my helpers

Today I'm sharing a little peak at my jewelry making helpers and a couple of the pieces that they've been helping me with lately.

I often end up moving everything out of the way so that this can happen.

 

Among other things, I've had this rainbow meets neutral idea in my head for a while, and it's been a lot of fun finally putting it together.

These pieces are part of the same line as this bracelet.

While I've been working with the rainbow mix, I've restocked my best selling rainbow button charm bracelet and earrings. Get them while you can because they don't stick around in the shop for long.

I know that I'm not the only jewelry maker who has some little helpers. Feel free to share your stories and/or links to your helper photos in the comments!

January BBA Giveaway: Win one of my wrap bracelet/necklace pieces!

Every month, one member of the BBA does a giveaway.  In honor of my brand new line of wrap bracelets/necklaces and charms, I decided to do the giveaway this month.  I'm giving away a neutral mix rope that can be wrapped twice for a bracelet or worn as a single strand short necklace.

More information and all of the details about the giveaway can be found on the BBA blog January giveaway post right here.  Please don't leave entries on this post for the giveaway.  They must be left on that BBA blog post.  I'm not planning any other giveaways for quite a while, particular one that is worth this month, so enter while you can.  Entries will be received through Jan. 19.  Good luck!

working with metallics and wrapping up May custom orders

I don't work with metallic beads very often.  However, I got inspired to make this piece after I made my winter Art Beads piece, which had metallic cube beads as part of the base.

It's available here.  The small embellishment beads were a freebie from Shannon (beadsandbabble) a while back.  A couple of them are still available here. This was definitely a break from my usual colorful palette.  It's good to mix it up with these neutrals sometimes.

This week I finally wrapped up my last two May custom orders.  I finished the second of two leafy bracelets for a new customer.

The customer wanted the purple in the design and less brown the original.  I never would have though to put purple with this palette, but the result is neat!  I had plenty of beads to make another one so there will be one similar to this in the shop soon.  The new one will have touches of purple and green with lots of gold.  I'm super excited about it.  I  used more focal beads from alishawhite for this piece.

I also finished the earrings to match my periwinkle and black leafy design, a slightly different version of my original leafy design.  Remember my sneak peak?  I had to rework this design a couple times, but the final result was worth it.

I'm not making a lot of earrings right now because there are plenty in my shop as it is and my interests are elsewhere.  But I'm always happy to make custom requests like this.

This week I also got a lovely picture of the recipient of another recent custom order.

I love seeing people wearing my work!

May custom orders are officially wrapped up.  Bring it on June!

considering a modern leafy combination

A new customer contacted me last night about a longer version of this bracelet.  My current leaf stash is seriously depleted.  I have a few silver and gray/white leaves as well as a couple brown, but that's pretty much it for this color combination.  I browsed online and sent her new possibilities to consider.  We haven't finalized everything yet, but here are some of her favorites from my online list.  Of course I love all of these, too.  Click on the pictures to go to the listings.

She wants the silver with these neutrals as well as some purple.  It should be interesting putting it all together!  I love customer inspiration.

in the works and other creative endeavors

I was very excited to get my Art Beads blogging package at the end of the week and start of my new piece this weekend.  Unfortunately, even though all of the daggers that I selected are supposed to be the same size, they're not.

I should have realized this when I looked at the picture for the green daggers.  Going back to it when I e-mailed the Art Beads coordinator, I could see it.  But the listing clearly states 15x6, and I believed that.  I might have enough daggers to complete the piece without those.  It doesn't change the fact that I was planning on using them, though, or that the listing is wrong.  I'm still waiting to hear back from Art Beads.

But the patina daggers are just as awesome, if not more so, than they look on the web site.  I'm still very excited for my piece.

Instead I've been working on my new neutral skinny fringed cuff.  I love this neutral partially metallic palette.  It's coming together even better than I'd hoped.  And I've picked out a metal button for the clasp.

Finally, I joined HubPages this weekend.  I'm planning to do a lot more with this once we've moved to Milwaukee and I'm not working full time.  But while we have a little uneventful time here before the graduation and moving craziness, I'm getting it started.  I'll mostly be writing about education/special education stuff as well as some DIY craft projects (most of which I've posted here before), recipes, travel, music, books, and anything else that inspires me.  I took new pictures of my process for making spinach calzones this weekend (Jake and I did photograph this a few years ago).

The calzone hub is up here.  Also, check out my first two hubs that I wrote yesterday: 10 Beadweaving Books to Check Out and Beaded Peyote Triangle Step by Step Instructions.

daggers are popping up again

I listed another dagger piece this week: Beaded Cuff Bracelet - Dagger Fringed Neutral.

A few of these beads are samples that I got from Shannon (beadsandbabble).  She doesn't have any like them listed now, but they have amazing leopard-ish (but darker colors) detail.  Most of the other daggers are from Art Beads that I've been slowly collecting with a few others pieces thrown into the mix.

I know that I usually stick to lots of colors but neutral pieces can be amazing, too.  I'll be listing two more dagger pieces in the next couple weeks.  Then I need people to start buying from this lovely new line so I can keep purchasing more daggers!

Also on the subject of daggers, Glenda and April (rougeriverbeads) included my Beaded Cuff Bracelet - Dagger Fringed - Fall in their Natural Beauty treasury this week.

Bead Trends February 2011

One of my designs is in the February 2011 edition of Bead Trends magazine!  I submitted this back in the summer, got accepted early in the fall, and just got the magazines and other goodies in the mail this past week.

Here are the magazines.  I got two free copies.

I also got a $20 gift certificate to Fire Mountain Gems as well as my returned bracelet.

Here's a close up of the spread.  If any of you get Bead Trends, it's pages 108-109.

I took a close up of the spread for the Etsy item listing, too.

Now that the issue is out, I'm allowed to list the bracelet so it's available on Etsy here.

This is the first version that I've done with this design using metal buttons.  My mom found a whole bunch of these vintage buttons for me at Vogue a while back. I made one other bracelet like this back in the summer, which I almost immediately sold to a family friend. I don't have any more buttons exactly like this, which is too bad, because they're amazing.  I also love the clasp button.  I used one other one like it on this piece.  I might have one or two more left, but that's it.  So I'll have to keep hunting for small metal buttons.

For those of you who are beaders and who are not interested in subscribing to the magazine or buying this issue off the stand, the pattern is available here.  Personally I think that patterns are a lot easier to work through with pictures, which obviously the magazine doesn't really provide.  And if you don't already subscribe, buying the single pattern is a lot cheaper.  Thus ends my little plug for it. :)

Also, for those of you who are beaders, Bead Trends is always accepting submissions for future issues here.  I'd like to get a couple more designs in for the summer issues that they're accepting for now.  I'm really amazed that they took one of my first submissions and hope that they're take others in the future, too.