Day 356

Today at lunch, I ventured out to my favorite bead shop to get some texturing plates. While I was there, I discovered that they now carry brass sheet. But even better is that they have it in 26 gauge, which is starting to become one of my preferred gauges - especially when shaping and not just pounding. It's much easier to cut than 24 gauge. I'll probably get some brass in 24 gauge as well, but for now, the 26 gauge is going to suit my purposes perfectly.

Day 348

I adapted the technique I learned in a class last month to make this pair of earrings as a gift. I have found so many uses for these quick little flowers. I have them all packaged up and ready to mail today.

Day 339

Today was a good mail day for me. I received a Beadin Path tote in the mail for free through following the store on Twitter. The owner is a sweet gal, and I'd love to meet her one day. Encouraging whatever business I can her way is my pleasure!

The other fun package was from Artbeads.com. My very good friend gave me a gift certificate for my birthday and I'd been trying to figure out what to get for a while. Well, they had 20% off after a certain dollar amount, so I had all sorts of fun. I picked out five metal stamps, some copper charms, and some copper stringing wire. I'm thrilled with everything I got.

Day 332

I had a coupon for one of the local craft shops this weekend, so while the kids were napping, I went out to see what bargains I could find. I was really excited to find this beading book for 50% off.

There was also a trunk show going on today, and they had some fun copper pieces including this strand of copper pringles. Those will be tons of fun to incorporate into some new pieces, and they were sooo much less expensive than their sterling counterparts.

I consider it highly successful shopping venture.

Day 326

This afternoon I had the opportunity to take a discounted metal working class with my beading partner. I'm not sure if this would have been my very first choice for a class, but it was what worked out with the timing. I liked the technique and there are a lot of possibilities. Unfortunately, there is yet another tool to purchase if I want to do more with this one.

I do love the wire we picked out.

Day 316

This little boy found one of mom's bracelets on the table and thought it would be a nice compliment to his pajamas. It's very fashionable. ;)

Day 311

I'm still working on fleshing out some other flowers for my project that started with the large daisy last week. I came up with this little guy, and I think it's a keeper. We'll see if I can make him some friends.

Day 309

The boys and I spent the morning running some errands and the last stop before heading home for lunch was at the craft store for mom's beading project. It was supposed to be a pretty quick trip since craft stores and little boys don't get along.

When we got back to the car after a successful stop, I realized I was missing something really important.

Two things were going on when I'd parked the car. One was that I was talking on the phone. The other was that it was pouring down rain, and I didn't want to try to wrestle two little boys and car seats and talking on the phone all at the same time. The new stereo we bought a couple of weeks ago has integrated Bluetooth, so I waited with the accessories for the car on (keeping the Bluetooth connection) until the conversation was over.

The problem is that when I got out of the car (preoccupied with the rain), I forgot to turn off the accessories and put my keys in my purse. I let little Matt lock the doors like he asks to and was promptly locked out.

Of course, it was easily resolved with a 90-minute sidetrack waiting for grandma, driving up to dad's work and coming back with the second set of keys. The boys were troopers because they didn't have lunch until after we were back in our own car. Paul said he was starving, and Matt piped up with "hungry".

Day 303

Tonight I'm at a special Metal Night at my favorite bead shop. By knowing the right people, I managed to talk myself into a spot at the sold-out event while doing the anniversary bracelet on Sunday.

I have a vision for a special piece. I made a pattern (or at least the framework for a pattern) last night. I've been working on what size to make the actual piece, and have settled on a fairly significant 3-inch diameter.

At this point in the evening, I have drawn, cut and started to shape the two layers of the flower. It's really nice to be able to make use of the vast selection of tools and bounce ideas off someone who has way more experience with this sort of thing than I do.

I can tell that I still have lots to do, but I am so happy with and proud of my progress to this point. It's so nice to be able to say that I both designed and made this and to see it coming to life.

Day 299

As a rare treat, I was able to do two beading projects in two days. This evening I took a class at my favorite local shop creating a metal worked pendant. This creation was inspired by the designer's neighbor's Wisteria vine. It was a really fun piece made by crushing light-weight, 34 gauge copper into the blossoms.

I really, really enjoyed this metal working technique. It was very organic and worked up nicely. I'm thrilled that I was able to complete the pendant during the class. I can't think of another metal worked class where I've walked away with the finished piece. I have so many nearly completed projects. I'm not counting the fact that I still have to make it into a necklace.

I was also very happy to discover that I already own nearly all of the tools to make this piece again in the future. I am certain I will be incorporating this technique into other pieces.

Day 298

This afternoon I was able to celebrate the anniversary of the opening of my favorite local bead shop. As is the annual tradition, we made a bracelet. This year, we had to learn a new technique, which was a fun change from just stringing.

The final product was a lot like the Chaos bracelet I learned how to make a couple weeks ago, but you use your hands instead of an electric screwdriver.

The hardest part was probably trying to figure out the colors. It's totally fun to be figuring out your colors while shopping in the store instead of trying to dig through your stash at home. It almost makes me wish I had a bead shop at home. Almost. At least if someone else was paying. ;)

Day 270

It has been and will continue to be a very busy time for me right now. It seems like I am never home with my family. But when the opportunity arose to take a class from Scott David Plumlee at my favorite bead shop, then I had to find the room in my schedule.

The class I took was making a Double Chaos bracelet using a technique from his newest book. (It's actually featured on the cover.) The technique is pretty free-form, which is a bit out of my comfort zone. Even my "free-form" was coming out in a pattern, so I had to mess it up a bit.

