From a Snow Storm to the Beach- Etsy Shop Update

Hello friends!

Wow, did we get some SNOW in the Midwest, or WHAT?! Did you see this?? 

Ok maybe it doesn't look that bad, but we have to have gotten like 2 feet of snow fall over the last week and a half or so. It was pretty crazy. Growing up by the Great Lakes, I love me some snow. The only down side is that Ricky got stuck staying in Olathe, Kansas(about 45 mins from here) cause he had to keep the gym open. 

So what do you do when you are snowed in?? Make jewelry, duh. :P

So here is what you can make with my new moon and star beads :D I used  a bunch of Staci's amazing beads as well, and you know how I love my Wooly Wire! Wooly Wire is going LIVE on Lima Beads today too! So go tell Nellie how excited you are for her! :D

I also made this bracelet, which I LOOOOOOOOOVE! I actually switched around beads quite a few times before I got the bracelet just how I wanted it. I actually didn't intend to use one of Karen's "Pie Beads" in the center, but I LOVE how it turned out! Lots of goodies on here by Karen along with some more Wooly Wire and my "Lagoon" Weeny Dings :D

I also made myself these wonderful earrings. I called them "We are all made of Stars". I named them after a Moby Song. I used some of Karen's amazing hoops and her raku star with my "Galaxy" Headpins.

So I when I made stuff for listings this week I went in a totally different direction. I went from snow to the BEACH. So I blame it on a few different things. 1. Listening to Jack Johnson. I had the hankering for some protein pancakes the other day. Jack Johnson has a "Banana Pancakes" song(which I am in love with btw). So I had both... 

Ok so they look kind of terrible, but the are DAMN DELICIOUS. You can find the recipe here- Banana Pancakes. Ok so you have to make the pancakes and play the song so you can get the full effect :D This song is SO happy :D "Making banana pancakes and pretend like it's the weekend"! 

So 2.I was talking with Karen and I had shown her these star headpins I had made. She had told me I should try doing starfish! Hmmm.. great idea Karen! 3. I was also showing Karen some of these Ivory stone textured beads I made awhile back. She told me I needed to make more and she had ordered some so I figured  why not, right?! They were awesome beads.

So here are the back sides of the "Star Bright" beads. Where I started with the whole star headpin design.

Here are the starfish designs. The first is raked up the sides, the second is "painted" on and the third is painted on with dots. You know I like to start out simple and make the design more intricate. I loved the super dotty one best so that is what I decided to make for my listings :D

"Teal Tide Starfish"- This sweet little pair would be perfect alone or added with other beachy beads :D

Spiral Beach Stones "White Sands"- Wow, didn't these turn out GORGEOUS? They make me thing of beautiful white sandy beaches. The ivory textures really well so these have some wonderful pits to them!

Beach Stone Droplets "Pale Aqua"- I chose this color because it makes me think of that pale pretty aqua beach glass. This glass textures up really nicely as well. So pretty. I know you all love that pale aqua too.

Spiral Earth Stones "Sahara"- You may remember this favorite! I was lucky enough to score some of this wonderful glass from a good friend(thanks K!) since the big supplier is out at the moment. I didn't get too far making multiples of this since I cranked out the other beads, but I do have a set up for grabs ;)

I hope you enjoyed my A.D.D. blog post! lol. Now I must RUN upstairs and RIP into my 3 packages that arrived today!!

Have a happy Thursday!

xo Genea

Love and Light Friendship Hearts, Corkscrew Candies and Rainbow Swirl Clasps- Etsy Shop Update, Jewelry too!

Hello friends!

I did it! 2 blogs in one week! Woo hoo! Surely I should get some award for that, right?! Oh I even updated my jewelry shop! DOUBLE BONUS! He he. 

So where to start? Well if you have been following me on Facebook, you may have already seen these when I post my beads right out of the kiln. If not you may want to friend request me and follow my GB page ;)

So I guess I will start with my jewelry shop since it's so terribly neglected. As you know my primary thing is beads, but I do love to make jewelry as well! 

