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Showing posts from April, 2010

Bead & jewelry blogging round-up!

  Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva Spring is the time for new life and new charms at Cindy Gimbrone Beads.   Earthenwood Studio Chronicles Melanie spreads her wings and designs a new pair of carvings to be made into pendants. Strands of Beads Melissa uses lava beads to help teach her son about volcanoes The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton Andrew shares his trip to Denver for the Rocky Mountain Bead Society's Bead Bazaar. A Bead A Day Do you ever find beads in your own collection that you forgot you had?   About.com Jewelry Making School is in session, or at least, it will be when you sign up for one of these free copper clay e-courses. Art Bead Scene Art Bead Scene's newest member opens her heart and shares how she feels about the Art Bead Scene. Maybe you feel the same?   Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

Artist Profile: Paul Bishop

Artist: Paul Biship Business name: Bishop Wire & Bead Website: Bishop Wire & Bead Note from Cyndi: Paul has graciously shared quite a number of wire-working projects with us which will be featured throughout the month of May.  Since my own wire skills are mediocre at best, we should all be very very thankful ;-) How do you describe your work, Paul? I took the easy way out for my business name. Bishop is my last name, and I work with wire and beads, so "Bishop Wire & Bead". The ampersand was a stylistic choice.  I do not like seeing the word 'and' in a business name. "And" does appear in my site's URL, because & is an invalid character there. When that rule gets changed... My work is generally elegant and simple. Symmetry and pattern are the two elements defining most of my jewelry. My focus is on wire work and the use of quality gemstones. I'm not a person that has an artist statement unless "Stuff happens&qu

Get ready for selling!

The spring and summer are great times to try some new selling strategies, whether it's selling through a new (to you) venue, taking part in some outdoor fairs, or just boning up on sales techniques. Here are some wonderful links to get you on your way to a profitable summer. On the Dot Creations Luann Udell has written a fantastic series of posts on how to get people OUT of your booth at the fair...the people who need to be given the boot, that is! The Jewelry Show Guide has listings of many of the up-coming events, many of which have classes on business or could be a great venue for you to become a vendor. Have you ever thought of trying to sell your jewelry tutorials ? Janice Abarbanel decided to give it a shot on Etsy and found that it was pretty successful. Julie , of On the Dot Creations , has put together a downloadable free book called The Secrets of Saavy Etsy Sellers. Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace ,

Making barnacles on a bracelet

I decided that I wanted a lot of texture on the cuff bracelet that I made for my March piece in the Bead Journal Project .  The inspiration was the seaside in late winter and early spring...the colors are more subdued and the forms you find are more stark, but it's still beautiful in that rugged New England sort of way.   Making the barnacle form is really easy, but it looks complex on a completed piece.  I used barnacles on Ocean Depths , shown above, too.  Let me walk you through it and show you how easy they are to stitch.   1. Stitch on a 10 or 12 mm bead for the center.  Don't worry about the thread showing at the sides since it will be covered when you're done. 2. Stitch stacks of beads around the outside of the center bead.  I find that by using a size 6/0 bead as the base, I can fit about 10 stacks comfortably around the outside.  For each of the stacks, I stitched up to the top of the fabric, added 1 size 6/0, 3 size 8/0s, and 1 size 11/0 bead.  Skipping

Fabric flower necklace with zing!

I made another fabric necklace, this time with zippy bright-printed fabrics.  The foundation, which you can't see very much, is bright yellow and lined with shirt-weight fusible interfacing.  You can find all the instructions for making a fabric necklace like this in my previous tutorial.  The major difference is that here I used the same fabric for both layers of the gathered flowers, and I used felt "buttons" for the flower centers.                                      Copyright 2010 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact. Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading
Color Bead Strands, Katmandu, Nepal Art Wolfe 12x9 Photographi... Buy From Art.com

Bead Journal Project: bracelet for April

This is my Bead Journal Project piece for April. Growing grass, flowers starting to peek out from the dead leaves left behind in the garden, small leaflets beginning to unfurl...that's April in New England.  It's sparse, because we often still see snowstorms in this cruelest of months.  I wish that you could see the button that I used as a closure on this piece better...it's got this great raised circular texture which links to the little bead stacks that are sprinkled across the bracelet.  I painted the fabric that I used for the background   January February March Here are the instructions for how I am making these bracelets.   Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

Bead & jewelry blogging round-up!

  Carmi's Art/Life World Stranded by the volcano, Carmi has time for a little more window shopping.   Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva For Cindy, yellow is the color of anticipation. Earthenwood Studio Chronicles Melanie sets up a trunk show at her favorite local indie craft gallery. Check out her display! Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio Resin has become quite popular in jewelry design lately. It's a lot trickier than Lorelei had originally thought. She tries out the technique for the first time.   Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done! Do not miss out on Andrew Thornton's amazing sale and giveaway! It is fantastic!!! Go now! Really fun! Strands of Beads Melissa creates a sweet Spring necklace from wasabi-colored pearls and a beautiful Lillypilly pendant courtesy of Artbeads.com   The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton Be entered to win a one year subscription to Beadwork magazine! Find out how!   About

Earth Day Blog Carnival!

