What you've missed and a tragedy

Hello friends!

It seems like I am behind again with everything that has been happening. I had so many things I wanted to share with you like what awesome artists work I saw at the Brookside Art show and the cool stuff at Bead Blast, the new awesome stuff I made for mom for her b-day, the awesome new clay pendants I received, and then the sad news like losing another friend this year....

So bear with me here while I attempt to fill you in with what's gone on while still keeping your attention to the end of the post.  So I will try to post more pics and explain less, I think that should help....

BROOKSIDE ART SHOW...

Here were my favorite vendors at the show: Susan Speck- she had AMAZING whimsical pottery that looked like it came out of a woodland/wonderland tea party! So awesome!

Melissa Finelli- she had really amazing metal smithed pieces and had them all out to try on. I was really impressed by this part because her pieces were several hundred dollars and generally when you approach these booths everything is  behind glass. It was really awesome to pick up things and put them on :)

Pat Bolgar- her pieces were SO amazing! Her polymer looked more like "fine" clay pieces and she also used pmc. I loved her awesome "etched" looking pody pieces.

CHoffnagle- This girl was not only super sweet and darling, but her pieces were awesome! Metal smithed and clean with color on the inside. I asked if it was enamel. She said "No, it was laminate" it was her special technique :D Pretty sweet, I was impressed :D I did want to ask more details to appreciate the technique, but just stayed satisfied with the answer and admired her work.

MOM'S BIRTHDAY....

 

Here is Mom, myself and my sister Nina. Yep, we look related, right? lol. I swear I was milk man's child. ;) Na, not really. I totally look like my dad, but anywho.... 

We went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch with mom. Nina and I split a Kobe beef burger, sweet potato fries with garlic aoli, and Adam's peanut butter cheesecake! YUM!!

 

These were the chocolates I HAD to buy. Surprised?! lol. They were not only bright and beautiful, but very tasty as well!

 

This is what the spoiled mother received for her birthday gift.  The very FIRST accented headpins I have made. A coffee bean, a paddle with a heart, and a paddle with a coffee bean.

 

Here's a detail shot of the headpins. Don't worry, I'll make more and offer up some in the shop. :D

This is a detail shot showing the coffee bean dots on the beads :D I really love the idea and they turned out SO freakin' awesome! I'll make more of these coming up too, so stay tuned.

 

Here was a pair of earrings I made with the new styled beads. I had thought about saving these beads to offer them up in the shop, but my muses thought they should be earrings. I need to get these listed, so if you are interested they are $55 and I can list them for you now incase you can't wait for the listing when I have more stuff to offer...

RE-LISTED WITH A FEW ALTERATIONS....

Ok so with moving and all I couldn't find the brown I originally used for the coffee color inside the cup so the coffee is a bit more red brown than the pic, and the headpins are made on 22ga instead of 24. I didn't have time to order thinner wire before I leave on Friday(tell you about that later...)

BEADS AS SEEN IN BEADWORK STRINGING SPRING 2011 DESIGNS BY LORELEI EURTO.

 

Earthy Blend Spacers

 

Morning Cup

Spotty Droplets

BEAD BLAST SHOW BOOTY....

 

Here's what I got. Not much, but I mostly went to visit. The batiked ribbon, bottle cap lentil, and tart flower were from one of my VERY FAVORITE shops, Glass Garden Beads, lime and aqua silk from Riverstone Bead Company, metal cut peace sign heart, Bokamo designs, and glittery plyers from a local bead shop, I forget their name at the moment :(

 

These are really kick ass! I loved the sun. I guess this cap is a local brewery in Minnesota :D The owner of the shop, Kathy creates these bottle caps, the metal cut out flowers, and the tumbled glass bottle pieces. She is so stinkin' talented!

 

The tart flowers were different colors on both sides.

 

Ok, so I didn't get these at the show, but Yvonne of My ELEMENTS just got these AMAZING new color rubber o's and I just had to share. :D

NEW CLAY PENDANTS I RECEIVED....

