Dandelion - the metamorphosis of design

Hello friends!

Sorry for the delay in my blog. You may have noticed that the shop was updated and the posts were linked to Face Book. It just took me until now to get my blog typed up :) Today I would like to share the process of my NEW dandelion designs! I always love to see the progress of a design and thought you might like to get an insider view.

FINDING THE RIGHT DESIGN....
Ok so when I get a design in my head I hop on down the the torch and start creating. There are many design elements that got into picking the perfect glass for your design. First I had to decide on the base color.Here is the first design I tried to make. In this photo are the small dandelion puff flowers with a stem. The first bead to the left has a base of Uranium Yellow(which looks yummy lime green to me). The flower is a dot of effetre white with Messy Cirrus on top. This dot was flattened and then creased with a razor. Unfortunately you can't really tell that I used Cirrus on the bead, it just appears to be clear.

Next I thought that maybe Cirrus would better show up on an opaque base. The dandelion puff flower is the same combo as above, but on a base of effetre pea green. As you can see Cirrus still appears to be clear. Bummer! Cirrus is this fantastic color that is a white opal that I thought would be perfect for the hazy, fluffy puff of dandelion seeds!

Then onto the final design. Same base of Uranium Yellow, but this time it was etched to add some inner glow, which I think looks fantastic! As you see I have also changed the dandelion puff design. This tiny flower has tremendous detail for it's size. For the new dandelion puff design I used Messy Marshmallow which is more of a hazier white opal. Now this color was PERFECT! I accomplished the hazy translucent white that was perfect for my dandelion puff! Flattening the dot of Marshmallow gives it a bit more of a transparent look since there is a smaller mass of glass. The decorations on top are hair fine stringers of filligrana to give it the details of the seed stems and seed bottoms combined with the fuzzy puff appearance of the dandelion. SUCCESS! This was the final design for my "Dandelion's Life set"!

LARGE DANDELION PUFF...
Now that I got the small dandelion puff flower figured out it was time to do a larger detail puff flower close-up bead.Again you can see I tried a few different bases before deciding on which I liked best. The first bead is the same puff combination on a base of Messy Dirty Martini. As you can see the Marshmallow shows up very well on the base, but it was still not quite the right green that I wanted for the design.

Next you can see the same dandelion puff combo with an etched Uranium yellow base. I liked the puff design, but still wanted to add some more detail to the puff.

The last design which became the design for the "Dandelion's Life" set and "Fly Away" bracelet is the same dandelion puff on the Uranium Yellow base etched, but I added some curved details around the flattened dot of Marshmallow. I really liked the way it gave extra dimension to the dandelion puff.
Here is a photo of the beads etched and shiny for comparison. The dandelion puff's main flower was painted in nailpolish as a resist to the etching leaving it shiny while the base is etched! Below you can see the dandelion seed design, which I think is SPOT on!

YELLOW DANDELION FLOWER...
Now to figure out the yellow dandelion flower design. As you know dandelions are 2 shades of yellow with little stringy petals.For the first design I used 2 shades of yellow, one being Vetrofond odd Sunshine yellow, and one of the effetre dark yellows for contrast. I then creased the flattened dots to simulate the petals of the dandelion flower. It made a pretty cool sunburst design, but it wasn't quite finished.

The second design I added a flattened yellow dot to the center to simulate the center of the dandelion flower. This little addition made the perfect design!

NEW IN THE SHOP....
Now that I had my dandelion designs all figured out it was time to create beads for sets and jewelry for the shop!Here is "Dandelion's Life". This set was a bugger to photograph! The etched green turned out more vivid green that it was and the yellows turned out more dull than they were. The green is a nice pale yellow green and the colors are much more orange than they appear. Also in the photograph the details don't seem as sharp, but they are much more apparent in person.

As you can see the set is a fantastic representation of the dandelion's life cycle which I think turned out fantastic! Here is "Dandelion Seed". This sweet little etched 3 bead set has a focal lentil with a dandelion seed and 2 round spacers.
Here is the AMAZING asymmetrical "Fly Away" bracelet. The bracelet got it's name from the bali silver butterfly charm and the "flying away" of dandelion seeds as you blow them into the wind. This design has beautiful etched spacers, large dandelion puff, and dandelion seed lentils, along with Hilltribe silver lentils, stamped spacers, sterling silver rounds and white opal Swarovski crystals. I absolutely LOVE this bracelet! I think it's my favorite piece aside from the "Dandelion's Life" set!
This necklace is actually SOLD, but I thought you might like to see the design anyways ;) This little beauty is a simple dandelion seed pendant on a lime green satin cord.
Here are the "Glowing Green Trapeze" earrings to complete the set. These sweet little earrings are etched yellow green spacers suspended from teeny chain. Wire wrapped to the top are Swarovski crystals in white opal that hang from my FAVORITE ball earwires! These earrings are so pretty and dainty. They are so light you can't even feel them in your ears!

