Bead Arts

Hunter’s Moon

Even more warm browns and golds! I spent the month of November reflecting on the month that had just passed and creating Hunter’s Moon. There isn’t really any hunting symbolism that really appealed to me to bead, so I decided upon the pawprints following a trail…or are they creating one?

You can find links to more of the Bead Journal Project’s participants on Robin Atkin’s blog.

You can also click on “Bead Journal Project” under “categories” in the right-hand sidebar (of my blog, that is!) to see the past four months’ beaded journal pages. Here’s a link to last month’s page.

bead-embroidery, beads, beading, bead-journal-project, mixed-media

About.com Jewelry Making
Looking for a jewelry class or two to take in 2008? Tammy has some ideas for you, including classes in metalwork, wire, metal clay, and beads.

Art Bead Scene
Check out our links to two free projects currently up on Beading Daily that feature Art Bead Scene editors’ beads! Melanie’s Pixie Parchment project and an interview with Cindy paired with a project featuring her spiral beads are currently available for free download.

Bead Arts
Cyndi’s bead embroidered page for November of the Bead Journal Project is finished, and as usual, it’s for the prior month!

Jewelry & Beading
Inspired by the completion of another bead-embroidered necklace, Cyndi decided to update her advice on bead embroidery techniques.

Naughty Secretary Club
Notice the picture of Jen in the latest issues of Altered Couture and Adorn Magazines? This week on her blog you can win all the jewelry in the Duncan ad and also get the instructions to make everything yourself using Fabric and Liquid Fusion glue.

PearlEsq.
Robin shares a “crafty” Christmas idea-why shop when you can teach and share as a gift-it keeps on giving!

Snap out of it, Jean! There’s beading to be done!
Jean makes some angel earrings with a definite Chanel style to their wings. Also, a call for a PMC book to be authored by our own Tammy Powley!

The Impatient Blogger
Katie Hacker and Candie Cooper have declared every Thursday until Christmas ‘Ornament Thursday! ‘ Margot whips up a sentimental tribute to her grandparents in this weeks offering. Join in the fun!

For those who pay attention when planning their spring jewelry line. Pantone’s report can be found here.

“According to the report, the spring ‘08 palette is defined by classic, versatile neutrals punctuated by splashes of invigorating brights, empowering consumers to explore new and creative ways to combine colors.

Variations on popular colors such as energizing red, cool, waterborne blue and eco-friendly green also play a key role this season.

‘The spring ‘08 color palette perfectly reflects the cheerfulness of the season,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. “Stabilizing neutrals combined with pops of brighter colors to create unique, distinctive looks are the basis for a great spring and summer wardrobe.’ ”

color-forecast, designing, creativity

Mexico Connect has put together a beautiful website filled with artwork by the Huichol of Mexico. There are links to articles on the culture and symbolism, as well as many fine images of artwork, much of it the beaded style that most of us immediately think of. This site is a treat!

Eclipse

mixed-media, beads, beading, hoichol, handmade-beaded

Exclusive Imports
All shapes of Czech beads ~ pressed, lampworked, firepolished, and rhinestone

Czech Beads
Lots of handmade beads as well as molded and machine cut

Wild Things
Many hard-to-find specialty shapes

Purebeads
Arranged by color and sold in lots for good prices. Helpful articles too!

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Technique Tuesday!

The loop
The loop can be made from quite a number of different jewelry parts. I’ve used earrings, pendants with holes in the middle, toggle rings, charms with holes, and a plain loop of seed beads. The most important thing is to make or choose a loop that is large enough to accommodate whatever dangling bits and decorative beads you wish to use. The strands must be able to fit through the loop at the same time, at least up to a point.

Comfort
Consider what beads will rest against the back of your neck. Try to make that section, maybe 5 to 6 inches, from smaller rounder beads for comfort’s sake!

Dangles
Again, there are many choices for what to add to the ends of your lariat. Just make sure that they are going to fit through the loop. For a little extra movement, I like to have these dangling bits attached via head pins or bails of some type so that they swing freely.

Miscellaneous tips
Use the finest diameter beading wire that will still be strong enough for your beads, and chose a brand with the softest drape possible. Stiffer wire may be less expensive, but your piece will not hang nicely. Cut the piece too long. Longer is better with lariats!

 

Link to another summer necklace:
Fishing for Trout

 

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Make Art Monday!

Here it is already: the time of year that I have to start thinking about and making springtime and summer projects

Tomorrow, for Technique Tuesday, I’ll discuss some general tips for making lariats.

