Rainbowriffic beads and designs

Hello friends!

Holy crap! Can you believe I made it here today too! You know I must be SUPER excited about my beads if I have edited, listed, posted on fb and am still doing my blog! I am in the process of brewing my "feel flawless" Allegro tea from whole foods. It is 97% caffeine free tea with green tea in it, but I still get that tingle of caffeine from that 3% :D

Would you believe these were the FIRST beads I made when I got bit by the crazy inspiration bug? So why the hell has it taken me so long to list them? Well, that is a fantastic question. Since I had also made Valentine's beads and needed to do an Art Beads blog I had to get those things up first. So without further delay.....

NEW IN THE SHOP...
Rainbowriffic this week kids! So where did all of it start? Well it was my rainbow socks! Yes, do you believe it? Socks... lolAren't they amazing?! They feel even better since they are super fuzzy and they are fantastic to look at because they are so BRIGHT!Here is a set from the beads in my hand in the above picture. "Rainbow Sock Smarties".
Next I just HAD to make one of my NEW "Paint Palette Mod" bracelets called "I LOVE color!" The very first bracelet I had made was for my sister for her wedding shower. Her bracelet was done in this style, but with more fall earth tones and textures silver lentils. So if you love rainbows, color, Hilltribe silver and modern designs this is totally YOUR bracelet!

Now while I was on a rainbow theme I had looked at my very FIRST Rainbow Ruffle Ribbon Heart- "Rainbow Brite" and thought about how much I love it. It is such a fantastic heart all on it's own, but what if I made it some lovely friends with which to play? Surely it would like a compliment companion!"Rainbow Brite Hearts" were born! They are just SO beautiful I had to keep holding them in my hands and looking at them. Their reverse rainbow freckles and rainbow order raked chubby hearts made the just IRRESISTIBLE on a base of reflective clear. Every way you turn these beads they are just fantastic!

Well one can't just stop there so on to some more beads in these colors to match.
Careful color choice was made for "Rainbow Brite Smarties- Bold". In order for them to match Rainbow Ruffle Ribbon Heart "Rainbow Brite" I would have to take into account that the ruffles actually dull the color being as they are encased in clear. So if I had taken the regular colors that are encased in the filligrana rod and used them for the beads they would actually appear darker! This is a very good bit of advice for you if you are designing in glass!What would a set be without some spacers to match? They are teeny, pretty and perfect to add into designs! "Rainbow Brite Spacers".

Just by chance Rainbow Ruffle Ribbon Heart "Tart Tango" also matched with the sets and I thought it would be nice to add another super colorful and reflective heart to today's listings :)

Last, but certainly not least....
I was inspired by this fantastic cup I picked up at Target for $1.50! I just love all of the little playful rainbowy hearts that clumsily play on the surface. After looking at my beloved cup, I just had to take this design and translate it into glass.Introducing "Subtle Hearts". This design is really unique as it is the FIRST set of beads done in this style! I took an opaque colored base and encased it in generous amounts of clear. Next, after the beads came out of the kiln, I painted on the surface with nail polish to make a resist. After that the beads were put into etching acid to make the surface matte. When the beads came out of the etching acid the nail polish was removed to reveal shiny heart "windows" revealing the color surface beneath! What a fantastic effect. You really need to click on the picture to get the full size image to see the details. The effect is very subtle, but somehow magical and surprising all at once. It's like finding a little treasure hidden from the unobservant eye :)Well I hope you enjoyed reading about my rainbowy inspired ramblings and picture journey with me!

See you soon!

Much love,

Genea

Links about GB on Art Beads

Hello friends!

I would like to thank Art Beads again for promoting me! Here you can see their post on their facebook page, and their tweet about my jewelry designed with their fabulous beads!

Here is the Art Beads blogger design section on Face Book. 3 of my designs were chosen to showcase in that section. Here you can see a group shot of my "Triple Stack Flower Sprocket" pendants minus the one that sold before I could get it in this picture ;)Here are the "Tendril" earrings that made the feature. Keep an eye out for them in my shop. I will be getting them photographed and updated soon.Here is a "spring board" design of my "Heart Burst" rings.