 

OMG... That is all I can say! These clay pendants were like receiving gold coins AND I even got a piece of fresh baked banana bread! These gorgeous pendants were created by the amazingly talented, Cindy Buehler . Here is her Etsy shop, which she is thinking about closing, so tell her NO!! ;) She is doing more shows and thought she might close up the shop.

I couldn't receive all of these amazing pendants and not make something for Cindy, so I told her I would make her a mixed-media somethin' somethin' :D I was also thinking about giving away one on my blog as soon as I get all this other stuff ironed out.

THE PASSING OF ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL PERSON....

 

This is my friend "Big Mike", Michael Clark. He was killed by a drunk driver May 5th at around 2am. He was doing some late night computer gaming with a friend and decided to go out to grab a cheeseburger. He was hit by a 21 year old drunk/on drugs driver going 90.

Here is a link to the news so you can see his car and hear the story. Mike was 24. This was a totally tragic incident. Mike was one of the most amazing people I have had the pleasure to meet. I will miss his loud heart felt laugh and his gigantic big bear hugs that were followed by a few wiggles from side to side before being released. He was always there for me when I needed him and I will always be grateful that I out paths crossed on our walk in life. 

Please, Please, PLEASE, DO NOT EVER let your friends drive drunk :( 

Much love to you all, 

Genea

Genea Beads- Artbeads.com "Colors of Fall" Bead Review

 Hello friends!

I am excited to have completed my "Colors of Fall" blog for Artbeads!

I must admit I got in a little over my head this time around! We got to choose items by color instead of by category. I am a pretty thrifty shopper so I got LOTS of items for our blog budget! You all know how much I LOVE color so I tried to use almost ALL of the fall colors in Pantone's palette.

Well all the bright ones anyways ;)

So here you can see my doodles with my ideas for design and my chicken scratch handwriting. Yes, it really IS that bad :( Thank God blogs are typed, right?! ;D

Now because I am a horrible tease you will have to wait to see "the best for last". Now that doesn't mean the other designs aren't amazing, it's just how I roll. I always like to show the designs up to the most intricate and complex design :)

So not surprisingly I have TONS of ideas for earrings. I don't know why, but I always have ideas for funky long dangly ones :D I even incorporated some of my lampwork glass headpins!

 

Here were the first pair I put together. I just LOVED these resin rings!  I love to use negative space in my designs for interest. I used Pumpkin resin rings  along with my lampwork glass headpins, spotty spacer and some Swarovski crystals. This was the very first design I used these really nifty aluminum rings as well. They are really awesome because they are light weight, very strong, stay "silver" colored, and are very inexpensive!

Next I used the Salmon resin rings for this super loopy tear drop dangle pair of earrings. I love everything about this design! The earrings are so light it hardly feels like they are in your ears.  Instead of using the rings at the top of the design I put them at the bottom for some interest :) I used Ruby and Burgundy Swarovski crystals  for some sparkle along with some colored leather, electroplated chain, my lampwork spacers and my very favorite sterling silver ball earwires :)

Originally I had ordered the resin rings to go along with my design, but I had so many ideas for earrings. I ordered 3 of each color since I didn't have  plan for them. Since I had 1 of each color left I decided to turn them into these funky asymmetrical earrings. I paired the rings with some rubber o's(My ELEMENTS) , aluminum rings, waxed linen and my wing ding style beads.

Since I wasn't sure what I was going to need for my sketch book drawing I got many different components in different colors so I had lots to choose from. I decided to use the Blue Zircon and Light Emerald Swarovski cyrstals for this funky eye bead lampwork keychain.

As you can see I was having a bit of a hard time dreaming my design into life so meanwhile more ideas came for different pieces of jewelry!

I had this soldered pendant with the daisy from awhile back when I first learned to make soldered charms. I had since learned to solder much better so I pulled the charm out and touched things up. The olive leather I chose was just PERFECT with the color scheme and it inspired me to make up this mixed-media necklace design. I used my soldered charm, lampwork beads, lampwork glass headpin, rubber o's, pixies,  colored leather, swarovski crystals, silk and suede cording, with a Hilltribe silver toggle.

