Beading Arts

Here we are only HALF WAY through Summer, and already the Fall ads and clothes and colors and everything else are out in the stores and in front of my face constantly and I think I'm going to scream because life is going too fast... Stop! Ok, Fall is actually my favorite season, even if I can't remember whether to call it Fall or Autumn.  Which do you prefer?  I picked Autumn for my Pinterest board on Autumn Style - 2018 , but I picked Fall for my crafty board called Fabulous Fall .  Because I like to have it both ways! Don't forget to go follow my boards!  There's lots more over there :-)

When I need to refill the well, browsing through beautiful color palettes is one of my favorite activities.  Before I know it, I'm heading for the beads or the paints!  So far, I've been concentrating on mostly lights and brights.  Warmer, darker, richer palettes will have to wait for just a bit :-)

Just when you got tired of Greenery, the 2017 color of the year, Pantone has called for a color that will really punch up your blood pressure and make you happy to design, paint, dress, and decorate again! Visit my board on Pinterest , devoted to this gorgeous color.

I've set up a new board on Pinterest on the topic of Jewelry Design .  It explores color theory, design elements and principles, and how they relate to creating unique jewelry.  If you want to design for yourself, this is a good place to start!

Learn a new earring technique with Nealay Patel! Do you need even MORE tutorial suggestions? The 10 best free vintage fall images for your art Fiberart International 2019 call for entries Critical decisions you need to make when starting a blog   Using a shape to design a collection   Pumpkin chocolate chip cookie pie!!!  This post contains affiliate links: Jesse James Beads  

Autumn Maple Grenadine Shaded Spruce Tawny Port Ballet Slipper Butterum Navy Peony Neutral Gray Golden Lime Marina   This post contains affiliate links: Jesse James Beads

  I am deeply in love with several of the colors that Pantone has identified for Fall 2017, including Grenadine, Shaded Spruce, and Marina.  In fact, I am putting together a Pinterest board to gather together color inspiration, beads, and jewelry (including tutorials) for those colors and more. You might recognize these pairs:     Gimme the Blues     Aegean Seas Here's one that's coming next week... Hit me up on Pinterest if you'd like to connect that way! Copyright 2017 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. 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.

Based upon my experiments with the paint strips over the last two weeks, I’ve decided to use an analogous color scheme, running from deep blues through yellowish greens. First I like to set out all the different beads that I might use, realizing that not all of them will make the final cut. I’ve decided to use gold-toned metal, and therefore have added a few beads in orange-gold hues. Using some of these beads will add the complement of blue to the mix, and will help the colors to pop out more.  So I guess really I'm working with an analogous-complementary scheme! Materials V Pendant (made by Jeanne Kent ) 74 small glass beads, approximately 4mm, in 6-7 colors 22 larger glass beads, from 8-12mm, in matching colors Size 8/0 gold-lined seed beads 3 gold beads, 6-8mm Soldered gold loop 2 pieces of .015 inch beading wire, each 24 inches long 2 gold crimps Hook, or 2 1/2 inches of 18 gauge gold wire 2 inches of gold chain 3 headpins Tools Wire cu...

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...

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....

I received a stunning book from Schiffer Publishing , the fourth in a series edited by Sandra Korinchak: Art Jewelry Today 4 .  It features 400 works by 65 different artists all working in the area of personal adornment, and utilizing some surprising materials and methods along with ones that we've come to know and love already.  Some of the artists give much more information about their materials, motives, and processes than others, and for that I thank them. As usual in a volume like this, a few of the works are totally unwearable, and are intended to be conceptual, but not many.  Unlike some other edited books, I didn't feel that the works shown here were chosen just because they were different, but instead because they have something to add to the contemporary conversation. Alejandra Koreck Ones that I particularly like, either because of interesting materials or incredible techniques, include Jacob Albee (Gibeon meteorite pieces set with gold,drusy aga...

The Crafter's Guide to Patterns by Jessica Swift  and published by Lark focuses on both creating the patterns and on their application to your projects.  If you've ever stamped a simple pattern onto a background fabric in order to have a unique surface for your beading, you've been involved in pattern creation.  For me, this is an area of interest.  As much as I enjoy seeking out and using commercial fabrics in my work, I enjoy creating my own patterns even more, and Jessica has made the process very accessible. The first part of the book covers finding inspiration for you own patterns, use of color, and pattern type.  From there Jessica moves into how to create the various types of repeats: straight, half-drop, and brick.  Unfortunately, there is a little bit of a problem with the instructions for the straight and half-drop (step 6 and step 2 accordingly), but if you follow the illustrations you can easily see what you are supposed to do.  Once...