Here is the tweet about GB by Bead Guy for Art Beads.

Thanks for celebrating with me!

Much love,

Genea

Valentine's Day II

Hello friends!

Are you ready for the rest of that Valentine's Day update? Good. I am ready to type the rest out.

I LOVE Valentine's day stuff. I am all about hearts and all that good lovey dovey stuff! For some reason my mind was just FLOODED with ideas which is pretty exciting. I even made beads for a design that came to me while I was making beads. This usually doesn't happen so it's always totally exciting when it does!

NEW IN THE SHOP....
Where to start... Ok, well I will start with one of my favorite deserts! CUPCAKES! What would Valentine's day be without some "Lovie Cakes"?!Mmmm delicious Vanilla is always a favorite. Vanilla lovey cake- is frosted with vanilla icing, red hearts and pink sprinkles. For the lovey cake design I tried a new spin on the icing. The icing on these is flat on the top so that hearts can be applied and the bottom is ruffled.
You know where there is Vanilla there MUST be CHOCOLATE! What would the holiday be without a "Chocolate Lovey Cake".You know, you can't forget strawberry either! For one, it's PINK, and most girls love PINK. Two, don't even tell me when you have your face pressed up against the glass in a bakery breathing heavily and making a foggy cloud that you aren't going to pick the delicious looking PINK cupcake! Three, dude, it's strawberry! Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry! "Strawberry Lovey Cake".

Just for comparison, here is a picture of my "normal" style cupcakes for comparison.
"Love Ewe"- say "I love you" with a little sheepy fun!

What do you think of when a couple is "in love". They are normally called "love birds" right? Well you also hear of people being all "lovey dovey", which is exactly what I decided to make. Introducing my NEW "Lovey Dovey's"! "Lovey Dovey" - white is a sweet little white dove with white heart wings.

Insert spring board design ideas! This is where one simple idea turned into MANY!Dun, dun dun!Here is "Lovey Dovey" pink and white. She is SO cute she got 2 pictures! She has rosy pink cheeks and pink heart wings. The way her eyes turned out she even looks like she has little eyelashes and is giving you that sweet innocent look. She is my FAVORITE out of all of my new little dovies!
Then while we are designing. Why not take the Valentine's Day colors of red and pink and make them into a design as well? "Lovey Dovey" pink and red.So when you are thinking of birds and love then maybe you are thinking of where love birds go to snuggle up together?A "Love Nest" of course! This darling little nest is made of brown twigs with a pink, white and red heart inside.
Now put the "lovey dovey" and "love nest" together and you have the "Lovey dovey with love nest" pendant! A sweet pink and red heart wing dove hovers over a love nest with a pink and white heart. This design really is much better if you can see how it will actually look on, hence the above picture ;)Now when I was designing the "Lovey Dovey" I was thinking about the dove and what it symbolizes. Peace right? Well why not a "lovey dovey" and peace to really do up that love and peace hippy theme?! "Love and Peace Dove" does just that! "Lovey Dovey" dove has pink heart wings and carrys a white base with a golden yellow peace sign. What a perfect way to put love and peace into a wearable design! :)And, now for the finale(which you may have seen already if you checked in with me yesterday!
"Vintage Valentine". Thanks to Melissa for naming this exquisite mobile style pendant! She had told me that the pendant resembled some of the vintage valentine's she had seen.This was another one of those ideas that came about from the "lovey dovey" bead. I really wanted to make a design where the heart would sit just above two little love birds. I wasn't really sure how I was going to work it into a piece of jewelry. As I dug through my bead boxes the design just kept coming together. As you can see this is another one of those designs you really have to see on someone. It is perfectly balanced and weighted with beads so that everything suspends from a mobile like swing :) Probably one of the most ARTISTIC pendants I have EVER made to date! ;)WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
So while I was on the "love" theme I got this idea when I was sitting on my couch. I quickly scribbled down the idea and began thinking about what supplies I needed. My idea was to make a cheeky fabric heart with a pocket on the back. This heart would be a design that could hang from a window(where mine are currently) or from a door knob. A sweet love message can be put in the pocket(which it was when gifted!) and one of my lampwork beads was sewn in the center or slid on the hanging ribbon!