New in the Genea C-K Jewelry Shop....

"Luna's Nocturnal Embrace" - Remember me posting this beauty? I had created a sun necklace just before this one that is currently hanging out at Belle Armoire Magazine ;) I was excited to finally use some of Staci's amazing heart moon/sun/star pendants as I had had them for over a year before designing with them. I LOVE night time and this necklace celebrating it :)

Here is what it looks like worn.

"Star Dust"- No great necklace design can be without some gorgeous earrings, so here they are! 

Vortex Pod "Bright Earth"- You know how I love this style ring. I was SO excited to make a Wooly Wire band! This ring is super comfy like wearing a scarf on your finger :D

"Recycled Wine" - I was so excited when I made these! They are super recycled with my distressed scrabble tiles and recycled wine bottle glass droplets! Perfect for the green peeps you know and love.

Bead Shop Update...

Weeny Dings "Lagoon"- They are back in the shop! Woo hoo! I just love this color combo. Yum!

Rainbow Spiral S-Clasp- Schmedium- Back in stock! I just LOVE the color in these dots!

Rainbow Spiral S-Clasp- Small- Got some small clasps re-listed too! Yay!

Introducing the NEW, Corkscrew Candies "Midnight Jewel" pairs! I just love everything about this design. I love the corkscrew spiral of black that floats across the middle of the bead with the super rainbowy dot. Perfect for earrings!

The inspiration of design. While I take my walks I am usually flooded with ideas. This radiating heart had come to me before, but came to me again in a time of need. The first bead was trying out the design, the second was the actual "Radiating Heart" design I created for myself. The last design was working out a winged heart, which led me to the last very special bead....

I felt a very strong pull to create a winged heart bead for Staci like her logo heart. I was so happy with this very special bead that I made some more. Staci and I named the heart together and we are proud to present, "Love and Light, Flight of Friendship" :D

Here is Staci's logo heart for reference ;)

and here is the incredible back of the bead! Just look at all of that COLOR! Wow!

Well that concludes my shop update for the day. 

Kansas City got HAMMERED with a winter storm today, so my gift to myself was to enjoy it after doing my listings :D

Here is what I woke up to this morning. If you look to the left right by that leaf on the branch you will see the dogs on the far edge of the yard enjoying the snow :D

Here is Leeloo's sweet snowy face!

Happy Thursday! 

See you soon! 

xo Genea

New glass colors- Reichenbach Purple Rose and Raspberry Opal

Hello friends!

I wanted to post this blog for awhile. I don't know if you  remember my photos on facebook when I got my glass, but you will get to see them here if you missed it.

I had the pleasure of picking up some new colors during Olympic Color Rods sale.

If you don't know Reichenbach also makes the Raku glass I am always talking about. It's one of my very favs! Their glass is amazing! Reichenbach glass is created in Germany. Their rods are a wonderful 6mm thickness and the glass is pristine. My rods came pre-cut to, I am guessing 17" or something like that. Just gorgeous, gorgeous glass.

So upon getting new colors I did a quick glass test with them. It's always a good idea to try out a few things with your colors before doing a whole run of beads only to find out there are some compatibility, or color issues.

So before moving on I will tell you what lead to my order. My friend Sarah Moran, of Z-Beads was kind enough to share with me some info about this wonderful sale. She is not only an INCREDIBLE bead maker, but a color guru. She had worked with these colors and suggested them to me as we both LOVE color. Sarah really knows her glass and does a lot of experiments so I totally trust her judgement and knowledge of glass. 

