Desert Serpent Beads Facebook Bead Preview Going on NOW!

Hello friends!

Have you missed the beads from the preview? Now is YOUR chance to grab some! I just posted the bead preview on my facebook page! To "call" your beads post on the photo of the beads you would like. Any beads that are left will make their way into the shop. Don't wait too long as the beads have been SELLING OUT the first day! 

That is all for today. I am up to my eyeballs in things to do. I need to get some designs created for a class I am submitting.

Bead Design Studio March/April issue is almost out! Get ready to have the cover KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF! Staci has an amazing tutorial using my "Ocean Urchin Egg" focal and I have a tutorial using my Spiral Earth Stone "Sahara" focal or the "Sacred Lotus" focal! Keep an eye out for the kits that will be appearing in my shop as soon as the mag hits the shelves!

See you soon!

xo Genea

What's Old is New Again- Re-working Old Designs

Hello friends!

I was just working on some jewelry and while I worked I thought you might like to learn some of the things I did while re-vamping an older design.

This re-working a design came from Mom asking me to re-work the "Coffee Lover's Cup" necklace I made for her for her birthday one year. It featured some of my fanciful coffee bean  beads with affections towards the fuel for my creative machine, COFFEE! 

I know some people freak out about cutting up older jewelry and making it into something new or cutting it up all together. Don't be afraid, this is where your new self can make improvements. We learn new things all the time so why not put that wisdom to work!

Here is a little inspiration for ya!

Here is mom's old necklace design. It was pretty, but the beads flipped and you couldn't see all of the amazing details.

Here you can see the new improvements! I added a Wooly Wire™ wrapped hoop to the center. This hoop allowed all of the focal dangles to hang in a way that you could see them all and they laid nice and flat.

I added a Wooly Wire™ wrap around the little lentil beads in the middle of the beaded strands to hold them flat. As pretty as lentils are they don't make the greatest necklace beads because they do tend to flip. I cut off some of the fussy cluster dangles of Swarovski crystals on the left bead strand, and swapped out the ornate coffee bean and paddle heart headpins for the chain dangles to droplets. I wanted to leave that same pretty dangle droplet design on the right side, but not have to worry about the pretty details of the fancy headpins flipping to the back side. The new design lays beautifully and you can see all of the amazing details of the focal beads including the super cute and sweet coffee bean dots! HOORAY!

Mom's new necklace design inspired me to fix the "Coffee Lover's Cup" design I had listed in my shop. It's amazing all of the things you learn over time and how you can go back and give things a quick fix.

On the left you will see the older "Coffee Lover's Cup" design. On the right you can see the new and improved design. Wow what a difference! The new design and photos really are somethin' else! This ties in with a nice blog post Lorelei shared on facebook about photo taking. You can also check out the new boot camp by Love My Art Jewelry about Physical Balance and Asymmetry.

Here is a nice full shot of the new design.

Here is how it looks worn. I love the focal piece. I took my design a step further than mom's by adding a dangle hanging in the negative space of the hoop and just using a tiny bit of Wooly Wire™ at the top of the hoop instead of covering the whole piece.

While we are showing off some of the fun I had at mom's last week while I was working at the studio I found a few more photos to share :)

I had to create another run of  "Bright Earth" Wing Dings for the feature in Jewelry Stringing Magazine Spring 2014 and I was working up that good mojo to get everything going. Mom pulled out her bead boxes of all of my flop beads. WOW! Can you believe ALL of those beads?! 

Holy crap! Now before you freak this is a collection of flops from MANY years of lampworking. This just didn't happen over night. So you can see how picky I am about only having my very best work out there ;)

I also came across some old polymer clay I had made. Here is an unfired polymer clay santa face I made for my mom. I made him when I was about 16 ;)

 Here is a gorgeous pendant mom made with one of my broken beads set in silver. Amazing huh? You never know what you will find when you are looking for supplies to fix a necklace ;)

Here is a nice snowy shot of the view from my studio window. I know all of you are tired of SNOWMAGEDDON, but here in  Missouri and Kansas we didn't get very much. Luckily it has been cold enough to leave the snow on the ground and feel a little bit like winter. The last few days everything has been melting :( 

Well that is it for today!

I am off to the studio again tonight to make some more beadies for my tutorials that will be out next month!

See you soon!

xo Genea

Recycled Sari Silk 18-10" Adjustable necklace- Video Tutorial!

Hello friends!

So I finally just decided to do this video tutorial. A long while back I did a step by step photo tutorial on this. Yes, it's easy and simple, but it is also: super pretty, recycled, and handy to have on hand. I had originally thought to offer it as a very inexpensive tutorial, but later just decided to botch that idea and do a free video instead. This simple necklace is perfect for: creating a quick gift, having a ready made piece to offer at shows, or for a great everyday simple piece. So before I show off the tutorial how about a little background on how it came to be and where the infatuation started.

THE STORY.....

So many years back in my early lampwork career I used to use things like rat tail. It worked, but the cording was so thin.

Then there were the inexpensive Chinese ribbon cords. Sure they came in a variety of colors, but there were still nothing compared to fairy silk, which was my true love in cording. Necklace from 2009ish? See where the "Bright Earth" Wing Ding palette originated? ;)

Fairy silk was so gorgeous and it's like it was made just to match with every color of glass. Vortex Flower necklaces from 2010.

The down side was that fairy silk was so expensive. It was over $8 a cord and with no wholesale license at the time there was no bulk order I could make. As much as I loved the cord it just wasn't cost effective for me.

