It’s already the last Friday in September (can you believe it????), and today is the Artisan Clay Design Team reveal day! Kristie Roeder sends us a pretty piece of prettyness each month and we make something with it and show you! I am really excited about my piece this month!I chose this beautiful dark teal button. While I was at ArtBLISS, Ms. Jen and I discussed how we hadn’t made any bracelets with our pieces from Kristie, so I was determined to do that this time. I immediately thought of chain as connector. I used brass chain I had and attached it to itself with some small jump rings. I made ribbed round beads in dark teal Bullseye glass that match really well with the button! I patinated some bronze wire with my new Lenk torch and used it to wire wrap the beads and pretty brass filigree bead caps. I will probably change the clasp, but I don’t have another one at the moment, and don’t have the appropriate gauge to make one out of bronze. This bracelet is meant to fit close to the wrist, so that the button is the showpiece! I was really excited to make a bracelet this month, and hope you like it too! I was also really excited that I finished it on Wednesday evening instead of late Thursday night!!!! Woot!
Check out Kristie’s blog for a list of the other partners and see what they made this month!
Some of you may know that I am currently freaking out about my big show at the Delmont Apple ‘N Arts Festival this weekend! They are expecting between 40-60k people and I do not feel ready! So, I would like to offer you a sale in my etsy shop! Use the coupon code GET25 and you will get 25% off anything in the store until Monday, October 3, as long as you don’t mind that I mail it on Monday instead of immediately!
My headpins were very popular at my trunk show at ArtBLISS, so I will be adding more to the shop next week. If you have any color wishes, please let me know!!!
I mentioned in my previous post that on the Saturday of ArtBLISS, 14 of us got together to do a charm swap! The theme was simply Art Bliss. Your interpretation of art and bliss, basically! Below you can see photos of all the charms. Anne Savage organized the swap and, in addition to making a charm, she also gave us a charm bracelet with an ArtBLISS charm on it, to put all our charms! She is so generous! Her husband was even there taking classes – how great is that?1st row – Laura Twiford, Jen Velasquez, Julie Jones 2nd row – Beth, Leslie Brier, Lori Burek 3rd row – Sandy Volpe, Anne Savage, Susan Kennedy 4th row- Melissa Meman, Sally Russick, Dawn Gallop 5th row – Jenny Davies-Reazor, Elizabeth Auld, Charm Bracelet
We had a great time, sharing pizza for lunch. Jenn Velasquez taught us all how to make paper boxes, which was a lot of fun! Thanks to Anne, Elizabeth and Jen for making it a great charm swap!
Well, first I have to say I had an awesome weekend all around! My boyfriend Jason and I left on Friday afternoon and drove down to Ashburn for the ArtBLISS weekend. On our way, we stopped in Luckett’s and bought a few cool things at that quirky store on the corner! We had a great lunch with a couple beers thrown in! We went to the Meet-and-Greet and had a great time there too! I finally met in person my bud Jenn Judd Velasquez! I also met Elizabeth Auld, who is amazingly nice! I saw too many people to mention, but a few were Lori Anderson, Kerry Bogert, Anne Savage, Melissa Meman, Sally Russick, Laura Twiford, Dawn Gallop, Jenny Davies-Reazor, and many others, and of course, Jeanette Ryan and Cindy Wimmer! It was really great and I highly encourage you to go next year if you possibly can! If you have any class ideas, Jeanette and Cindy would love to hear about them! Now, on to the eye candy!
The first class I took on Saturday morning was with Deryn Mentock – it was called Balance Bronze Bangles. We learned many things, but for me some was new because I an not a wire-worker – I’m trying to get there! I learned how to make these bangles and the point is to balance them by adding charms on the opposite side of your focal piece so you can see your jewelry as you wear it. I did not bring many beads because I had no idea what I was going to do, so I was a bit limited. However, I do like my first creation, and the photo on the bottom left of this mosaic shows my second piece in it’s beginning stages – I need to add the dangles to balance the piece out. This piece will have a lot of meaning to me as I purchased the heart bead in Venice a very long time ago and was just waiting for something to use it in!
I also have to say that my seatmate was Jen Judd Velasquez and that woman is just a blast! I am so glad I know her – she is wonderfully funny and generous! Plus, we went to a Vietnamese pho restaurant for dinner and she introduced me to my new obsession – I had never been to a pho restaurant before so I am now going to have to seek them out!
My second class, on Saturday night, was with Diane Cook and it was called Heart Strings. It was a lovely class and I had a lot of fun just sitting and being able to figure things out with no distractions of kids or life or phone…you know! And, she told me my little book turned out PERFECT! High praise from Diane! She’s such a lovely person! This little book has a lot of meaning to me – my little quote is a message to my sweetie Jason! My third and last class, on Sunday morning, was with Christine Damm and it was called Whimsical Blooms. I have to start out by saying that Christine is so enthusiastic about her work, it really rubs off on you! I had a blast – I had never worked with polymer clay before but had wanted to. I felt like a kid playing with textures and colors and clay! It was a blast. This piece is not drilled yet, but each section of the piece has lots of meaning to me! The first section was textured with a sea urchin that I found in the Cayman Islands, one of my favorite places! the second section was textured with one of my glass tools by Karen Leonardo. The third section was textured by a bead. Each and every piece has a part of my life in it, which is why I love it so much! At the end of the night on Saturday, two of us had trunk shows in our room. Jenny Davies-Reazor was selling her gorgeous ceramic components and this is what I bought. I am also grateful to everyone who purchased beads from me – I am having having a very tough time financially this year and it really helped me out! More about that later, maybe! In addition to all this craziness, we had a charm swap during lunch on Saturday. Anne Savage organized the swap and gave us all a very pretty keepsake bracelet to hang our charms on. Elizabeth Auld arranged for pizza to be delivered for lunch so we didn’t have to all go out on a search for food! I will show you the charms tomorrow in a new post!