Sharing sources: How do you ask? Four ways to attract your customers (and not your peers) on Pinterest Spring and Summer 2015 Pantone color report Handmade vs hand-assembled How to decide which platform to use for your blog Pantone color of the year 2015 Turn your old blog post into an image Start and grow your handcrafted jewelry business with expert tips and advice How to start your jewelry business in 2015 Technorati Tags: bead embroidery , handmade beaded jewelry , wearable art , beads , jewelry , necklace , mixed media , beading

All of Beading Arts business posts Tutorials Education Suppliers Color and fashion forecast sources: Pantone Fashion Trendsetter College Fashion Business focus for 2014 Pantone Color of the Year for 2014 - Radiant Orchid The best business advice for 2013 - part one The best business advice for 2013 - part two The complete guide to getting started on pinterest Business or hobby? Pricing your jewelry Home jewelry parties Ethics in jewelry making The business of art A reader question about publishing Magazine submissions for beading and jewelry What would you do? series Getting publicity without breaking the bank Improving your blog Are you ready to make better art? Starting a jewelry business Legal details for your jewelry business Social networking your jewelry The official etsy handbook Website traffic Finding an art agent or gallery Jewelry business finance More on writing for magazines

Tutorials The Best Books Design Series A practical lesson in choosing colors Color and fashion forecast sources: Pantone Fashion Trendsetter College Fashion Jewelry and beading shows with classes Jewelry and beading school classes Online jewelry and beading education Jump start your learning curve Know your jewelry terms Online color training and tools Online jewelry design tools Online creativity tools Online bead and jewelry forums

Are you ready to take the next step and begin designing jewelry for yourself?  It can be a bit daunting when you first get started, but don't let that stop you!  If you need a bit of bolstering, these book reviews will help you pick the support that's best for you: Learn to Make Bead Jewelry by Lynn Davy Crafter's Guide to Patterns by Jessica Swift Stylish Jewelry Made Simple by BeadStyle Magazine The Beader's Guide to Jewelry Design by Margie Deeb The Jewelry Maker's Design Book: an alchemy of objects  by Deryn Mentock The Beader's Color Palette by Margie Deeb The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Jewelry Making Techniques  by Vannetta Seecharran Jewelry & Beading Designs for Dummies  by Heather Dismore & Tammy Powley Vintage Jewelry Design: Classics to Collect and Wear  by Caroline Cox The Penland Book Series Push: Jewelry  by Lark Books Multistrand Jewelry  by Bead Style Magazine My e-books on innovative m...

Jewelry Design board on Pinterest My seven-part series: Do you want to design for yourself? My two-part series: Making your stringing designs unique Two-part series: A practical lesson in choosing colors Online jewelry design tools Creativity resources online Online color training and tools

What do you think of it?  Personally, I love this color, especially when mixed with analogous colors and darker/brighter shades of itself. Image - FashionTrendsetter

In part one of this series, I talked about (at great length!) how the decisions were made to start this necklace: theme, techniques, and color scheme.  Today I want to show you how I got from the basic idea to the planned design.  It all started with a small circle... Maybe another time... Since I already decided that the necklace was going to be made from overlapping bead embroidered motifs (see Bored By Back Stitch ), it seemed reasonable to start the design process with plain circles that could represent them.  The only downside to this plan is that I know the circles will become smaller as they near the top of the necklace on each side, but I also know how to compensate for that as I stitch, so I decided to just ignore it for now.  I tried about a dozen different designs, just snapping a picture of each and moving on quickly to the next.  Lucky for you, I'm only going to show you two, one that lost and one that I chose. The winner I trace...

My current bead embroidery project is giving me a chance to focus on my decision-making process in several new ways, at least new to me!  I thought that some of you might like to see "behind the scenes", and learn what goes into making a large bead embroidered necklace. Free-form St Petersburg Chain stitch, embroidered form I knew to begin with that this piece was going to use some free-form versions of the bead embroidery motifs that I've spent months developing from bead weaving stitches.  These are the motifs that are featured in Bored By Back Stitch , my most recent e-book.  For the book, I stitched each motif as a separate entity, but now I wanted to see how they could be used together in a piece.  To stay true to the spirit of the book, I decided to create the majority of the design by using the motifs, and use back stitch and bead stacks only to fill in the gaps. Ok, so the techniques have been decided, but what will the necklace be about?  I ...