As you may know I just realized that over Christmas time I could infact SEW! Now, I would not say it was my strongest artform, but the more I did the better they got! Do you know how hard it is to sew things that are ROUND?! lol Ok so I bet you are tired of reading and want to see what I made right?!Here is the first heart. I made a small pattern from cardstock to trace into many designs. I made the one's I had intended to keep for myself first as there are ALWAYS learning curves for newly born ideas. This heart has one of my eye beads sewn in the middle and one on the hanging ribbon. It doesn't have a pocket on the back because I wanted to try the design plain first.
Here is heart #2. It is actually longer across than it looks in the picture. It was more narrow looking that I had wanted so I made yet, another heart shape for my cut out design. This time I didn't make it so long. I made the cheeks stumpier so it was more full.Here is the back side. The pocket almost blends into the liney design!
Here is the next one. Ah much more plump! This one was gifted to my chiropractor and his wife. What is Valentine's Day without a little RED?!Here was the next one. The shape is damn near perfect! Would you believe I even had the perfect bead for the center?! I sewed one of my peace sign beads to the middle and I have a sucker bead on the ribbon. I gifted this one to Melissa! My hippy bead girl! This one just totally looked like her!Then on to some more. This one has a nice full cheeky shape too! I can't tell you who this one belongs to, but the new owner will find out soon enough! ;)You can even see a little love note I put inside of the pocket on this heart! Awwww!

What a fantastic gift for all of those special Valentine's, don't you think? I was SOOOO excited to come up with the idea. They look SOOOO cute hanging from my windows! They go along with the heart my mom made for my door when I moved into our house :D

Well I hope you enjoyed my SUPER LOVEY blog! I had a splendid time sharing it with you!

Much love,

Genea

Valentine's Day items are IN THE SHOP!!

Hello Friends!

Love is in the air this Valentine's Season! I just got finished loading 11 ALL NEW Valentine's Day designs into the shop and man am I POOPED! Here is a sampling of the AMAZING new goodies!"Vintage Valentine" has got to be one of the most amazingly artistic pendants I have made to date! I can't wait to show you more!

I will do a more complete blog tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Much love,

Genea

Art Beads feature Hilltribe Silver and Glass beads blog by Genea Beads

Hello friends!

I am excited to do this blog on behalf of www.artbeads.com! Ah let's see... Where do we begin? Well the featured items for December '09 were beautifully handcrafted hilltribe silver

and glass beads. As you may know those are 2 of my VERY favorite items with which to work so I was ecstatic about their featured items! So let's take a look at the beads, shall we?

I just LOVE the amazing hand made designs found in Hilltribe silver beads. The most amazing thing about them is their purity of silver and the details in every design. Here are a few of the Hilltribe beads I chose. So this might be a good place to remind shoppers to make sure to look at the size of their items before choosing the appropriate ones for their designing. Images on the web are generally enlarged to show the detail. Forgetting to check the sizes of beads before ordering these guys are pretty tiny. I had planned to use them in some bracelet designs, but thought they would be more appropriate for some earring designs. Unfortunately, I have not yet gotten to make a design out of these particular beads, but I was still pretty stoked about them and wanted to share!

On the top left are the granulated bead spacers, evil eye stamped bead caps in the middle, and on the far right are the silver flower discs.

