Third Eye Gypsy(Genea Beads) 2011 by Parigo Studios 2010

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Hooray for BEADS!

Hello friends!

Remember when I told you I made some beads at a friends studio the other day? Well I just loaded those up into the shop! It was just a small handful of beads, but it was nice to melt glass again after about a month( I can't believe it's been that long)!
Here is a shot of the new beads. Both of these styles will be featured in Step-by-Step-Wire July? 2014 issue :D 

I also FINALLY got a chance to list some goodies that I didn't get to list before I moved.
Here is the Q&D for those of you that don't have more time to read ;)

Beach Stone Rounds- "Sahara"- On occasion I do take requests for things. I made some chubby rounds(or rondelles) for a customer and had some extra so here they are. As you may know my "Sahara" beads are a favorite among myself and my customers. Normally you will see these in the form of my headpins, smaller coins and large coin beads.
 Mystic Moon & Sister Sun "Peach Persimmon"- You may remember these amazing batik style beads from last year. I LOOOOOOOOOOVED them and you all did as well(since they are no longer in my shop ;) This bead got nabbed up by Denise Peck at Bead Fest Philly last year so that is why you never saw it after the show. This is the front.
The back side.


"Rainbow Serpent Stick"- These beads always turn out so gorgeous. I wind up with many different color fades when I create these beads. I only got to make a few and they were different from my previous batches so they got different listings.

"Rainbow Serpent Stick"- See what I mean. This one has some really pretty pastels with some bright amber and cranberry :D

"Rainbow Urchin" clasp-Who doesn't love my sea urchin designs? I had to make some of these for another future magazine submission so I had lots of extras :D








Last, but not least... "Turbulent Tides Rainbow Urchin" heart focal- Um yeah, what a gorgeous bead huh?! I crammed all of the awesome I could possible get onto this bead: an urchin dot, twisted glittery waves of dichro, a rainbow serpent, some silvered ivory. Yum!!


I even got a chance to make my friend Melissa an amazing pair of earrings. Remember my "Loving Lotus Ray" earrings? Well this is that same style with different beads. Melissa loves ivory and orange so I picked out this combo just for her :)

Well that is all for me for now. I hope to get my studio up and running VERY soon. Stay tuned.

xo Genea


Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Where Have All the Genea Beads Gone?

Hello friends!

Well it's been an interesting couple of weeks.  It was so nice to move and get unpacked. We had no idea we would run into so many problems with the plumbing at our new place. So the saga continues with our drain. Apparently when this house was built they used metal pipe for the drains and after time they get rust build up inside. If you can think of an older drain with rust build up inside you can use the analogy of  clogged arteries. This makes is very hard for the water to go anywhere since the opening in side the drain is so small. We had a new pvc pipe installed to see if that would help with the water flow. 

The old pipe.
The new one.
The tech going to town on the drain. 

So looks like since he wasn't able to fully unclog the drain that they will need to go into the closet next to the washer and break open the floor to replace the drain and then pour new concrete. Damn... Apparently it's not as bad as it sounds. 

In the mean time my studio is STILL not set up since I have no idea if they will need to rip up more floor in the basement where I would be working or not. Ah boo.

So I have been up to other things to fill my time while we wait to work out all of the kinks. I am pretty sure this is the last one until we are all fixed up and back to "normal". *crosses fingers*

Mom has been cleaning out her house while they prepare to get their place on the market. When she cleaned out the garage she came across the old Mapp gas canisters from about 10 years ago! If you didn't know they pretty much don't take them ANYWHERE anymore to recycle them. My friend Melissa came up with the genius idea to list them on Craig's List as scrap metal! Within a day they were GONE! What a relief! Here are all of the 105 of the canisters.

I am so glad they are out of my hair after to much trouble trying to recycle them.

I finally had the pleasure of checking out a local gem here in down town KC called Pigwich and The Local Pig. They have a food cart out front with a butcher in the building right next to it.  


The Local Pig is the butcher side with many delectable treats! Just look at this case of meat and eggs! Yum!!

