Bead Fest Philly Booth- Part 3- complete!

Hello friends!

Wow what an exciting ride it's been. It has been so amazing watching my booth transform! I seriously have a million things I could write to you about! 

So I will start out with the glass headpin display. Displaying loose headpins was easy. Sweet little bud vases from Walmart worked out great, but what about the pairs? When they are in the shop they are bagged up like this. The shiny bags make everything look nice, but when you are looking at a table you lose the detail :( 

BUT... my dear sweet friend, Marsha Minutella had the perfect solution for me! Itty Bitty rubber o's! Look how sweet and tiny! The 3mm rubber o's from My ELEMENTS work perfectly to hold 2 (even 3) glass headpins together, AND I have even put 2 on the pairs so that you have 2 sweet little rubber o's to use in your designing(thanks for the tip Marsha!).

Just look at how much better these look displayed! You can see the texture in the stone headpins and everything! Yay!

I decided on using Kraft colored price tags with this amazing "Bohemian Typewriter" font. I LOVE how the look! Here you can see them in action! 

Look how clear the font is on this large sign as well! Love it! Nice and easy to read.

Here is the "Bright Earth" tray of beads. They are even more saturated than they appear in the photo. Aren't they soooo pretty all in their home together?!

I also came up with a GREAT IDEA! So say you don't get to go to Bead Fest with your friends. Well you know all of your "True" friends couldn't leave the bead show without picking you up something, right? (hint hint to all of you out there going to the show while your poor friends sit at home ;P) So I thought how fun would it be to put a wonderful bead in with a super pretty mini card for a "Bead Souvenir"! You could pick up your dear friends a special beady gift of awesome on your travels! Sure is better than that hokey shit you find in the airports! :D

Some things just need a teeny display. Well my spiral s-clasps were no exception. My teeny ramekin was still too big believe it or not! I went on the hunt for a sushi dip container, but they didn't have them at the World Market by my apartment. I did, however, find these super sweet and teeny little squarish bowls!

OMG look how cute! I had a TON of wine corks lying around from these ultra awesome succulent plant holders I made for Christmas gifts.

Since "Necessity is the mother of invention," I used the rest of these wonderful little corks to create my tag holders. I am so pleased with my sweet little handmade elements for my display! 

Next I saw these INCREDIBLE wooden patinated looking boxes that my friend, Barbara Bechtel made for her booth. *swoon* I LOVE verdigris patina! I asked Barbara if I could borrow her boxes for the show. Since she was traveling over the summer she only had one on hand, but she very generously offered to tell me how she made the boxes. 

Ricky and our friend Brandon assembled the boxes while I did the painting.

Here was the first layer. They started out really blue so I was a little worried we weren't going to get the right green.

Second layer. This one was sooo pretty! lots of nice streaks of color. 

Third layer. I was a little scared that I over did the metallic. By this time it was midnight and I was working in a dark garage. 

Here is a photo of the box in the sun. It sure is GA-REEEEEEEEEEEN in the sunlight! I still wasn't totally sure about the box. I really love the free spiritedness of Barbara's boxes. You can tell mine or "more stressed" out and "tight". Everyone else seemed to like them and I was worried about over working them so I stopped here. 

Here are the boxes with my display. They are nice and green and have a good contrast from the more aqua table covering.

It looks so pretty with the sea themed beads displayed on top! 

Only a few finishing touches that will take place at the show. Staci was such a sweetheart and created these GORGEOUS drift wood bead displays for me as my "First Bead Show" gift :D So I will be working these beauties into my table set up framing a few trays in the center of my display :D

Thanks so much for stopping in to enjoy the process of my booth set up with me :)

Have  a great upcoming week!

xo Genea

Rainbow Spiral "S-Clasp"- the REVEAL

Hello friends!

Well I have dipped my toes into the pool of glass and metals. Now mind you this is just the beginning. Staci was kind enough to walk me through some of the tools I would need to do some simple soldering and metal work.I have only collected a few pieces, but this is the start.

I was actually inspired by make this new clasp by a design I was creating :D I needed a clasp and I was going to use one of my FAVORITE Spiral "S-Clasps" from Staci, but then I had the idea to make one with GLASS on it! I came up with this idea as I was laying out my design on my bead mat before bed. I scribbled down the idea and then went to sleep. 

So upon waking I had to try out my new idea! I was pretty certain it would work. I actually took step-by-step photos and think maybe I might turn this into a tutorial. For now I will just fill you in with some of the steps so you can really appreciate the process :)(you know how I love my process!) I even did a short VIDEO of the glass part of this process. You really can't see the detail, but I had some friends tell me I needed to do a video of me lampworking ;) Luckily I jerry rigged my broken tripod enough to do a quick video. 

So here we go...

So first you need to "draw a bead" with some copper wire.

Then it has to be wired up to work the glass onto them. 

 

Here is the video of me putting the glass on the wire :D

Here are all of the glass pins waiting to be made into clasps. Aren't they PRETTY?! They are like my little soldiers <3 p="p">

Next the clasps have to be bent into shape.