Here is an older design of mine where I had used some amazing Hilltribe stamped noodles. My original idea was to make a similar bracelet, but incorporate some of my handmade beads. I ended up ordering some noodles, but forgot to check the size and got these amazing little crescent roll looking curved noodles. Since they were too small for my bracelet design my brain began thinking up designs on a smaller scale. I dug in my bead box of other Hilltribe beads to see what I could create. Here is the finished product! I couldn't be more excited about ordering a smaller sized curved noodle! This curved rolled bead gave me the idea to make it functional in a new and interesting way by using it as the "bar" of a little trapeze looking earring. A soldered ring can float across it! I am all about texture and visual appeal so these became my new favorite pair of silver earrings!
Here are some more shots of the design so you can oogle them from every angle ;)

Next are the AMAZING glass beads I received. Art beads had one of my very FAVORITE bead shapes that I love to use in my "Tendril" style earrings, the spade drops!Here you can see them: aqua/lime mix small spade, pink/crystal mix small spade, jet small spade, amethyst/white core small spade, and orange small spade.
Here are some of my "Tendril" style earrings I made using some of the spade drops above. I had intended to use all of the spade drops for earrings, but was inspired by some beads I had made and used them as dangles on my NEW "Triple Stack Flower Sprocket pendants"!As you may have noticed there are a few more spade drops in the pendant picture that aren't in the picture above. These were some spade drops I already had in my bead stash. Luckily art beads also has them for your shopping pleasure! Wasabi small spade, and blue silk small spade.

I have also always been a huge fan of daggers! I just love their shape and the come in a variety of amazing colors and prints. I chose the 15x6 glowing green/yellow daggers, and the 15x6 fuchsia/pink daggers to use in designs.
The other little pillow cube beads you see in this picture are the flat barrel wasabi silk beads. I LOVE getting beads in the wasabi color since I LOVE lime green and vivid green beads. I didn't get a chance to use these in a design yet, but I can't wait to use them with some beads made out of my Keylime green glass. You can see the glass color in the Triple Stack Flower Sprocket pendants above. These glass beads match the rods perfectly!Here is a spring board design from my original "Heart Burst" styled rings. This ring features a Czech glass skirt with spade drops and the fuchsia/pink daggers! I just love the different layers and textures you get by mixing all of these beads!Here is another style using the glowing green/yellow daggers. They look lighter and almost more iridescent on my very pale complected skin! lol Pretty sweet huh?!

Well I hope you enjoyed my creations using some of Art Beads wonderful stock! Now go ahead and load up your cart and start designing!

Many thanks to Art Beads for giving me the pleasure of playing in their bead box!

Much love,

Genea


**DISCLAIMER** To comply with new blogging regulations the following disclaimer has been added. Genea Beads has received these products free of charge from www.artbeads.com. The views expressed in this blog are my very honest opinion on the items about which I have chosen to blog. Genea Beads has not been paid for an endorsement as it pertains to the products received.

Birth of a new design and the inspiration along the way

Hello friends!

Wow it seems like forever when I only update once a week huh? I was SICK again shortly after returning from Ohio and that put me out for several days. I am happy to say that I am mostly recovered. I am feeling MUCH better and I have been ROCKIN' OUT on beads baby! Woo hoo!

I totally owe you all a picture update of my vacation! I got them all uploaded to facebook, but never officially got a link listed on here for your to enjoy. It would take me WAY too long to upload them here as well. Here is the link to my pictures. Christmas in Ohio '09. As you may have noticed there is now a FB box on the right letting you know about my updates. Since I won't be updating here, but once a week you can check out my FB Genea Beads page. I am known to frequent there with little blips and pictures.

Incase you missed checking out my shop and the NEW pendants, how about an official blog update?

BIRTH OF THE TRIPLE STACK FLOWER SPROCKET'S.....

I am SUPER excited to introduce my NEW Triple Stack Flower Sprocket pendants! So let me tell you a little bit about their origin before releasing the photos. One Bead Blast show about 2 years ago I was lucky enough to purchase some AMAZING spade drops from one of my VERY FAVORITE glass stores, Glass Garden Beads. They have one of the most AMAZING selections of Czech glass I have ever seen. They also have some amazing Vintage glass which I love since they made such interesting shapes with INCREDIBLE colors!