Then I fell in LOVE with sari silk. It was not only GORGEOUS, but it was inexpensive, recycled(I love all recycled and re-used things), and available in batches with gorgeous color variations. I couldn't think of anything better!

When I first moved to my apartment I decided that I needed to leave my studio at mom's house. So I took that busy time with no lampworking to find other things to create. That is when I came up with the Recycled Sari Silk adjustable necklaces. I loved making them so much I sat down and mad a gagillion!

THE TUTORIAL

So my gift to you is this super fun, super easy, and super addictive, Recycled Sari Silk 18-20" adjustable necklace.

See how great this looks for this simple necklace?

Want to just show off that incredible focal on a simple cording? Viola! Necklace available here.

So get to work and make some of those recycled sari silk necklace cords!

See you soon!

xo Genea

ERMAGERD! WING DINGS! RUN to the shop NOW!

Hello friends!

Don't walk, RUN to the shop NOW! No, I mean it! Just a few sets and pairs left and you WON'T want to miss out! Infact they may be gone by the time you get there! They tend to go quickly and it's been, um, ahem, a little while since I had some in stock...

Q&D view of the beads that are left as we speak.

Spiral Earth Stone "Electric Lime" XL coin bead. A BIG MAMMA JAMMA of a focal bead in mouth watering electric lime. The SUPER RARE lime you won't want to let slip by! I was lucky enough to get some of this incredible odd lot glass 8 LONG YEARS after it's production! I have a very limited quantity of it and I will be making what I can in my collections of beads until I am out. It was VERY expensive to get and the chances of me getting more are very slim to none. So I can't stress enough how if you love these beads you should get them while you can!

Wing Dings Beach Stone "Electric Lime Silver Thread" pairs- OH.. MY... GOD.. these are SO LUSCIOUS! Maybe you remember the amazing pair of earrings I made for myself with these beads below. They are some of my VERY favorites and I was so glad I saved these for me!

Hoops and earwires by-Miss Fickle Media, and Copper Charms by Starry Road Studio.

Wing Dings Beach Stones "Orchid Rainbow Leopard" -Pink? Purple? Rainbows? Stone? WING DINGS?! OMG!

Wing Dings "Bright Earth" my most beloved color palette of Wing Dings! I was excited to stock these again. I have been anxiously awaiting a restock of one of the colors from the distributor for months! Luckily I had enough glass to get a few sets made before running out... again(story of my life!)! This mouth watering set is made from odd lot batches of glass and gorgeous color shifting glasses! 

Here is a photo of the necklace by Kaushambi Shah in Jewelry Stringing Spring 2014! Isn't it gorgeous?!

Well that is all for today. I have lots of beads to tie up and orders to pack. 

See you soon!

xo Genea

Beads and Babble

Hello friends!

Did you miss the facebook beads preview? The beads went FAST as usual(YAY!) so I will only have some "You should have seen 'em" photos to post on those.

Here was this weeks haul. People had been asking when I would have more of the "Purple Peacock" Desert Serpent beads available. I ordered more glass and used up the entire 1/2lb of glass and this is how much I got done. I guess somewhere in my mind I thought I would have been able to make more beads lol. Guess I will definitely be ordering way more than than next time around. I also blew through the teal glass as well. Same deal, used up ALL of the glass and here is what I got to make.

A few close-up's for ya. OMG so pretty! I just love everything about these beads!

A scale photo.

Close-up of the purple. *SLURP*

Mmmm just like jewels!

I did, however, run into some problems....

This...I bent about 12 mandrels trying to get my beads off of them. I am really sad the discontinued my favorite bead release :(:(:(

2 of my babies went to their beady grave. You can see at the top where the glass chipped around the hole where I tried to remove the beads :( Sadly they are still on the mandrels in this sad state. I will have to CUT the mandrel to at least salvage that part of it so I can re-use it.

I scored this battle scar from the first 6 beads and had to suffer through the rest. I *almost* lost an XL focal too! I put that baby in the freezer and then in hot water. LUCKILY the bead gods smiled upon me and released my bead from it's untimely death.

We FINALLY got that snow everyone else had been getting. It snowed ALL day on Tuesday. It was GLORIOUS.... until... they pulled out the plow for the parking lot and the leaf blower. Ugh.. the price of silence these days. 

Here was a photo that night of all of the snow. I think we got about 10 inches? Enough to have a lovely snow blanket across the landscape making it finally feel like winter.

I received my pretties from Cassie at Zenned Out!! Look at her pretty packaging!

I got a bracelet that says "You're Stronger Thank You think, and Braver Thank You Know" with an eye and a lotus, and a ring with fire that says "Fire Within Me". The whole quote goes "Sky above me, earth below me, fire within me." I just love these secret message pieces :D

Me sportin' my new jewelry :D

Cassie even took some photos of her loot! I snuck in a pair of my "Space-Age" pod earrings to go with her gorgeous pink hair!

She was sweet enough to model them and click a pic! Isn't she just darling?! The earrings match her hair perfectly!

I actually sat down to make some jewelry today. My jewelry supplies are so sadly neglected. I dump most of my funds into glass instead of jewelry supplies. I did, however, have some amazing things in my stash to put together! Tear drop hoop- Miss Fickle Media, Patinated Hoops- Starry Road Studio, Copper charms- S L Artisan Accents, Wooly Wire- Wooly Wire Etc., and the designs and lampwork beads and headpins by yours truly ;) 

Well that about wraps up my week for now. Tonight it's cheap tacos at one of our favorite local Mexican markets! I am headed over to the studio tomorrow. So I will be back with more goodies after Tuesday.

See you soon!

xo Genea