So the new Purple Rose color came about because awhile back their was a company called Zimmerman. They produced glass blowing colors. While taking my class with Andrea Guarino-Slemmons, I was introduced to their amazing glass colors. We used many of their enamels in our class. One of the most amazing colors we used was called "Z-99".  Sadly Mr. Zimmerman passed away and with him he took his glass color formulas with him. His family decided to not only close the business after his passing, but to NOT sell the formulas. BOO! It was a total bummer because I believe they had been in business for a very long time. So the enamels we got in our class were the LAST I would ever have(and still hoard). OCR sold the enamels until all were gone and that was the last of Zimmerman color.

Here is a photo I borrowed from Andrea's shop. She was the last known person to actually have any Z-99 left. In the photo you can see her incredible beads using Z-99.

Oh... my... God! Can you believe that color?! Andrea's beads are just incredible as well! She is not only an incredible bead maker, but a wonderful teacher!

So sad this color is gone :( But.... Reichenbach has come up with a solution! They created "Purple Rose" and this is the closest thing we have to Z-99.

How I test my new glass colors....

First I melt the tip. I always say, you can't judge a rod by it's color. So true! As you can see here the rod color is actually much lighter than the glass works up.

Reichenbach Purple Rose. Mmmmm just look at that deep saturated purple. Pretty fantastic, huh?!

So here are my quick tests from left to right: Bead 1- Base of Messy Clear with a purple rose dot encased with effetre dark lavender. This test showed me if the transparent lavender with the opaque purple would make some nice layering for a flower petal. 

Bead 2- Purple Rose encased with Messy Clear. As yyou can see the bead turns lighter. I did this encasement to see if there was any trouble with cracking so I knew if I could encase the bead. Messy clear is my FIRST pic for clear as it is so stable. I almost never have any problems with cracking when encasing with this glass!

Bead 3- Purple Rose just by it self. I heated and cooled the bead a few times to "strike" the color. You can get a violet, a purply pink violet and a lighter purple. The glass likes to be hot so you want to work it like you would EDP. Over working and excessive cooling will cause devitrification(chalky white matte glass). You can let the bead cool and then go and super heat the glass again to bring out the purple. This was just my quick experiment so I am not sure how many times you can do that before you get yuck glass.

Bead 4- Purple Rose encased in filigrana. Filigrana can be picky and crack when layered over certain glasses so I wanted to do this quick test to see if it work. As you can see, no cracks! 

Opal Raspberry. Yum! What a PINK. In most of our soft glass palette the opaque pinks SUCK. they are very pale, almost white. This is a nice saturated gorgeous pink! Looks just like Bullseye Pink Opal.

Again here are the same tests as above. From left to right: Opal Raspberry encased in Messy clear. No cracking. 

Bead 2- Raspberry Opal plain. As you can see it keeps it's nice saturated color.

Bead 3- Raspberry Opal encased in filigrana. No cracking.

Bead 4- Base of Messy clear with a raspberry opal dot with effetre lavender blue transparent on top. I used that transparent "pink" to enhance the color of opal raspberry. Seems like it will make a nice flower petal.

As you can see these beads are nothing fancy. Their purpose is to do some basic tests so when making beads you know what to expect out of your glass.

I hope you enjoyed my little tests.

xo Genea

Batik and Glass- Shop Update and Run of Design Inspiration

Hello friends!

I am always amazed at how fast the week goes by. I have been making TONS of beads! I just recently got STUCK on this style and I just HAD to keep making beads!  I am in LOVE with the designs!

They started with one of my new beads inspired by Staci's new metal eye beads, which then inspired me to make a bead for Karen. I am so lucky to have such amazing creative friends that are an endless source of inspiration. I always think it's pretty cool to be inspired to do new designs based on your own work as well.

Inspiration for beads....

So let's take a look at where these designs were born first.

On the left is Staci's new copper eye bead. She was inspired by my love of eyes and I was inspired by her bead. So just a quick touch on that subject cause I want to blog about that later ;P

So the back of this beads was actually the start of the inspiration for this entire run of beads. I think it's exciting to see a designs starting point and ending point. 

