Beading Arts

Six things to do with one-of-a-kind work that hasn't sold Jewelry trends: openwork and negative space in design The artistic process, start to finish Focus on presentation at your next show Free printable seed bead design graph paper   (see at top) Making your next epoxy adventure less painful How to hide your jewelry findings Creating personalized jewelry and gifts

Prepping your metals for adding patina   (Plus a recipe!  Shown above) Top tips for enameling metals An earring display to make 7 Product photography tips that sell 5 Ways to embellish your earrings Thursday night 10 minute tutorials!  (Shown below)

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!

Dyed African, Chinese, Mountain or Malaysian "Jade" are pretty...but they're NOT real Jade Jade, Jadite, and various "Jades" I have always wondered about jade.  Everyone when I was growing up just used the term "jade" to refer to anything that happened to be that color.  Even then, I think that I knew there were stones that were commonly called "jade" but were really imitation.  However...I had no idea that jade and jadeite were two very different beasts, nor did I know that it's actually jadeite that is the more expensive of the two. Wikipedia to the rescue:   Jadeite and nephrite are totally different minerals. They have different densities, different hardness, different crystal structure, and different chemical compositions. Classic jade, the jade that comes from China, is nephrite, and jadeite, the rarer type of jade, comes from Burma. The finest-quality jadeite—almost transparent with a vibrant emerald-green color—i...

What is white mountain "jade" really made from?  The answer is below!  There is nothing wrong at all with using dyed, stabilized, coated, and imitation stones.  It's only wrong when you're not getting what you pay for.  When you click on the stones listed below, you'll find full disclosure of materials which will help you to figure out what is and is not worth paying a premium for! Stabilized white magnesite Natural white howlite Rainbow moonstone Coated white riverstone White mountain "jade" (Dolomite marble) Snow quartz White agate Antique white Hemalyke (tm) Italian "onyx" (Banded calcite) Malaysian "jade" (Opaque quartz) Previous posts:  How well do you know your pink stones? How well do you know your turquoise stones?

Is this turquoise??? Answer below... Turquoise, especially imitation turquoise, is one of the materials most often mis-labled.  If you buy from a reputable dealer at a show or from a catalog company with a good reputation, you've got less to worry about.  But be aware that imitation turquoise, at a few dollars per strand, is sometimes passed off as Sleeping Beauty turquoise, which is over a hundred dollars per strand! There is nothing wrong with using imitation turquoise in your work.  It is often beautiful, and should be considerably less expensive.  Just don't get taken by unscrupulous dealers on eBay or at shows...know your materials! Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Imitation Turquoise Imitation Turquoise with Matrix Mosaic Turquoise Dyed Howlite Dyed Magnesite African "Turquoise" Czech glass Previous posts:  How well do you know your pink stones?

Can you tell which stone this is? There was a question asked online the other day which got me to thinking.  Sometimes when we buy stones at a show, they may be mislabeled.  Sometimes this is on purpose, in order to command a higher price.  Sometimes it's through ignorance.  I can tell you right now that I have bought beads at shows that I know are mislabeled, but they were cheap and pretty, so didn't really care.  Maybe I should have cared, and shouldn't have bought, but there you have it. So, how well do you know your stones?  Specifically, your pink stones.  There's a great deal of difference in the prices of these, so it would be worthwhile to learn the difference in the way they look: Pink Quartz Rhyolite Rhodonite Lepidolite Rhodochrosite

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....

Registration for the basic crazy quilt course with the wonderful Kathy Shaw is open now. It's an online course and it's free. Stop procrastinating...registration is only open until the 15th!

Yup, I can be taught!  I decided to take my own advice when I wrote the article Why Take a Class? , and I signed up for Kathy Shaw's basic crazy quilting online class.  And it's great!  Yes, I've done crazy quilting before, so why would I want to take a beginner's class?  Well...maybe it's time I learned how to do it "right"! I know that there are many different styles and methods, but I like Kathy's.  And since I like her style, why wouldn't I want to learn from her?  And I like the way she structures her online classes, which are free, by the way.  Everyone takes the beginner class so that everyone in the future is on the same page, so to speak.  The first class consists of putting together a CQ block during which you learn about design challenges, template seaming, silk ribbon work, and adding beads.  You'll notice that my block doesn't have any beads on it yet.  There's a reason for that... Although I like to add the...

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