I had just 2 little St. Patty's designs for you Irish fans out there!

Here is the "4-leaf clover- Heart petals" shamrock pendant. As you can see it has lots of yummy greens with some Swarovski crystals and a pressed glass shamrock dangle!

Here is the "4-leaf clover- petal leaves" shamrock pendant. This also has lots of layers of different transparent and opaque greens with Swarovski crystals and a pressed shamrock bead dangle.

NEXT WEEK IN THE SHOP....
I will be working on some more super VIBRANT Vortex Flower pendants! I made the new flower's in some BEAUTIFUL Bullseye glass in regular stock and odd lot colors! Lots of yummy PINKS, PURPLES AND GLITTER GLASS! I also made a flower in pink, peachy pink, orange, and orange glitter, and one with darker blues, greens and glitter! Stay tuned!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Much love,

Genea

Twofer! NEW Vortex Flower pendants and Art Beads Spring blog!

Hello friends!

It's been awhile huh? Being sick will sure do that to ya! Well I have a special treat for you today since my new design and the art beads blog seemed to fit together this blog will be loaded with AWESOME!

BIRTH OF A NEW DESIGN- Vortex Flower's
So as I was playing with my cane glass and other rods I had this idea to do these kind of round shaped ruffly flower design beads. As I was melting the glass and using the heat and gravity to shape the glass I had noticed that I really liked the kind of ruffly disc shape I was getting rather than the one I had originally set out to make.

I made a bunch of these new style beads and had been designing in my head. I made the first pendant and somehow it didn't quite turn out how I had imagined it in my head.Here you can see the very first prototype design. Melissa said it looked like a Mexican hat. LOL. Hmm, that wasn't quite what I was going for. It still looked like a flower to me, but it seemed like it had lots some of it's unique form with so muck stuff pouring out of the bottom.So back to the drawing board I went to refine this new design I had in my head. I had remembered a design I had done awhile back that sold right away. I think I wanted my new design to be more on this style that the design above.So I took this older design and brainstormed about how to make it work with my new bead shape. I went back to my fiber design board and grabbed out all kinds of Czech glass bead, Swarovski crystal, c-lon cording, bells, daggers, spade drops, drops, and leaves and got back to work.The first "Vortex Flower" pendant was born! You know I HAD to start with lime green and aqua for my first design as they are my very FAVORITE COLORS!

I had just received the new blog theme for artbeads.com which just happened to be spring! How perfect for my new design and the blog to go hand in hand!So what is an incredible new pendant without some GORGEOUS hand-dyed silk?!
I absolutely LOVE color so I chose the Tahitian/Aqua blend silk for this pendant. As you can see it's just MAGIC all together. I called this one Vortex Flower- Tahitian Sea.

So after being very happy with this new design I went back to work to make more pendants! I re-did the original pendant above in the new "Vortex Flower" style.Here is "Vortex Flower- Cranberry Mango". I used Pink/Orange blend silk to finish off the design. Isn't the color just PERFECT?! I was so excited at just how well the match was when I had made the bead before picking out the silk!

This next pendant is where the bulk of my materials went. I used a variety of glass to work on this design. I picked a lot of my favorites. It seems like black and white beads are somewhat hard to come by. Luckily artbeads had some fantastic beads from which to choose including some fabulous vintage beads, which I also adore! The vintage beads I used were the white glass talons, and the small white glass curled leaves.Here is "Vortex Flower- Reverse" named for the contrast of black and white. I used some of my favorite Japanese drop beads called magatamas. I used 4mm black opaque magatamas, and 4mm opaque white magatamas. They add wonderful texture with their smooth zero oval shape. You know how much I LOVE spade drops so I had to sneak some in there too. I used the gorgeous white pearl luster small spades for some lovely shape and texture. To finish off the design I ended up getting lucky! I was looking for just a plain black cord, but they happened to be out. I was perusing the other multi-colored silks and found one I liked WAY better! I used the Blue/gray blend.
Here is a photo of all of the Vortex Flower necklaces together with the silk coiled up.
Here you can see them longer.

The great thing about the silk cording being 3 feet is that you can wear them doubled as a choker or long.
"Vortex Flower-Vanilla Sugar" ended up being a bit trickier. I wanted this pendant to have more of an ivory look so I really had to do some searching to find some more Ivory type beads and then some very pale yellow type beads. I totally lucked out by finding some Ivory waxed linen to do this pendant as the only c-lon I had was pale yellow! When shopping for beads I got some fantastic topaz swirl small spades to add to this design. You may have thought that adding something with brown would have made it too dark, but it was a lovely soft contrast along with the soft yellow, pale green, matte metallic green/gold leaves and the brass bells.
Since I am showing all of the Vortex Flower pendants I made I wanted to include this one. Unfortunately this one is a gift and is in transit to it's destination.This is the only Vortex pendant that got a tiny lampwork heart dangling out of the center. It has some special meaning so that is why I added it to this pendant. I used Messy's fantastic pinks and purples to make this lovely color combo. I used Cranberry, Simply Berry, and Blush along with some effetre colors.

