Beading Arts

One of my very favorite series to recommend to beginners in any media is Kalmbach's Absolute Beginners Guide .  And the latest by Theresa Abelew is no exception.   Jewelry Making with Resin is an inexpensive book which thoroughly covers the materials, tool, procedures and techniques of working with resin, plus it throws in jewelry making basics and 22 really great projects. The projects take you step-by-step through making pendants, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings.  But instead of just the same old poured projects that you've probably done dozens of times, Theresa shows you how to use resin as paint, make "stained glass" papers and fabrics, use it with silicone molds, embed images and object, add color, and (of course) pour into bezels both with and without backs. Theresa wants you to ultimately be able to take a technique from one project and combine it with ideas from other projects in order to create your own personalized pieces.  One of my perso

See last week's post for part one of this tutorial! The analogous color scheme starts with the dominant color that you’ve already identified, and adds colors that are adjacent on the color wheel. In this case, I have chosen to go from blue through teals, true green, to yellowish green. We could have gone from blue through the purples instead, but I made the first choice since the focal piece does have green in it, and has no purple. There are plenty of colors to choose from in this piece: I don’t think it’s necessary to add too many more! Remember, if you choose this scheme, you should consider all the tints, tones, and shades of the colors as well as the pure hues. Once you have your analogous color scheme set up, it’s a very easy matter to add one of the complementary colors, most often the complement to the dominant color. In this case, I have added the pale orange that we saw before. An analogous-complementary color scheme has just a bit mo

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500 Bead Weaving Patterns for Bracelets by Emilie Ramon Spellbound Beaded Tassels: Decorative Tassels & Inspirations by Julie Ashford Beads of Healing: Prayer, Trauma, and Spiritual Wholeness by Kristen E Vincent Geometric Beadwork (Volume 1) by Jean Power Dragons, Crystals & Chainmaille: Jewelry to Inspire Your Imagination by Jane Danley Cruz Beautiful Beadweaving: Simply gorgeous jewelry by Isabella Lam Beginner's Guide to Beadweaving by Diana Rehfield The Art of Tatting Jewelry: Exquisite Lace and Bead Designs by Lyn Morton Soutache: How to make beautiful braid-and-bead embroidered jewelry and accessories by Donatella Ciotti Making Electric Jewelry (Makers as Innovators) by Amy Quinn Jewelry: From Pearls to Platinum to Plastic by Ulysses Grant Dietz and Newark Museum Leather Bracelets: Step-by-step instructions for 33 leather cuffs, bracelets and bangles with knots, beads, buttons and charms by Nihon Vogue-Sha One Jump Ring: Endles

I love working with focal pieces that allow for many different possible color choices. My friend Jeanne Kent , of New Terra Artifacts also loves to mix colors, so I find myself drawn to many of her gorgeous fused glass pendants and beads. But I’ve learned that not everyone enjoys the uncertainty and the ambiguity quite as much as Jeanne and I do! In fact, whenever I make a piece using one of Jeanne’s glass masterpieces, I always get lots of questions from other beaders on how I chose the bead colors to go with it. Do you wish that you could be braver with color? Try picking a multicolored focal piece like one of Jeanne’s pendants, and I’ll show you how I go through the process of making those color decisions. Many times, I just haul out my tubes of beads and lay them out to look at color combinations, but sometimes I use paint strips instead. To illustrate the process for this article, I decided to use paint strips because they photograph better than tubes of beads.

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Whether you follow the trends or not, it's always helpful to know what is going on around you :-)  Even those who make OOAK works of art can sometimes find inspiration in the newest looks to walk the runways.  So, here's what's up for Spring and Summer: Super thin chokers Layered necklaces, lots of chains Statement or "Art school" earrings, large and long Tassels Arm cuffs which spiral upwards on the arm Multiple rings Statement piece necklaces, long, large, and with a pendant Raw mineral slices as pendants Fantasy ear cuffs A single large earring Fabrics used in jewelry pieces When you combine these looks with the current colors, the overall mood is much lighter and brighter than it's been for awhile! Click on this for a much larger view Pantone's Color of the Year 2017

I bought some large turquoise beads at a gem show and then couldn’t decide for awhile what to do with them.  I thought about wire-wrapping them, but I knew that I wanted to combine some seed beads with the wrapping.  So I compromised, by using beading wire as the foundation of both the “wrapping” and the necklace strands. Although I've provided bead measurements below, you can easily substitute beads of different sizes to make your own necklace.  The exact number of beads that you will need, especially seed beads for the decorative wrapping, may change.  Beadaholique has a very nice selection of turquoise and turquoise colored beads available.  1. Cut a piece of beading wire 30 inches long.  String on a size 8/0 turquoise seed bead and center it.  Take both ends of the wire through another 8/0 turquoise seed bead, through the large flattened oval pendant bead, and through one more 8/0.  Bring the ends of the wire back up to the top, and feed them through the central see

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A friend of mine had a nice pair of earrings that she wore often.  They were not part of a set, and filled in mostly for casual occasions.  And then they broke.  The little turned loops at the top were not well constructed, and after a time one of them simply gave out and snapped.  This is one reason why it's important to practice loop-turning skills - if they are off balance, the weight hanging off them can eventually make them brittle and cause them to snap. Another issue was that the little soldered ball on the broken earwire was missing.  That meant that I wasn't going to be able to reuse them either.  Since that was the case, she decided that she'd rather have them in a gold tone.  Even though the amethysts at the bottom are surrounded by an antiqued silverish metal, the top crystal is topaz colored.  Mixed metals are much more common today than when she bought the earrings, so we made a swap with gold-colored head pins and earwires. Copyright 2017 Cyndi La

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We have a special treat today, a guest post by the fabulous Nealay Patel .  I hope you enjoy it! Hi friends! My name is  Nealay Patel , author of  Jewelry Made with Wire & Fiber . I hope you had a chance to read Cyndi’s review of my book! If you haven’t, it's at the link. I have a cool little earrings project to share! Here’s a snazzy pair of earrings that’s perfect for a girl on the go. Here’s how you can make them: Step 1: Cut 5 in of 4mm flat fiber cord and coil it three times. Use a beading awl to make a hole where the cord overlaps. Step 2: Insert a 1 in. head pin thru the hole. Step 3: Make a 3mm simple loop and attach an earring hook to it. Set the component aside. Step 4: Make a simple loop and set the component aside. Step 5: Cut a 3 in. length of 22 gauge half-hard wire. Make a 8mm simple loop at one end. String a decorative bead and make a 3mm simple loop with the remaining wire. Attach the larger simple loop to the fiber