The good people at Craft Critique have put together a list of projects that will have you seeing green, including one of mine!  Join the crafty bunch of people who have found reducing, reusing, and recycling to be good for you and fun :-)  Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

Artist Profile update: Denise Perreault

Men Eat First , 2009 A couple of years ago, Denise Perreault shared her amazing beaded curtains with us. She also shared her creative inspirations and process, which I think you'll find fascinating. You can read about Denise in her artist profile .  Well, I recently asked Denise if she would care to share an update with us, and I think you're going to just flip over her new work!  Another way to keep up with Denise is to become her fan on facebook: Denise Perreault Bead Artist .   Denise Perreault has been concentrating on sculptural beadwork for the past year, completing both "Freak Show Ferris Wheel" and "The Men Eat First" from found objects in 2009. "The scavenger in me loves to find discarded items that I can repurpose into art," says Denise. "It's satisfying to be challenged by a piece of "junk," -- like the iron flower pot wheel that inspired "Freak Show Ferris Wheel" -- and transform it into something

Recent publications: April 2010

Beaded Allure: Beadweaving Patterns for 25 Romantic Projects by Kelly Wiese The Workbench Guide to Jewelry Techniques by Anastasia Young Totally Twisted: Innovative Wirework & Art Glass Jewelry  by Kerry Bogert Read my book review and enter the giveaway ! Leather Jewelry: 30 Contemporary Projects by Nathalie Mornu Mixed Metal Jewelry Workshop: Combining Sheet, Clay, Mesh, Wire & More by Mary Hettmansperger Perfectly Paired: Designing Jewelry With Polymer and Metal Clays by Patricia Kimle Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

Legal details for your jewelry business

Spring seems to be a season when lots of people gather strength and energy, and launch into something new. If that's you, and if you've decided that the new thing this year is to make your jewelry-making hobby into a business, here are some excellent links with legal details for you. PLEASE, do not expect any of these links to take the place of checking with your own Chamber of Commerce , the Small Business Administration , SCORE , or your lawyer. At Modish Biz Tips , there's a wonderful rundown on many of the steps you'll need to take to make your new business legal . Home Jewelry Business Success Tips also has an article on the legal and financial steps you'll need to take. Turn to Entrepreneur Magazine for things to do before you start. And finally, take an e-course from Tammy Powley , which will walk you through the process. It's free! Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , be

More ideas for using lampwork beads

Whether you got all excited and began making lampwork beads last month, or if you've been making them for a long time, you know that they begin to pile up fast! You can never have too many suggestions for how to use them, so I gathered up a few of the easiest necklaces that I make using my own beads and have taken some shots to give you just a few super-easy ideas for stringing or wiring your own beads. The necklace at the top of the post uses a lot of lampwork spacer beads along with a few larger focals.  Between each bead in the focal section, a small metal round and some metal daisy spacers keep the beads well-centered on the beading wire (I use SoftFlex ).  In the upper sections near the toggle clasp, the lampwork spacers alternate with round 4 mm glass druks. For this necklace, I slid all of the lampwork beads along with metal spacers and bead caps onto a length of 18 gauge sterling silver wire.  I made a wrapped loop at each end, around a length of chain.  You can ge

Online silver sale

My friend Tammy Powley is off-loading some silver charms and pendants that she is unable to use at this time.  Most of them are large cast pieces, and all are first come first served!  Technorati Tags: handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

Super-simple little lampwork bead earrings

After I piled up a whole bunch of little lampwork spacer beads last month, a group of my girlfriends and I decided to get together for a sleepover.  Yeah, I know...but really, we're NOT too old to be doing that.  I asked them if they wanted to do a really simple little project and the answer was unanimous. Great!  Now, what to do, what to do? Earrings.  Always popular, super easy.  I packed pairs of spacer beads in lots of different colors (more than shown here...the favorites have already been grabbed!), head pins, 2 mm rounds, flat metal beads, ear wires, and the tools, and we all had at it!     So easy.  Just slide a 2 mm round, a flat metal bead, a lampwork bead, another flat metal bead, and another round on a head pin.  I demonstrated wrapped loops and how to open the ear wires without distorting the loops.  That was about it.  Everyone got a new pair of earrings in no time!  Copyright 2010 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit.
Kenya, Samburu Woman Wear... Thomasin Magor 12x16 Phot... Buy From Art.com

Totally Twisted blog tour and giveaway!!

I am so excited to have Beading Arts be the 5th stop in the wonderful blog tour of Totally Twisted by Kerry Bogert!  And I have a copy of this delightful book to giveaway to one of you, but I've got to show you something first. I love making glass beads, stringing, working with wire, and doing all sorts of mixed media jewelry making, but there's always been one element that has been a problem for me.  I love having the end of my beaded strands finished off nicely, especially if I'm working with multiple strands.  But I've found the search for nice looking bead cones to be frustrating and expensive.  Enter Kerry's new book. Kerry shows you how to turn a wrapped loop into a beautifully coiled cone!  It was a head-slapping "duh" moment for me when I saw this tip.  Kerry used a mandrel, so her cones were much nicer than my pitiful first attempt.  Still, I think you can see the endless possibilities of this idea!  Imagine a better shaped cone that exte