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

About.com Jewelry Making
Give a double wammy of beads this holiday. Tammy has discovered a group that has great beaded jewelry to give and get that also gives to needy young women.

Art Bead Scene
Only a few days left to enter the Art Bead Scene challenge with the Coffee Haus theme! Get your caffeine on and get moving on a coffee related design using art beads!

Bead Arts
Cyndi is ga-ga over the pictures and information she found recently on Kanzashi, Japanese hair ornaments.

Jewelry & Beading
Two of Cyndi’s pieces are in the lastest issue of Jewelry Crafts.

Naughty Secretary Club
Grab a left over turkey sandwich and tune into the DIY Network Holiday Special this weekend with oodles of different craft projects. One with Jennifer Perkins making a chunky charm bracelet and necklace using decoupage.

Pearlesq.
Check out Robin’s closeup photos of Distress Crackle Paint along with tips and techniques to get the best “crackin’” results!

Savvy Crafter
Last week Candie found herself in a maze of seed beads in Kathmandu. See pictures of her visit to the Indra Chowk bead market…

Snap out of it, Jean! There’s beading to be done!
It’s not too early to start stashing away those hand-made teachers’ gifts for the Holidays! You will be glad you did later when the rush is on! Jean shows what she decided to make the teachers (shhh! It’s a secret!) this year!

Christi Freisen

The newly redesigned Bead & Button website has a marvelous gallery now, with pages and pages of inspiring images to make you drool. I have always especially liked the work of Christi Freisen, aka cforiginals. Many of the images included are winners of the Bead Dreams 2007 contest.

[tags]beads,beading,jewelry,

Beautiful example of Kanzashi by
Vivien Hoffpauir

These hair ornaments are fascinating! Visit Viven’s site to see all the different styles that she’s made. If you’d like to try giving it a go, there is a wonderful Kanzashi tutorial written by Kurokami-Kanzashi on deviantArt.

beads, beading, hair-ornament, kanzashi, tutorials

I’ve added two more sites to the color scheme generator list: Pic2Color is really unique, creating a color palette from any image that you feed into it.  Eni Oken’s color scheme software is a free download from her site. Thanks, Eni!

color, creativity, online-tools

Beadboard.net

 

Over at Beadboard.net, Kay posted an article with some really good tips on both online and “real world” promotions. Some of them are obvious, but are still easy to forget to do, like including your website information on every single thing you send out! Here’s a link to the promotions post, and here’s one to a more recent posting on doing repair work to make more money. I like how “Beading Business” has now been added as a category to the blog so that you can find all the great posts easily!

jewelry-business, jewelry, beads, beading, wearable-art

Art Bead Scene
Pull up a Cup ‘o Joe and warm up with our little gallery of coffee related bead treats made by the editors of Art Bead Scene

Bead Arts
A maple leaf on top of a maple leaf! Cyndi has created a necklace that features both a full sized and a miniature leaf. Can you spot the big leaf?

Jewelry & Beading
Artist Wendy Van Camp has shared with us about her inspirations and creative process in making her beautiful wire and gem jewelry.

Katie’s Beading Blog
Katie’s been a busy blogger this week! Get links to instructions for a fun necklace & earring set, vote for your favorite thing to bead, and check out Katie’s new CafePress shop!

Naughty Secretary Club
Have you seen the new issue of Altered Couture Magazine? Look for two pieces of jewelry by Jen and a 3 page spread about her sister Hope Perkins and her hand painted dresses.

PearlEsq.
Robin just wants to show you her nieces’ new puppy Charlie, go “awwww!” and have a good smile.

Snap out of it, Jean! There’s beading to be done!
Jean shows a bracelet she made for the November Art bead Scene challenge: lots of fun–coffee is the focus!

The Impatient Blogger
Margot shares some thoughts about the transformative power of the creative force in this thought provoking post.

This time, the brilliant Mr Jeff Tullock of Wrap It Up Jewelry has suggested that those electronic picture frames that can be found EVERYWHERE now could be used as a rotating display of your jewelry at a show! What a great idea. You can read all about it at Rena Klingenberg’s blog called Jewelry Display Ideas.

Imagine your jewelry pictured here!

jewelry-business-tips

Carolina González is the owner and designer of NeoVamp Jewelry. Besides making wicked cool wearables, Carolina is full of great ideas for display. Check out this traveling display case that she’s made:

Jewelry Display Case instructions

jewelry-business-tips, tutorial