I also used it for this bracelet design that turns into a necklace by using the cord included!

Pretty sweet, eh?!

Ok so are you ready for the finale?

 In this piece I used a bulk of my items ordered. I used Red, Orange and Yellow felted cones, lime green large fancy satin silk string, Indian Red Swarovski crystals, TOHO Earth Tone bead mix, basket, and cocoa glazed porcelain roundels. I added some other beads from my collection including: Czech glass leaves, and lucite flowers.

 Here you can see a close up design of the cones with their dangles. They don't look like it, but it took 30 minutes each to assemble each cone. Inside there is a wire wrapped coil squiggle with my lampwork glass raku dotted horn headpin, and knotted c-lon cording with Swarovski crystals.  I sewed the cones and all of the beads to the thick silk cording.

 Here is a little bit more detailed shot of the sewn on beads. See why it took me so long to complete this design? I had to think about how I was going to make my design work out with my materials and beading techniques.

Like I said I got SO many great beads! Here were some that didn't end up working into a design.

 
As you know inspiration is a crazy thing. When dreaming up my design I wasn't sure how many materials I would need and just exactly what I would need to create my design. As you can see above I didn't get a chance to use: Dark Lavender, Light Turquoise, Dark Pink felted cones, Poppy leather, Spanish Moss porcelain roundeles or the matte Lemon/Lime flat squares.

 I did realize this very interesting thing about the cones though. I flipped them in on themselves to open up the bottom a little more so I could sew my dangles inside for the necklace. While flipping them like this I realized that they would probably look pretty sweet sewn to something like this with some embellished seed beads on the pointy part sticking out of the center!

 Well I hope you had fun designing this year for fall and I hope my designs inspire you do create some master pieces of your own! Hop on over to Artbeads and  make something pretty for all of the "good" girls and boys on your list this holiday season!

Happy Creating!

Much love,

Genea

**Disclaimer** Genea Beads has received these products free of charge from artbeads.com. Our review of these items is our honest opinion. We have not been paid an  endorsement as it pertains to the products received.**

Benefit Auction for Andrew Thornton of Green Girl Studios

Hello friends!

If you may not have heard Andrew Thornton of Green Girl Studios had some severe health issues that caused him to rack up some hefty medical bills. Andrew is an independent artist and doesn't have health insurance so you can imagine just how much his visits cost. Many in our community have come together to help raise money for his cause. I would like to do the same by offering an auction right here on my blog :)

Although I have just met Andrew through my e-mails to him I can sense his kind caring nature  through his replys. I have collected Green Girl Studios art beads for many years and I couldn't imagine not collecting more due to the high costs of paying medical bills or loss of inspiration due to stress. I can't imagine going through what he has, and want to do what I can to help him keep doing what is in his heart.  Artists are amazing creative spirits and without their pieces the world would be  much less magical place.  Please join me in helping out one of our creative souls :)

Here is how to bid. Please leave your name, e-mail and the amount you would like to bid on the piece. Bidding will be open from now until 12am on Sunday(so pretty much Monday morning). I will contact the winning bidder and ask them to paypal their bid directly to Andrew's paypal account. Once I get a conformation from Andrew that the amount has been paid I will ship the item with insurance.

 Silk cording is more teal and blue variegated than the picture demonstrates.

Necklace can be worn long or short by tying silk cording.

Here are the details for the piece...

Winding layers of streaky and glittery blue, Streaky glittery green, yellow green, aqua blue, turquoise blue, and olive green ruffle into a freeform flower shape. Inside the flower sit treasures of tinkly bells, swirling spacers, seed beads, swarovski crystal and flowers. Up the base meticulously macramed leaves,drops, bells, seed beads and crystals are tightly bound into a fantastical design.

STATS:
Vortex flower focal is 38mm across. Pendant dangles a drastic 2 3/4"(5.08cm) from top to bottom. Pendant ring is 7mm. Silk necklace cord is 33"(83.82cm) long and can be worn long or tied as a short choker. 

 Happy Bidding!

Much love,

Genea