Hammered....

The run of claps waiting to be patinated.

Cleaned.

Patinated.

Dried.

Buffed(like the boob shot? Lol. I had to rest the camera under my chin and on my chest to get both hands in the photo!)

Lacquered(twice. This takes 2 hours to dry each time).

Drying.

FINISHED!

Just a really cool shot of my table while I was working. It was very picturesque so I had to click a pic.

Here is the link to my quick Cleaning, Patinaing and Coating Copper Wire Tutorial!

I can't wait to show you the BEADS and DESIGNS I am working on for which I made the clasps! :D I will also be getting some of the finished clasps up in my shop soon!

See you soon!

xo Genea

"Sea Horse" Hearts! My newest and most incredible feat in glass to date!

Hello friends!

Ok well I guess it's time to tell you what I've been up to. I hate to spoil the surprise after just making one bead or post in text what I will be working on. It tends to bite me in the butt, so I have been keeping things a secret. I had wondered if I should tell you now or wait to show you a whole collection of beads. I have had a few people asking and I can't keep exciting secrets to save my life! 

So here's the story. As you may have read a few days ago I freaked out. I had been doing a run of weeny dings and had all these plans to stock up my shop full of wing dings and weeny dings. I had  a few other projects on my list too. I kept trying to push on trying to re-stock, but I just couldn't. Beads weren't turning out. I was bumming because I kept seeing people post new work. I wanted to make ideas I had had in my head forever. Finally I panicked and stopped EVERYTHING. If I didn't stop what I was doing an "artist's funk" was surely in store for me. If you have never experienced one be glad. Sometimes this crappy uninspired feeling will last for MONTHS. Ugh... totally don't need that after my kiln being down for 2 weeks and then me being sick.  

So I just said F* IT and did what I wanted to. I had tried a few little tests to see if my idea was even possible. So here it goes...

So as you may know, I am totally in love with MAKU's hearts and Staci's.

MAKU hearts.

Staci's hearts, which were inspired by MAKU's hearts :D

Ok so the first step was to see if my glass idea would work. Here were some simple tests to find out. 

Here were some quick doodles for ideas. Originally I had wanted to make some glass enameled pins, but upon thinking about this idea it would be much easier to just put a blob of glass on the wire. So how could I take the inspiration I had, translate it into glass and make it my style?

So I laid out my arsenal of elements to give this idea a whirl.

I created the FIRST two "Sea Horse" hearts! OMG Look! It worked! Not only did it work, but look how AMAZING they are! 

Here is a shot of the dots on the wire. They have a trapped air bubble of course since I just LOVE to add that element. It was one of my favorite things I learned when I was first making beads :D

So after this SUCCESS surely I needed to make more!  So off to work I went....

Now what colors to use??? Hmmmm well Dark Ivory is always  a MUST, but which other colors? I asked Ricky and my sweet, sweet husband replies, "What about Red Roof Tile"? I love it when my hubby speaks glass to me. I guess that happens after 9 years of bead making and 5 years of being married ;) What a great idea! 

Oooooo AMAZING!

My palms were sweating and my heart was RACING.. 

Ooooo so awesome!

Gotta keep going...

Now for another of my very FAVORITE COLORS(and seems to be everyone elses too), Stone Ground! OH.... MY.... GOD... Look at how GORGEOUS this is!

WHOA... Just look at that COLOR. 

BUT..... with all great things comes CRISIS. The most DREADED sound ever to hear while you are lampworking. All lampworkers ears are fine tuned to this one little particular sound. When you hear a little *tink* while you are working that is BAD. That is the sound of glass cracking. So I did hear it a few times as I worked, but thought surely it must be the little dots of glass on the metal pins, right?  WRONG.... Dead WRONG. So where were those cracks?

At the bottom cone part of the heart! *dies* :'( I can only make about 3 hearts in one sitting. They are pretty intense as soon as I create the fin and add on the little "antenae". So surely those would be the delicate things, right? Nope, it's the cone. So why is it that this is happening? 

So lets take a look. If you notice. You will see that the glass is the thinnest at the cone's base. The rest of the heart is super thick with a lot of mass. So as I was neglecting the bottom of the heart so worried about my "sticky outies," it was therein that laid the problem. 

I was HEART BROKEN... literally and metaphorically. The one in the picture above was my FAVORITE.. I might even say it was my "Preciousssssssssssss". 

I mean, LOOK at it... Oh *sigh* such a bummer :(

So dismayed and disbeliefed at 

 this horror I HAD to try again. I am a very determined person, so this was NOT going to stop me. I would just try harder and remember to really make sure to give the bottom of the heart some good heat inbetween keeping everything else warm.

Here is the entire run of "Sea Horse" hearts I created :D Aren't they amazing?! As you can see I had better success my second time around! Thank God! 

 Here you can get an idea of the size of the hearts. So you can expect to see these GORGEOUS beads in the shop later this week!

I am really digging this theme so I have created even more amazing beads today! I hope to make a lot more this week.

You can expect to see these AMAZING hearts in the shop this week! 

See you soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

xo Genea