Suns, Moons, and other wonderful things- Shop Update.

Hello friends!

Well I have to apologize to all of you about having to post the listings earlier than I had originally planned. I had some time restraints pop up so I listed today instead of Monday.

Here is the "quick and dirty" shop update for those of you in a time crunch. 

Batwing  Eye Heart- I don't know if I will even get to more Halloween beads this year so this may be it. I love Halloween, but it sneaks up so fast on me every year!

Wing dings- Bright Earth- "Patina Green" - A more earthy pair in my Bright Earth series. I only have ONE more left. I am flattered that a pair sold before I even had the chance to post here :) Oh and I goofed on the price so I just left it where it was at a lower price than the original ;)

Bright Earth "Squash" clasp.

"Dawn" pod headpin pair. These are so whispy and dreamy. This double toned glass can produce either really bright streaky pieces or soft and dreamy like this pair that remind me of the early dawn sunrise.

Mystic Moon and Sister Star "Avocado Ocher"- Many of you really loved the suns or moons. How exciting is it that this is the SAME bead. One side is a sun and the other is a moon and stars!

Mystic Moon and Sister Sun- "Chai" a soft dreamy khaki brown that resembles a drink of fall, chai tea. Sip on those suns and moons.

Mystic Moon and Sister Sun- "Cocoa"- A dreamy deep chocolate brown is the canvas for this rainbow kissed sun and moon.

Star Bright "Rust"- A tiny little star to wish upon in rich copper rust and rainbows.

"Sunset Jewel"- gorgeous sunshine coral lentils streaked with a thread of whispy silver and jeweled rainbow dots.

Star Bright "Lemon Seafoam"-SOLD OUT. I am flattered that this bead was already sold out before I came here to post. Thank you :)

Well this unexpected listing day was my day off and my day before I get to FINALLY head to the studio. I can't wait to get into my new boxes of glass and tools! Lots and lots of pretty things to create. 

See you soon!

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

More stone texture beads in the shop! New colors and designs!

Hello friends!

OMG is it HOT outside. It is especially hot today. The kind of heat that makes your head hurt after only being outside for a few minutes. It is a sweltering 102 degrees outside today! I sure am glad to be back in the basement under a fan!

You may have seen my shop update on facebook a few hours ago. I got my listings done and then took a break to enjoy some lunch Ricky made this afternoon. I sure do miss eating meals together since he works so much! I then took my dad out for a sundae for his birthday. He is celebrating 62 this year!

So, anyways, here we are with my blog update and a little bit more inside info on the new beads and styles. You know designs are always fun to start out with and add to. I did JUST that for these new beads. I used some more colors, combined styles and did shiny and matte!

You remember this design, right?

Well if tit looks awesome on clear, surely it will be awesome on black! 

Oooo dont' you just LOVE this design on black with that wonderful "lava" texture?! A little band of some silvered ivory and BAM! A wonderful mix of organic design and texture!

Spiral Earth Stones "Black Lava Silver Thread".

So a funny thing about these new black beads. JUST today Staci was posting some of her new work. I about crapped a brick when she showed me her new beads! It was like our beads were planned to match except we had not see each others beads at all!

Can you believe this?! Our beads are like a match made in heaven! I am not totally sure if these beads are going in her shop or if they are getting submitted for a bead mag. We could always harass Staci and see if she is listing them ;)

I began to play with the placement of the ivory and raku bands. I thought I would crack out the Coral odd lots I had to mess around and see what I could get.

Here you can see the Peach Coral on the top with stone texture and matte and on the bottom left shiny. One has a rainbow band across the center and one has the silver thread band across the center. I just love the different look of them! You will notice that etched they are a little less saturated in color, but have this glow to them.

Sooooooooo I had to try ALL of the odd lot batches of coral to see how they looked ;)

WOAH! Awesomness!

Then I had to try a few other colors. Some odd lot limey greens, EDP aka "Evil Purple", and of course, BLACK. You know the black ones look AMAZING with the new wing dings! 

So I wanted to do some more in the peachy coral since I really liked the results. 

So I started out in the "regular" lentil size, but tweaked the design a bit. I used the "leopard spots" on the side instead of the "rainbow ribbons". Sooooo pretty!

Spiral Earth Stones "Coral Peach".

You know a set always could use a nice focal as well ;) I just love that band across the center where you can see the spiral come through. Look at that texture! It kind of has the texture of pumice stone ;)

Spiral Earth Stones "Coral Peach" focal.

So before this focal I actually made one before it. This one had a gorgeous rainbow band across it. It was SO stuck on the mandrel it BENT and CRACKED the corner off of the bead! What a sad day! :'(

You all know my very favorite color is lime green, right? So I HAD to try it out in green(as you saw in the little color sample I did above) BUT... why not stone texture and make them matte?! 

Spiral Earth Stones "Electric Lime"

So here you will notice another funny thing. sometimes etching makes the beads BRIGHTER. As you can see, that is the case for these beads. Amazing huh?! The green and coral really like to let the ivory glass web and curdle. I LOVE the look!

Ooooo look at that COLOR! I just love the details on this bead! Check out that amazing rainbow color fade on the left side! Wow!

Spiral Earth Stones "Electric Lime" focal.

