New Tutorial - Forest Walk Necklace with Gardanne Elements and Keith O'Connor Beads

Keith O'Connor Trunk Show

To see the Keith O'Connor beads we currently sell on our site, visit this page.

Join us Friday and Saturday for a trunk show of his complete line.

Humblebeads Trunk Show - two days remain!

We've an incredible collection of one-of-a-kind Humblebeads in our case right now. Created by Heather Powers, these beads and pendants are lovely and-surprise-lightweight! Heather creates her art beads out of polymer clay, meaning you can create earrings and more with them, easily!

This collection, or what remains of it, goes back to Heather on Thursday. If you'd like to add a few to your bead box, stop in.

Ceramic bead necklace - the Pangean Necklace

This project uses some of Keith O'Connor's lovely beads, and features a hand-made brass hook by Sarah Tector.

That mannequin it is posed on is pretty small, she's only about 18" tall. The necklace is actually 20 inches long!

See the full tutorial here. 

Art Bead Scene Monthly Challenge for November

A print of this painting hung in my elementary school. I remember it clearly. The print was a bit washed out, it probably dated from when the school was built (in the late 50's or very early 60's) and to my 1975 eyes it was faded. I really loved the fruit, though, and remember staring at the way Cezanne had painted them to suggest the shading and the roundness. I learned a lot from that print, and the Cezanne Room at Arles print that hung in a different hallway.

Considering how much I remember this print, I am guessing it was in the hall to the lunch room? Or maybe outside the bathroom?

This is also the inspiration image for the Art Bead Scene challenge for this month. This is monthly contest that encourages readers to create a piece of jewelry based on an exemplar image. Winners get lots of art bead goodies. The contest closes at the end of each month. You should enter. Yes, I know it's the 22nd. Well, sometimes it's good to work under pressure, isn't it?

If you haven't tried the challenge, or if you want to know more, visit the Art Bead Scene here.

5x5 Challenge with Elaine Ray beads

Elaine Ray is the featured artist in this month's Bead Chat Magazine. The 5x5 test group takes 5 jewelry makers and gives them 5 components from bead artists. You have to visit the on line magazine to check out what the artists made!

Check out the Elaine Ray 5x5 Test Group beads and the magazine here.

New Elaine Ray Shapes for the Trunk Show!

Tiny ceramic books...for the reader and writer in your life...

See them all on Friday or Saturday at the Elaine Ray Trunk Show.

October Art Bead Scene Challenge

Have you ever entered the Art Bead Scene Challenge? Each month a work of art is chosen as a starting point and participants create a piece of jewelry, using art beads, that reflects and expands on the theme and visual imagery of the artwork.

This month the chosen piece was an assemblage by Kurt Schwitters. The original work features overlapping circular shapes, bisected and transected by lines and shaded areas. The work is filled with shades of blue, green, gray and gold.

This collage shows the inspirational work at the lower right hand corner and the response work created by Lorelei Eurto. Her necklace features disc beads from Elaine Ray combined with stitching and layering. I can't imagine a more fitting interpretation of this work, but I may be a bit biased. I have been in love with those discs from Elaine since she first showed them to me this past summer. I love the piercings, the dramatic size, the way the flat shapes let the glaze speak. I also LOVE the designs of Lorelei Eurto. Lorelei is a co-author (with Erin Siegel) of an Ornamentea-favorite book, Bohemian Inspired Jewelry, a blogger and a best-selling etsy designer. Her work is always textured and layered, and worth a look. She's also the author of the e-book Asymmetry Made Easy. Check the book out, it's well worth the download if you struggle with asymmetry or 'matchiness' the way many jewelry makers do.

Do you enter contests with your work? A contest can be a great way to push yourself outside your 'usual' area, into a new color grouping, or unusual material, or make you try an unfamiliar technique. If you have been stuck in a rut entering a contest like the Art Bead Scene Challenge can help you really move forward, fast.

Give the contest a look-see and let us know if you enter!

Cascade Glazes are back!

Elaine Ray will have some of her favorite Cascade Glazes at the October trunk show. If you remember these drippy, mixed-color glazes from a few years back you'll know why we are so excited. The glazes present a mix of tones and look like wet paint. These pictures don't begin to do them justice!

Join us at the trunk show-if you aren't local we suggest you stay at one of these hotels, located near the store:
Days Inn ( a short walk away!)
Clarion Capital (a short walk away!)
Sheraton Downtown (a 15-minute walk or a free, R-line bus ride)

New Bead Shapes from Elaine Ray

These are some snapshots from Elaine Ray, featuring two new bead shapes she's trying out at her fall trunk show. You can come see them in person at our store on Friday and Saturday, October 5th and 6th. Elaine always creates new shapes and plays with new glazes in the months before a trunk show-this year she's been very busy.

What do you think?

Get the trunk show details here.

Art Beads on Pinterest

Are you on Pinterest? It is seductive, addictive and alluring; like Twitter for the illiterate (or Twitter for the visually literate...) All those beautiful images! Look at that sofa! Wow, a cute dog! Shoes!