My sweetie Jason and I had a very nice ride home, with another stop in Luckett’s and perfect weather! He visited with a college friend on Saturday night in Chesapeake and had a very great time himself!
Thanks for reading this very long post – I hope that my enthusiasm for the weekend has made you feel like you want to attend next year’s ArtBLISS!
I’m up to number 21 on the list- going slow but I’ll do it!I have to go back to making jewelry for my show, so I’ll stop back and read blogs before bed!
Thank you all for the wonderful comments on my bead soup! I have barely started looking because I am crazy busy getting ready for ArtBLISS this coming weekend and the Delmont Apple N Arts festival the next weekend, my first really really really big show! But I have read each and every comment and appreciate each and every one! And, I am going to make it to everyone’s blog too, it’s just going to be slow because I am freaking out right now! Hope you all understand!
Today is the day of the big Bead Soup Blog Party reveal! Lori Anderson, the wonderful host of this event, reported that there are 362 participants this year! That’s a lot of blogs to look at. I will try my best to get to each and every one, but it may take weeks!
My partner was Laura Zeiner from Stick Lizard Designs. She has a lot of talent, that girl. If you recall in my previous post, she sent me these beads:
And this is what I made:
I love love love the focal she sent me. It’s gorgeous! The lack of sun here in Pittsburgh does nothing for this rock! The colors and crystals are beautiful! I had no idea what to do with it, though, and I pondered for quite a while. I decided to make links with 18 gauge copper wire and think I did an ok job at it. I’m sure there are some better ways to do this, and I’d love to hear about them. I’m just really starting to get into the world of wire and so my skills aren’t that great.
In any event, I made some beady links with some of my lampwork beads that went perfectly with the color combo, and incorporated most of the beads she sent me into this necklace. The only beads I didn’t use were the purple pearls, because the holes went sideways through the bead and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. Now that I think about it longer, the pearls would dangle on the end of a chain on the earrings. I will probably add that this weekend!
The earrings were fairly easy for me to come up with, so I started on them first. I used copper, but the ear wires are sterling. I used my own lampwork beads. The little keys are so cute, I love them!
I hope you enjoyed seeing what I made from Laura’s components. If you do have any suggestions for me, I would love to hear them, because I’m not sure I’m all that thrilled with the necklace. The gorgeous stone deserves to have all the attention on it, but I think something more is needed to complete the look, I just can’t figure it out!
Now, it’s time to take a look at what everyone else made with their Bead Soup. The list below will take you there!
I just listed some beads and headpins in the SueBeads etsy store! Check them out! I’m headed to the Zoo Brew tonight, a fundraiser for the Pittsburgh Zoo. Gonna taste a lot of indie brews – should be fun! I’ll take photos and share the fun over the weekend! Remember, tomorrow is the Bead Soup Blog Hop too!
Last night, Jason and I took a drive up to beautiful Ligonier, PA, to visit with Andrew Thornton on the opening of his new shop, Allegory Gallery! Andrew has a great space with lots of light and a little courtyard! He did such a great job painting and designing the space with some beautiful pieces of furniture. He hit a few speed bumps along the way, and a deer on Thursday night, but he was the picture of calm and graciousness! I’m so very happy for him and can’t wait to visit his shop for classes and all the beautiful beady things I know he is going to stock it with! Good luck to you Andrew!
I was lucky enough to be picked my Melissa, of Chinook Jewelry, to be a blog partner for this month! Melissa sent me two items – the round floral disc and the beautiful two-toned butterfly! When I got them, I knew they would probably be dangles on bracelets, and I knew I wanted to include my own lampwork beads in the designs. I sat and waited until they all spoke to me for a bit, and then inspiration hit!
In the first photo, you see her beautiful round floral disc. I used some gorgeous stones I got in a bead swap, and my own lampwork beads. I accented the stones with very small sterling saucer beads. I accented my lampwork beads with some brass filigree beads. The clasp is in a swirl pattern, which matches the swirls on the ceramic disc. I really love how this one turned out- I don’t use pink tones too often, but I love how the darker colors of the stones and brass really brings everything together!
In the second photo, you see her beautiful butterfly! Again, I wanted to use my own lampwork, so I made some more of the beads that I have had available in my etsy store. I used some pretty filigree antiqued copper bead caps, and some antiqued copper chain, all of which I think brings out the beauty in the contrasting colors in the butterfly. The clasp is simple so as not to take away from the butterfly or the lampwork beads.
I really had fun creating these pieces with Melissa’s pieces and hope I get a chance to do this again! Visit her online store to find some wonderful pieces for yourself!
I chose this beautiful dark teal button. While I was at ArtBLISS, Ms. Jen and I discussed how we hadn’t made any bracelets with our pieces from Kristie, so I was determined to do that this time. I immediately thought of chain as connector. I used brass chain I had and attached it to itself with some small jump rings.
I made ribbed round beads in dark teal Bullseye glass that match really well with the button! I patinated some bronze wire with my new Lenk torch and used it to wire wrap the beads and pretty brass filigree bead caps. 
I will probably change the clasp, but I don’t have another one at the moment, and don’t have the appropriate gauge to make one out of bronze. This bracelet is meant to fit close to the wrist, so that the button is the showpiece! I was really excited to make a bracelet this month, and hope you like it too! I was also really excited that I finished it on Wednesday evening instead of late Thursday night!!!! Woot!
