New stuff

I don't know about you, but I've had a heck of a long winter... It didn't start out so bad, really, hardly any snow until around January. Then, it was nothing major either, just a few inches, melt away, fresh snowfall, few more inches, melt away. Kinda dirty and yucky looking with all the leafless trees and the frozen muddy grass.

But then, oh, then, lemme tell ya! If my classes weren't being called off on account of a storm, then they were canceled on account of my being SICK! I was starting to have a serious case of Spring Fever, until last week. You know, I shouldn't have been happy, because my honey was leaving for Ottawa for 3 whole days - which incidentally bummed me out even more, since my family and friends are there, and I couldn't come...-, however, the hotel he was staying at was conveniently close to my friends Camille and Manon, and so, I was going to be able to get my parcel to them faster, safer, and, well, cheaper (I'll spare you the details of what hubby 'charged' me for this delivery service...) ;)

LOL! I kid! I kid!

Anyway, the first piece was created with a sort of mish-mash bead soup. The seedbeads in the rope are size 8's in a home-brewed mix. A friend gave me a bead-filled shoe box one day, exclaiming "I'm a quilter, NOT a beader!". Well, who am I to deprive my friend of the pleasure of gifting me with her castoff beads. I graciously accepted! (NATCH! like I could EVER have enough beads... Hah!) Some of the beads were fantastic, a few packs of black Matsuno (in matte and opaque finishes) caught my eye, and to these I added some lovely dark plum silver lined Charlottes. POW! Ooh, oooh, oooh! Let's try this now: I've got a few vials of size 8/s of unknown origins, but they look Chinese made to me - you know, all uneven in shape, size, and, well, everything, LOL! - in iris teal, silver-lined amber, and BAM!

Whoo-hooo, this one got the juices flowing. The whole time I was working on it, I kept thinking of my friend Manon, and I knew it belonged to her. I was almost done the rope when the daggers came in, I knew I wanted a large lampworked bead on one end, but what on the other? The daggers worked like a charm. I had my friend Teri make the bead to match the rope. The ends were a challenge to me though. I just couldn't decide on how to finish the rope, and it just gave off such a polished, yet out there look. Then they found me. The crystals! It was at the December bead society meeting, and I won a cute little package that contained three large Swarovski crystals in clear, amber, and amethyst. Perfection. But three weren't enough, so I had to get a few extra colored ones from the shoppe, and dive into my teenie weenie stash I've got here.



Now, how to I add the crystals solidly, without the fear of having them cut through the material used? I love the look of my pearl duster earrings, but how to I attach that to the ends? I figured it out...

I did go a bit crazy with all the crystals, but I like it just like that. I think it's an awesome piece, and I'm glad Manon loved it as much as she did.


I had something different in mind for Camille. She likes necklaces too that one, but on occasion, I've seen her with nothing but a lovely pair of earrings and bracelets. Manon and Camille have very thin bone structures, and I find making bracelets for them challenging, but I think I got the dimensions right with this one.

I had these awesome wooden beads kicking around, some cute size 15/0 Charlottes in a metallic iridescent green, and away I went. A little R.A.W., some surface embellishing, and voilà! The earrings are quite simply the cutest things I've ever made. And they keep that bow shape real nice, due to the insane amount of thread passes I used for as much as the hole of a minuscule size 15/0 bead would allow.

Cute! Cute! Cute!

Here's a closer shot of the bracelet. I used a nice little four-prong sterling slide-clasp. This piece has one of those "old school revived" vibe to it, don't you think?
And Camille said it fit her perfectly and that she loved it. Double yay for Moi!

I've also been trying to do some updates on my site. It's in dire, dire need of some new stuff. I did have quite a few pieces, but they sold before I could even upload them - a good thing, of course! - and since I haven't really been beading for my business (I think I mainly beaded to make gifts actually...) I haven't got anything new to add. Except for the bowls my dad brought when he was down for his visit.

I finally got to photographing them, and after cropping, resizing, 'fixing', itemizing, labeling, measuring and describing, I managed to put 6 of them up on my site today. (man, that's a LOT of work!). I thought I'd share this next one with you, since it won't be on the site. It's mine. Oh yeah, one of the perks of being the artist's daughter. Hah!

This lidded hollow vessel was made from a solid piece of black walnut. Dad purchased some wood from a fella who was just going to use it as firewood anyway... So, dad offered to buy some of the sugar maple he had laying around, and he just 'threw in' this piece that just looked discolored and old. To dad's surprise, when he started shaving it on the lathe, he said it was like watching chocolate fly across his studio. How cool would that be!?! (Mmmmmmmmmm, chocolate...).

Mine!

This next one here came from a Sugar Maple burl. He brought me two bowls he'd made from the same burl, and they both looked completely different. This one has incredible detailing. Not exactly sure if it was the bark, or from rot. But it looks awesome!

And look, look at how different the second bowl is. But you can clearly tell they're from the same piece. Of course, these digital photographs don't compare to the real thing. Sugar Maple has this really nice marble-like quality to it, where you'll see the markings in the wood when you're looking at it dead on, but when you take it to a light source, especially sunshine, you get this great little light show. It's not so much a color show, but more like a still, monochromatic aurora Borealis.
Perhaps you wouldn't mind my imposing on you, but I'd certainly like your help with this. I'm used to the beadwork lingo, and I can sell my jewels, but I'm not so sure I've got it right with dad's stuff. Maybe you could go take a peek and suggest something more or different I could add? The descriptions just look so bland to me.

Well, it's nice getting back in the beading saddle to be quite honest. I missed it. Now, it's time to catch up on all those projects I've dreamed up in the past few months. Oh yes, I might not have been ready to take needle and thread to bead, but I still took pencil to paper when an idea popped into my head. I've got a few started, but am still looking for the perfect clasps for them. - It's just as important to get the right clasp as it is to get the right beads in my opinion... And, well, in my perfectionist, can't leave well enough alone brain, I just have to find the right one. LOL!