I have spent way too much time on Pinterest, lately. I have a board for studio and home ideas, one for quotes, one for jewelry, one for wedding things I love (and I've been married for 21 years!) I even have an Art Beads board that I edit with two friends.

The only thing I DON'T get about Pinterest is all the food pictures. It's like food porn. Board after board of enchiladas and brownies and fruit kabobs and pasta. Huh? I get the shoes, the vacation locations, the remodeling ideas, cars, nail art. But chocolate chip cookies? 

Anyway, visit my Art Beads board right here. Like or repin some of those goodies.

(photo above from Tresori Trovati, her fab charms are on my Art Bead board and here on Etsy.)

Art Bead Scene Challenge for the month

This beautiful Van Gogh painting is the theme for March's Art Bead Scene Challenge. The painting, with it's wirey trees, pops of blue and red and those neutral tones begs to be made into a piece of jewelry.

Get the contest details here. 

I'd use these:

How to make a slide bracelet knot

There is a great how-to over at the Art Bead Scene about this easy-peasy slide bracelet knot. Those Squash Blossom Elaine Ray beads are pretty swank, too. Click here to visit the ABS tutorial by Erin Seigel. Click here to see some other great bracelet tutorials.

Suburban Girl Studios design team needs YOU!

Aren't those beads pretty?

If you like them, and you are a bead designer and bead blogger you could be part of Diana's Suburban Girl Studio's Design Team. Click here for the info and good luck...

http://vintagebluestudio.typepad.com/vintage_blue_studio/2012/02/new-bead-design-team-seeking-members.html

Basha Bead Chatelaine Necklace

 

This necklace features a large Basha lampwork bead hanging from a central ring. The side charms add a bit of noise to the whole necklace. I'm a big fan of that super-soft chenille rococo ribbon that I used for the necklace and I was glad to fit it into the project. We've been having a lot of conversations at work about our goth-y roots and that ribbon is something that really reminds me of a bit of Victorian mourning trim.

Mmm....moody Victorians...

To make this necklace you need:
1 large garnet Basha bead
1 silver (imitation rhodium) head pin
1 toggle
1 silver ring, 33 mm
2 antique silver pastille bead caps
1 silver lock charm
1 silver ball locket, filled with silhouettes from this template
15 inches of gray and black rococo ribbon
2 basket weave ribbon ends, 1/2 inch
6 links of stainless steel chain used as jump rings
2 antique silver jump rings, 7 mm

Here's a picture of this necklace being worn, from 365necklaces.com.

The only 4 Pop-Dot beads, ever!

Check out some of Elaine's newest beads for the store...and find out why the Squash Blossom Pop Dot is not to be! (sorry I'm posting this late...there ARE still 3 of those beads in the store as of close tonight...)

Inspired by Nature Retreat

One of my favorite bead artist, Heather Powers, is holding a retreat in Michigan in September that you should attend. This three-day retreat will inspire with the lovely surroundings of Lake Michigan and the autumnal woods. Oh, and there's three days of beading in a porch, surrounded by nature and new friends.

Doesn't that sound dreamy?

check out all the details at Inspired By Nature.

*and if you are thinking, 'gee, I just love Cynthia and would like to send her off on a retreat to show my affection' this would be a good choice!  ;-)

New sweet necklace project for you-

This tutorial will show you how to use a focal bead and knotting silk to create a sweet, simple necklace.
Enjoy!

see the tutorial here

New love for an old favorite...

This tutorial from last year has been reprinted over at Art Bead Scene. That blog features great projects and ideas and articles from some amazing bead makers and jewelry artists. They also have a monthly contest with a theme that is so fun to enter. Go visit the Art Bead Scene and check out the tutorial and the contest this month. The inspirational painting, by Paul Gaugin, is a riot of bright, tropical colors and motifs.

This necklace features some lovely handmade Elaine Ray ceramic beads on a double strand of frayed silk duiponi ribbon. The colors are bright and cheery. I'd like to wear this necklace with a striped navy-and-white tee, a red pencil skirt and the perfect pair of mustard yellow flats. Hmm...I might just DO that...

So, go check out the Art Bead Scene .
Ornamentea is one of the sponsors for this month's contest and I'd love for you to enter and win!

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

This soft and gentle painting by John Singer Sargent is the inspiration piece for this month's Art Bead Scene Challenge. The billowing dresses, glowing lanterns and blooming lilies contribute to the mood of serenity and peace in the painting but as the mother of young girls I can't help but imagine myself in this garden scene. Night is falling and the usually silly, laughing girls are absorbed in the magic of lantern-lighting. Their faces glow with candlelight and youth and are more beautiful than the faces of the flowers that surround them. It is a moment of incandesent beauty.


If you wish to enter the contest I suggest the following ingredients:

lilies

greenery

arching stems

branches

gowns

glowing lanterns

silken light

leaves

flaring petals

click on the above images to learn more about them

happy beading-don't forget, the contest closes on February 28th!