They have all different kinds of bacon, and cuts of pork. You can even see the local honey at the bottom.

Holy crap! they even have scrapple. Staci introduced me to this the last time I was in PA for Bead Fest. I was excited to see it here!

I was super stoked to be able to order their bbq brisket sandwich sans bread. They make their own chips and pickles too! The piled my meat on top of a bed of arugula(which you can't see buried under the cheese and pickles). Yes folks, it was as good as it looks! Just looking at it makes me want to go back for more. This is the Tuesday special too. Hmmm... I wonder who is around to go today? :D


I treated myself to some new ink at one of my fav local tattoo parlors, A-1 Tattoos. Brennan the shop owner and guy on the far left in the facebook photo was my tattoo artist. He is AMAZING! I can't wait to go back to start work on my full sleeve!

Here is my tattoo all finished. I got another African Adrinka symbol called Ananse Ntontan "Spider's Web" which is a symbol of : wisdom, creativity, and the complexities of life. I plan to get another 2 symbols that will stagger around my arm. I was excited to have my other tattoo next to it touched up as well. Now it's all solid black. You can see the white lines in the tattoo from before where the ink came out of my skin when it scabbed. 

I even picked up some new tattoo ointment from another one of my local favorites, Indigo Wild. You may recognize them in your local health markets. They are the makers of Zum Bars. This ointment is AWESOME for your tattoo that paired with an excellent artist makes all of the difference! 


Ricky and I picked up some awesome stuff for your new place and It's a Beautiful Day, one of our favorite hippy shops that is still going strong since I used to go back when I was 16(when we first moved to kc)! So glad they are still around! I love the sound of this wonderful bamboo? wind chime. It makes a nice hollow sound when the wind catches it.

I also love the sound of this tinkling bell Om wind chime :)

Leeloo and Kayla enjoyed the front deck with me this morning while I drank my coffee. I just love this spot!


Have you seen the newest issue of Bead Design Studio? You can find the tutorial for my "Olympia" necklace inside! I will be creating the components as soon as I can work out the whole studio issue so stay tuned for that....

I am also excited to announce our tutorial  for my "Ancient Tapestry" earrings featured in Soda Lime Times digital glass magazine. This is one of those issues you DON'T want to miss! It's full of some incredible tutorials and some awesome neutral palette eye candy!

I got some time to sit down and design some jewelry. Remember my "Loving Lotus Rays" earrings from the 8th BSBP? This is the next design I want to create as soon as I can make more of my smaller "Sacred Om Lotus" beads. The link takes you to the full size focals.

Front side design idea.

Back side design idea. I want to use interchangeable lever backs so you can wear the earrings on either side. 

I had the pleasure of trying out Darn Good Yarn's new suede ribbon. I love that they sent me suede in my favorite colors! 

Here is my "Hoopin' Vortex Star" necklace! I was excited to pair my vortex flower focal with Staci's star focal, wooly wire, and these awesome tumbled beach glass hoops by Trinket Foundry.

Here is how it looks worn. Awesome huh?! I love it!!

I was able to go make some beads at my friend Melissa's house. It was awesome to melt glass again. Luckily we even have the same: torch, and kiln :) I was feeling a little rusty and only got a few beads made, but it was nice to get in the motions again. I will have to go see her soon to see how the fruits of my labor turned out.

Thanks for stopping by to check in. 

See you soon!

xo Genea



Saturday, May 10, 2014

Bead Soup Blog Party 8- Reveal!

Hello friends!

Well today is the big day! How did you do? Did your designs just jump onto your bead table and transform into amazing creations? 

I will just give a quick re-cap of things before my reveal. My very talented partner is Jael Thorp of Jael's Jewels. She sent me these amazing beads with which to work! She really spoiled me!

So believe it or not, I broke the rules! Shame on me! It's been a crazy time. I just recently moved and ran into a run of interesting problems to say the least with my studio still sitting disassembled in my garage :( You can read about the "demon sink" episode here. Nothing kills creativity like stress! Ick. 