So when doing this focal in black I thought I would lay a fat ribbon of rainbow right in the center! Oooo look at how pretty it is! Look at all of that color, webbing and that amazing ripple in the spiral! 

Spiral Earth Stone "Black Lava Threads and Ribbons" focal.

So you know when you create something and you don't know if you should do another step. Well this was one of those instances. I thought about etching these, but just LOOK at all of that VIVID color! I LOVE the contrast of the sharp shiny black, the amazing "silver thread" band and the webbed rainbows up the sides! I just HAD to leave this set shiny!

Spiral Coins "Black Ribbons and Threads".

Thanks so much for stopping by to see my latest update!

I hope you are staying cool! See you soon!

xo Genea

More Jewels from the desert- Shop Update

Hello friends!

I suppose you are wondering why there hasn't been more content on my blog recently other than shop updates. Well the reality isn't so amazing so I've been keeping it off of here. I do have some news I will be sharing early next week, but until then I will just get to my shop updates. They really are the bright spot in my day :)

So a few more goodies in the Desert/Midnight theme and a little twist...

"Desert Serpent" these are back in the shop! I just LOVE this style I created. So natural with a burst of rainbowy goodness.  I would have liked to have made more especially some in a focal size, but I ran out of IVORY. Wa, wa, wa...

 

"Onyx Rainbow Sands" a little sampling of everything awesome in the way of this deserty theme. 

 

"Painted Desert Pods" maybe you remember seeing a few of these that I sent to Staci of Artisan Accents for our swap. Well now how about some for EVERYONE?! :D

 

Tornado Candy Ruffle Button "Midnight Jewel"- so you remember that new focal kick I got on? How about these colors?! I originally made this to match these mash up sets and the headpins(they sold, but I'll be making more ;)
 

Desert Serpent "Just Rust"- so you all know how I LOVE red roof tile, right? Well I figured I would give this style I came up with a try on it. WOW! Aren't these awesome? So why aren't there more matching beads to go with these?(I ran out of this color too! More on the way though ;)

I even named these beads after a Fiona Apple song .

Well that concludes my update for now. We actually had a snow day here in Portland the other day. Ricky and I ventured out and took some photos. I will get those edited and up here in a few days :D

See ya soon!

xo Genea

NEW focal and Bardara Bechtel bead swap REVEAL!

Hello friends!!

It has been so hard keeping my mouth shut and pics off the net about this NEW focal I created especially for Barbara Bechtel of Floritidy and Second Surf! It all started with our bead swap.(yep! Another swap, I sure am a LUCKY girl indeed!!) I kind of knew what Barbara wanted, but I got a few more quick ideas from her before beginning on her piece. 

One of the things she wanted was some wing dings. So I thought to myself what colors would I use for ocean water? I pulled out rods and rods of color. I had so many in opaques, opals and transparents.

 

So here are my oceany colored wing dings! Wonderful aquas, teals, sea foam, and turquoise!

I knew Barbara really loved my "Desert Serpent" style focals. She said to me that they reminded her of tide pools.

 

Here is an image of one of my Ancient Tablet series called "Desert Serpent Corazon".

So I sat down at my bead table and pulled out all of my goodies for this style focal except I wanted to create more of a sea themed bead. I wanted a really amazing "tide pool" look to it. I worked and worked and added glass, pressed, twisted, raked. I made cane and added sparkle. I finished and I just about cried! OMG look at this AMAZING BEAD! My God I hope it makes it in the kiln. I always have this fear when putting a bead with lots of layers of different glasses in the kiln that somehow it might come out broken. 

The annealing cycle was done. I RAN to my kiln and anxiously opened the door. I flipped on a light and brought the bead into it's glow....

 

This might be the most AMAZING bead I have made yet! I turned it's every angle and inspected it carefully. I was amazed by all of the little details, color and sparkle!

 

Here is the back side.

I LOVE the way the dichro glitters through the layers, the spots of rainbow raku, the little barnicles, the starfish, the look of sand from the silver leaf, the amazing webbing of dark ivory glass!

 

Some more shots of the angles.

I needed to make another! After making the first I had to try another one right after with some slightly different colors....

 

OMG another amazing bead! Look at all that shimmer!

Just like the glittery ocean!

Then spacers, yes, SPACERS!....

 

Two different styles. One to match Barbara's focal and then some slightly different ones to match the other focal. If you click on this photo to enlarge it you can see these amazing spots under the layer of tealy water colored glass. It is such an amazing effect!

 

AND look at THESE! OMG, watery and amazing on a wonderful sandy ivory base with gorgeous dark webbing!

I must make ANOTHER!

 

This time with some wonderful lighter seafoamy opal and glitter!

 

I just LOVE how this looks with the webbed ivory and the glittery opal glass half and half like that. I accidentally did that on Barbara's focal and had to mimic the effect on this one. This time I added a few little ivory shells to the bottom of this one as if they were gently layed there by a gentle wave from the sea to the shore. Lovely treasures washed up for the beach comber to find :D

It was such a pleasure to create such wonderful beads for Barbara! I was so excited to be so inspired by this new style. I hope you enjoyed seeing the beads I sent her for our swap and the inspiration that was born from it!

Thanks for stopping in again this week!

Have a wonderful weekend!

xoxo Genea