So my love for the spade drop started there. Now how to use this amazing new shape in a design. Probably this time last year I was struck with a burst of inspiration for new earrings. My "Tendril" style earring was born using the fascinating spade drops. Dangly, fun, very texturally interesting as well as visual appeal.The "Disco Dottie" Tendril earrings on the left sold at a show, but I had a special request to make a matching pendant. Luckily I had a bead that was a perfect match to make into a fun tendril style pendant in JUST the same colors(I had made a run of beads in this color palette at that time).
I absolutely LOVED how the pendant turned out!

Now fast forward a bit to where I was contacted by Art Beads to do another blog. So their feature for December was 2 of my ABSOLUTE favorite beads, Hill Tribe silver and Czech glass! How exciting!! So, I perused their site to pick out the items that I would use for my blog and they had a fantastic selection of spade drops(my favorite, you know!) so I added many different colors to my cart.

I had intended to make some more Tendril earrings, but I had made some really sweet discs like the beads I had used in my "Wishing Wheel" pendants except with a twist. These new discs were made with the super fun and exciting filligranas with flat petals instead of pointy bumpy dots. I made a few flat flowers and had intended to stacking one flower on one disc until the beads on my pipe cleaner were stacked in such a fashion that it intrigued me! Ah ha! So I went back to the torch to make some medium size discs which I would call my "Flower Sprockets". So, beads all made and Art Beads order in I sat down to construct my new pendants!

The new design pretty much had looked like my "Wishing Wheel" pendants and "Tendril" earrings had a baby! lol.Here is a picture of my "Wishing Wheel" pendant and the beads that would be my future "Candy Sprocket" Necklace.Here is the Candy Sprocket necklace incase you didn't get a chance to read about it earlier. Melissa and I put this INCREDIBLE necklace together! Melissa did the pendant and I made all of the beads and assembled the necklace.Here is the very FIRST "Triple Stack Flower Sprocket" pendant called "Fire Star"!

Now that you can hardly stand it, how about a look at what pendants are in the shop?!

NEW IN THE SHOP....
"Fire Star"- Oranges, Vibrant yellow green, and red with hints of orchid.

"Sunset Wine"- Scarlet red, orange, coral, lavender, blue-violet, and amethyst.
"Jubilee"- Bubble gum pink, dark periwinkle, lime green, turquoise, orange and yellow. **Dark Periwinkle is not as buzzy blue as the picture looks.**
"Storm"- Deep cobalt blue, grass green, inky blue, teal, lavender, periwinkle, and turquoise.
"Calypso"- New Messy Great Bluedini(Teal), lime green, grass green, turquoise, and amethyst.
"Carnival"- Messy Lapis blue-violet, red, orange, electric yellow green, turquoise and orchid.


A whole lotta awesome huh?! It was so much fun creating these amazing new pendants. Oh! I almost forgot. Perhaps you want to see how it looks on huh?The pendants have a nice large bail loop so they will fit lots of interesting cording. You can double up silk cords or string a multi-stranded necklace to accent the pendant or simply wear it alone on a chain or colored leather cord.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW?...

OMG have I been inspired! I am SOOOOOOO HAPPY about that. I think the release of seasonal holiday stress has been lifted from my brain and the lull of the new year has given me some time to create.

Did you see that I was even inspired by my socks?!
The beads are just as fantastic as the socks only not as fuzzy :D Who knew $3 socks from Gordman's would bring me so much pleasure and inspiration? These socks inspired a whole run of beads that I can't wait to photograph and share with you.

Love has also been in the air and in my studio. I love, love, and hearts and all of that sappy Valentine's day crap! So my little brain had so many ideas for NEW lovey designs! New beads and new pendants alike! I also can't WAIT to show you all of those wonderful things!

Also keep an eye out for my complete Art Beads blog on their amazing stock of beads. I will be trying to get some photographs of that today. It has been so gray that I am just not getting adequate light for my photos!

Talk with you soon!

Much love,

Genea