So I did something I don't normally do. I took on more things than I could "handle". If any of you know me you know I am NOT what I call a "pressure cooker"(the people that work best under pressure) or a procrastinator. Lately in life I have had to let things go, give up my plans, go with the flow, and "fly by the seat of my pants". This is really challenging for me, but provides me with some good balance. 

So how did I break the rules? I didn't use our "required" pieces to design my soup.  I looked at it like this. I figured I would just start with the things that inspired me and hopefully putting those things together would keep that good energy going. 

During one of my morning meditations. Jael's heart beads came into my mind with this design around them. I recalled a pair of earrings my friend Melissa had made that looked very henna patterned with lots of negative space. This is the design that popped into my head. When I got done with my meditation I sat down to create these earrings! I call them "Sunshine Lotus" earrings.

"Loving Lotus Rays" -Jael's hearts with the faces and petals make me think of flowers and suns. This design works both as flower petals or sun rays. The earrings are surprisingly light for their size and I just love the negative space and repetition of the petal/ray shape in the design. 
Polymer clay heart beads- Jael's Jewels 
Patinated hoops- Starry Road Studio
Raku Wooly Wire- Wooly wire Etc.

Here is what they look like worn. Amazing, huh?! I really love the look of them! Now I am inspired to make another pair of these with my lotus beads inside

My next design I totally fell in love with! I was on a super beachy theme of beads so I blame that for my desire to create this piece.
Here are some of the beads from my beach collection.

This was the bead that was really talking to me. I just love this sweet little ocean and shore bead. Don't you just love the little waves lapping up onto the sand? The shimmer of the glitter? The color faded waves, sandy texture and shell? Yep, I love it all!

Here is my design in progress.

Here is a close-up of the "cord" part of the design. I just love all of the details! I was especially pleased with how I rocked those tumbled recycled glass hoops from Trinket Foundry! There are no holes in the hoops for stringing materials. I make swirl centered wooly wire connectors to make the hoops into a chain, and then used hemp to suspend the recycled glass rounds across the center :D

I love the contrast of the bone beads and fish vertebrae along with my stone textured lampwork and the shimmer of the raku beads by Xaz. I chose a hill tribe copper simple hook clasp to stay on that oceany primitive theme. I didn't want anything to fussy or fancy for the clasp.

For the pendant I wanted to create a long dramatic focal point. I used one of Karen's gorgeous flower hoops at the top with one of my ocean beach stone jewel wing dings, and Jael's beautiful beach bead at the bottom.


I call this one "99 problems, but a beach ain't one". This necklace is a bit hard to photograph in some sort of normal sized photo since the pendant is so long. I think this shot really got all of the details in one photo.

Beach shore bead- Jael's Jewels
Ocean Beach Stone Jewel Wing Ding, spiral beach stones "white sands" coins, and beach stone spacers "sandy fossil"- Genea Beads
Flower hoop focal- Starry Road Studio
Raku rounds- Xaz
Recycled Glass hoops- Trinket Foundry

Here is what the necklace looks like worn.

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Want to see what everyone else created? Check out our other participants here.

Happy Hopping!

xo Genea

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Random Jewelry Update!

Hello friends!

Don't you love it when you randomly decide to update your jewelry shop? Mine gets sadly neglected while I spend most of my time making beads, but today..... 

The Q&D view for all of you that don't want to read all of my text ;) 

"Shattered Surf Batiks"- Don't you just LOVE these?! I used my new "magic butter batik" beads and some of Marsha Neal's amazing crackle spiral free form rectangles. She referred to these earrings as "Soul mates for your ears" since the design just jumped together. 

"Space Age Pods" Maybe you remember seeing these in Bead Design Studio magazine January 2014? :D

 Swizzle Stick "Desert Cactus"- a sweet fanciful little twisted stick wrapped wooly wire and sari silk fibers on a recycled sari silk cord.
"Winged Ocean Spikes" Wow! Are these AMAZING, or what?! They are SUPER long and sassy! I took some really great shots too!

Like this one! Wow, huh?! I just love perspective shots! 

Whoa! Aren't those just so sultry?! *Grrrrr*

Well that's all for today!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

xo Genea