Diva Challenge #77, and focuses on the tangle "Fiore di Pietro" (Flower of Peter), created by Rho Densmore as a tribute to her brother-in-law. You can read more about Fiore di Pietro at her blog.

So, for my fourth tangle, here is my interpretation of Fiore di Pietro:

Now I have to figure out how to use the linky tool, and try to get this post all hooked up with the challenge. Hope I do it right!

Zombie No More - The Iolite Fringe Necklace

It's done!

I am so excited (and relieved)!

The low down:

• 30 feet of sterling silver wire
• 75+ grams of seed beads
• 2 strands of iolite briolettes
• 2 strands of white freshwater pearls
• 4 strands of silver vitrail Czech firepolish beads
•  6 sterling silver crimp covers
• 1 sterling silver locking magnetic clasp
• well over 100 hours of labor

I absolutely love the finished necklace! The fringe cascades around the necklace, giving it gorgeous movement. It is 24 inches long, which is just perfect for this piece.

magnetic clasp - love the basket weave pattern!

fringe detail from the center (front) of the necklace

I am not going to rehash the history of this necklace - If you are interested, you can find most of it here. But, to make a long story short, I started this necklace in Fall, 2008, and put it away unfinished because it was so tedious. This year, I decided to commit to finishing some of my (hundreds of) unfinished projects, and this was the first one I tackled. I started it 4/13/12, and finished it this morning. There were quite a few set backs along the way, but I have something beautiful to show for all my work!

And it's available in my Etsy shop!

I want to thank my cheerleaders, who have cheered me on as I toiled: Maggie, Halinka, Karin, and Sonya. Thanks, ladies!

Now that this project is finished and off my worktable (!) I can move on! I have several NEW beadweaving projects picked out - I have been dying to start a new project! And after I finish a few of these new projects, I'll be digging up a new zombie - you won't want to miss that!

Maybe I should get some of this stuff, and spray all my new projects with a good coating, to make sure I don't give rise to any new zombies:

Wednesday Worktable

Happy July 4th!

I can't believe it is already 7:30 PM! The bead shop was closed today, so I decided to take advantage of that, and transform the classroom into my enamel studio again. I really have to have a day without interruptions in order to enamel with the torch.

I arrived at the shop at 10AM, and started clearing off the table in the classroom while the computer was booting up. I needed to print off the 50% off coupon for Michael's, and dash over there for one tube of bugle beads - shhhh...don't tell anyone the bead shop owner went to Michael's to buy beads!

Naturally, after I found the bead section (I've shopped at Michael's before for scrapbooking stuff, but I have never shopped there for beads! Really!) I stepped into the aisle, and ran smack into one of my customers from the bead shop. Of course, I accused her of cheating on me, and she then proceeds to ask ME for help making her beading purchases from Michael's. Geeeesh.

After I finished helping her, I went off in search of the bugle beads (which I no longer carry at the bead shop). I purchased this beautiful tutorial from Smadar a few weeks ago, and it calls for 6g of bugles. Michael's doesn't carry bugles, either, so I went across the street to Hobby Lobby (no coupon, boo!), got my bugles, and arrived back at the bead shop at 10:45. {The Smadar tutorial is next on my project list - but not for today.}

By 11:30 I was all set up and ready to enamel:

My plan was to play with mixing colors, and also to get enough beads made to do some projects with them, and hopefully have a few left over to sell.

My enamel selection is a little dizzying, and a little sick:

I set 40 of them on the table - and this isn't even ALL of them. Crazy.

Then I chose the ones I really wanted to work with, which amounted to about 22 different colors, and put the rest away so I'd have a little room. And then I fired up the torch. And torched, and torched, and torched, and before I knew it, it was 7:05!

I always bite off more than I can chew when I set aside an enamel day. By 3 PM, I had stopped doing sets of beads in each color, and was just doing 2-3 beads with each color just to see how the colors turned out., I'll file the test beads away with the color labelled, and then I can come back to them and make more as needed.

I managed to make it through about 25 different color combos (sometimes combining 2 or more colors to get a different color altogether). Some of the colors turned out great, others, just so-so.

Here is today's bead turn out:

It's about 135 beads. Seems like I should be able to get a lot more done in 8 hours, but what with changing colors, and mixing colors, it always takes much longer than I think it will.

That's it for today's worktable. Stay tuned tomorrow for the big surprise!

Tangle Tuesday

Last night's tangle:

I got started late on this one, and kind of rushed through it. I wanted to try leaving some white space, and I'm not sure how I feel about this particular effort.

I liked working with funls, but need more practice! I had a hard time switching directions on the curved lines, and if you look closely, you can find my mistakes. After my second misstep, I figured out that if I rotated flipping the tile upside down for each column, I could make all the curves in the same direction. Much easier!

Tangling is fun, and I enjoy stretching my creativity with it. But it is really posing some challenges for this left-brained thinker. I am SO left brain - analytical, logical, detail-oriented. I should not even be able to design a piece of jewelry, I have so few typical right-brained traits. Maybe zentangling will help me develop my right brain a little!

For a fun right brain vs. left brain quiz. click here! Not sure how accurate it is, but it's fun. Today, she keeps switching directions while I'm looking at her; wonder what that means?! Last night, she was clockwise all the way. Which, according to the test, means I'm left brained. So, maybe it's just a fun test, not an accurate one. Or, maybe I'm just brain-conflicted.

Back to tangling - I am going to try to find time this week to participate in the Diva Challenge. The Diva hosts weekly challenges centered around a particular tangle pattern, and folks post their tiles, then hop around visiting all the participant's blogs. So it's a blog hop for tanglers - bring it on! This week, the challenge is dedicated to a new challenge called Fiori di Pietro (Peter's Flower) - it's an intriguing design, and I'm excited about trying the challenge. Just need to schedule some free time (can you do that?)

Stay tuned this week - I have big news coming up - probably Thursday!

Hope you have a safe and happy Fourth!

Some of my favorite beads, Part 2

Here are more of my favorite beads, along with their native rough:

Citrine

citrine beads

citrine rough

Rhyolite

rhyolite beads

rhyolite rough

Ruby in Zoisite

ruby in zoisite beads

ruby in zoisite rough

I hope you enjoyed seeing these beads and beautiful gemstone specimens.

Some of my favorite beads, part 1

I love gemstone rough (the form in which the gemstones are found in nature) - I thought I'd share a few of my favorite beads, along with pics of their rough:

Aventurine:

aventurine beads

aventurine rough

Fire agate:

fire agate focal bead

fire agate rough

Kyanite:

kyanite beads

kyanite rough

Hope you enjoy! I'll be back tomorrow with Part 2 of my Favorite Beads.