Here is the back of my eye bead. The back was so pretty that I decided to use that as the starting point for yet another bead.

Here is the front with the sun.

and the back with the moon! UH-MAZING! Wow you see why I had to keep making beads?

So I thought I should totally make Karen a bead since her business name is "Starry Road Studio". I had started making her a bead like the purple velvet one(I am listing today) except instead of the sun and moon I went for a "Starry Road" style. Moon and Star bead.

So here were the starting points. I tried a few to see which design I liked best. Here is the front side.

The back side. The first one looked too much like a sun to me. I LOVE the second design and the 3rd. Infact in this run of beads some have the second back design and some have the 3rd. It was mostly a space thing. So after I made the star I had to see how much room I had left for the design ;)

Well after that I had this idea to make Karen some jewelry! She likes to collect beads, but doesn't always get around to making jewelry. Staci has been sending me some finished jewelry of hers, which I have really enjoyed getting since sometimes it's just nice to wear something rather than designing. So with that thought I decided to make Karen a necklace and earrings. I will reveal the necklace now since I spoiled the surprise with the inspiration pic in my listing. You will have to wait to see the earrings.

OMG can you believe this necklace??! It is SOOOOO beautiful! It just came right together. It's like I had bought the silk to match, when infact I had bought it a short while back. So perfect!

So after making the larger focals I decided to make the "Star Brights" small focals and.....

"Star Bright" front.

"Star Bright" back.

 "Moon Bubble Sprees". I really like making a collection of beads when I work. I just picked some of my fav colors and got to it.

So there is the design process. Pretty amazing to see where it started and ended up huh? :)

NEW IN THE SHOP....

Mystic Moon and Sister Star "Purple Velvet"- Um can you say WOW?! This base color is absolutely gorgeous and it is so rocking with the Raku!

Back side.

Mystic Moon and Sister Star- "Rust"- One of my favs to use as a base. It is a perfect compliment to raku!

Back. Oh just look at these COLORS!

"Moon Bubble Sprees"- Not only are the color bases so pretty, but I could get just LOST in these dots. Not only are they rainbows, but they have a reflective mirror dot inside the center. Wow!

Star Bright "Golden Ocher"- just a sweet little star to wish upon :)

Star Bright "Mystic Mint"- Another one of my very favorite base colors. Ooo look at those streaks of color! Yummy!

So looking at the base colors I noticed those are all colors you see in the Raku. Crazy how my brain picked those up and translated them into the beads!

 I hope you enjoyed my design process and new work as much as I did.

Have a wonderful Thursday and Happy Valentine's day!

xo Genea

Rainy Day, Vortex Flowers, and Bright Earth S-Clasps

Hello friends!

It's a fabulous rainy day outside! Can you believe it, in February? We even had a thunderstorm last night! I love the Midwest weather! So today I sat inside and updated my shop. I figured it was a perfect day for it. I need to catch up on some blog writing too. I have so many topics to write about and some exciting news! 

Can you believe I did it? You can thank Karen for this run of clasps ;) She is the one that requested them. they look so pretty all together like this! I listed a few in the shop for now. Gotta stash some away for the show ;)

Bright Earth S-Clasp "Coral and Rust"

Bright Earth S-Clasp "Rust and Apricot"

Bright Earth S-Clasp "Sky Blue and Yellow Green" -My personal favorite(of course ;P)

Bright Earth Vortex Flower- These are all so pretty! Something unique about each one with their shape and palette ;) 

Bright Earth Vortex Flower

"Mineral Rain" Vortex Flower- Surprised about this palette? Me too. I was inspired by Design Seeds. You can see the photo in the listing ;)

"Mineral Rain" Vortex Flower- the colors are very muted and remind me of rainy days.

Ok folks, that is all for now. I have 2 packages waiting for me to open them. I can hardly contain myself. I made myself wait til I was done with listings before tearing into them ;)

Have a great Thursday!

xo Genea