It was a great class, and I wish I'd had the time to take all four of them this weekend. I hope he'll return when his third book come out next fall, and I'll be able to take more. He's really such a nice guy and explained several other techniques in addition to the chaos component.

Day 257

I was so excited to receive the components for Use The Muse III this afternoon!!

This color pallet is way outside of what I normally work with, but it's so perfect for fall. I can't wait to be inspired and get started working. At this point, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I might try stitching again, but part of me wants to incorporate some of the metal working techniques I've been learning lately.

I've got about a month to figure it out, and unfortunately, I probably won't be able to start in earnest until after the beginning of the month. It's a busy time of year, but I hope to have something to submit by the October 19th deadline.


This is probably one of the worst pictures I could have taken of this kit, but I didn't realize it until the picture was downloaded. You'll just have to wait for better ones.

Day 256

My jewelry partner-in-crime and I met up at the Northwest Bead Society Bead Bazaar today and spent a good four hours exploring the booths and chatting with our favorite beading ladies. Last year I didn't buy anything, but I made up for it this year with purchases at three different shops.


I'm very excited about all of my purchases, but what I love the most are the glass pieces in the upper left corner. These are from a company called Loot!, and made by a local gal who has been doing glass work for over 11 years. She's found a way to take art glass that cannot be recycled and turn it into these gorgeous pieces. I'm currently planning to make a charm type bracelet, and I can't wait to play around with it.

Day 250

In a classic case of "I thought he was with you", my little guy got into some bead work I was doing and managed to spill the beads I had all over the floor. Fortunately, I only had a couple dozen seed beads out loose. There were a few bright pink beads, but most of them were this khaki, light brown color.

I was surprised to discover that the khaki beads that almost matched my carpet were much easier to locate than the bright pink ones. I think I found most of them, but I'm not too stressed about it since they're only seed beads and my project is almost complete.

Day 244

I've had these beads for two years now. I bought them at the Puget Sound Bead Festival in 2007. I bought the ceramic beads and then went home and picked out the Swarovski crystals in Jonquil from Artbeads. When I received the crystals, I put it together like I had envisioned.

And it was too long.

I put it away for a long time and recently re-discovered it. Tonight, I played around a bit with crystal sizes and found a smaller clasp. I'm pleased with the results, and happy to have one more project completed.

Day 241

For six hours today I took a riveting class taught by Tracy Stanley (just in case you missed my last post). We started off with 3" x 3" sheets of brass and bronze. We marked off squares, textured them, antiqued them, cut them out, rounded the corners, pounded the edges, picked out charms and created decorative components. Then we started riveting the pieces together.

It wasn't until I looked at my first completed square of metal that I actually started getting into this class. The thing about metal working is you have to do 10-15 different steps before you finally start to see some results and anywhere along the line something can go wrong. I didn't like making all of these decisions - this metal or that metal? this texture? more texture? how do I lay it out?

What I loved about this class is that pretty much all of those decisions didn't have a wrong answer. It was a lot of playing around and experimenting, but for the most part everything turned out great. I was really pleased with what I accomplished. I think I was able to complete more of this project than I have with any other metal work class I've taken in the past.

I can't wait to complete this into a bracelet, and I'm already thinking of other things I want to try out. Unfortunately, there are quite a few tools that I would like to add to my beading supplies.


Had to share this picture from today also just because the colors were so fantastic!

Day 240

I am taking a metal working class taught by Tracy Stanley for most of the day tomorrow. I decided to lay out the tools I'll need for class. My sister-in-law and I are sharing some tools, so I don't have everything I'll need, but it's a good start. I used my gift certificate from my anniversary to purchase the hammers this afternoon.

It should be an awesome class, but I have to admit that I'm still a little bummed that it's not the resin class I really wanted to take. But there are only so many resources. Next time.

Day 238

Last Friday night I placed an order with Foxy Findings. I discovered this site through Twitter somehow. I think she started following me first, and after looking at her site and seeing all of the discounted shell beads, crystals, and gemstones, I figured she'd be a fun gal to follow.

I have to admit that I was a bit hooked after I won my first Twitter contest. The only downside for me is the $100 minimum for free shipping. I'm all about the free shipping. Since I'm not actively selling my jewelry, $100 is quite a bit to spend on play beads.

Occasionally she'll have one day of free shipping for $30, while I missed the first few, I was able to catch the one last Friday. I'm so excited because my purchases arrived this afternoon, and there is an amazing amount of stuff for just over $35!

I can't wait to get started playing with this fun collection of beads!

Day 236

It was a beading night for me tonight. Several months ago, I discovered one of the jump rings on my favorite bracelet needed to be fixed. Instead of taking the two minutes I needed to repair it at the time, I set it aside and forgot about it. I found it again when I was looking for a necklace this weekend, and decided I'd been without it long enough.

After I finished the fix, I was looking for something else and stumbled upon the ingredients for this simple necklace. My favorite local bead shop had a Mother's Day bracelet event, and after making the bracelet, I purchased the supplies for a necklace in the same pattern.

I decided to make the necklace at home, and after more than three months, it's finally done. I really like it, but it's a bit longer than I'd prefer, so I'm debating on taking an inch or more off of the chain.

Below is a picture of the bracelet from the Mother's Day event with Swarovski pearls and crystals in Montana. Then the chain bracelet that is my very favorite. I need to wear it again because it's starting to tarnish. And finally my new necklace. I can't remember the Swarovski colors I finally decided on. I'll look them up later.



Here's another shot of the necklace. Yet again breaking my one-picture-a-day rule.