DISCLAIMER** Genea Beads has received the following beads from artbeads.com free of charge. Genea Beads is honestly reviewing these products and have not been paid for this endorsement as it pertains to the products received.**

THE BEAUTY OF BULLSEYE.....
So I had been playing with Bullseye glass lately and thought I would take out one of the doodles from my sketch book and translate it into glass. I used a variety of odd lot and regular stock Bullseye glass to make the following beads. As you may know Bullseye is notorious for making super SATURATED color and some of the most BEAUTIFUL pinks and purples along with streaky and glittery glass! Caution** The following colors may cause the shortness of breath. **This design was from my sketch book at it is called "Heart Fruit". The inside is a tornado twist of variegated streaky green glass with glitter encased in a generous amount of clear. On the top a streaky amethyst heart has a curled vine of yellow green with a leaf sprouting from the top.
"Love Flower Mini" is a 3 bead set with 2 streaky glittery green spacers and a lentil with a heart flower on top in streaky amethyst. The stem and leaves are yellow green.
As far as these beads go I was saving the best for last! Here is "Heart does your garden grow". As you can see there is a fantastic variety of streaky lavender, blue violet, salmon, bubble gum and cranberry pink! All are on a base of clear with a streaky green glittery tornado center. See I TOLD you BE makes me want to "J" in my "P's"! Isn't is SOOOO pretty?!

Well this concludes my update for this week. I hope you have enjoyed my new designs, beads and review of artbeads fantastic selection!

Have a fantastic day!

Much love,

Genea

Still sick, but announcing a SALE!

Hello friends!

I am still feeling a little under the weather, but I figured since I could sit up in the chair and check my e-mail I could also discount some Valentine's Day items! 25% off sale on all Valentine's Day beads and other goodies! Be sure to check out my Etsy shop's sale page!!

Well all good things come to an end so this is where we part ways so I can go back to resting. I hope you all are staying nice and healthy.

See you soon.

Much love,

Genea

Not AGAIN?!

Hello friends,

Ugh... I am SICK, AGAIN... *sigh* This one is really BAD too! It started in my throat and has been hanging out there for about 4 days now. It was giving me some sinus pressure and now it has migrated to my left ear. I can't hear a thing and usually I have bat hearing. My throat is STILL sore and I am feeling pretty crappy. I don't know how much I will be getting done this week unless I start feeling better. I have been getting lots of sleep and drinking fluids. I have been taking nyquil and ibuprofen so keep the swelling down. I just thought I would pop on and let you all know this is probably the most you will hear of me this week.

I hope you all are staying healthy and warm.

Much love,

Genea

A tisket a tasket

Hello friends!

Looks like you are about to get a HOLIDAY update! Valentine's Day? Nope, Easter! Yep, can you believe it? So why the holiday update so early? Well I had a few new designs made that are really exciting, but I didn't have enough for a proper update. I decided to get some Easter goodies up first. Those of you that are planners can have a head start on the next holiday while still enjoying some of my Valentine's Day goodies!

NEW IN THE SHOP....
Esmeralda is a darling long eared bunny with a cute rose headband, pink ears and nose and black beady eyes on a white base.Veronica is a sun bunny! She has tan fur with pink rosy cheeks, ears and nose. Her eyes are beady black and she has a blue violet rose headband.
Aurora is a white lop-eared bunny with a purple rose with leaves adorning her sweet head.

Louise is another lop-eared bunny that loves her sun! She has pink ears and nose with a blue violet rose with leaves on her head.Lilac bunny egg is one of my favorites! I just LOVE this base of lilac lavender! There are freckles of pink on the front and back. A white floppy eared bunny sits on the top with a cute pink nose and beady black eyes.
Fuzzy chick is a darling little chick with 3 cute head feathers and rosy pink cheeks. She has a soft orange beak too!Green chick egg has a soft lime green base with lavender freckles. On top a cute yellow chick with an orange beak and black eyes finishes off the design.Easter eggs features a base of turquoise blue with pink freckles. On the front dyed Easter eggs in pink, yellow and orange sit in springy green Easter grass. This is another one of my favorites! It was super fun to make too! :)Orange and purple speckled egg features just that! Orchid speckles are scattered across a warm orange base. They remind me of those malted milk eggs they make for Easter :)

SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?...

I am excited to announce that Genea Beads has been featured in www.kcfreepress.com's Kansas City local Etsy sellers Valentine's Day feature! The item in my shop that got the spot light was my Love Nest bead!Thanks again to kcfreepress.com for choosing to add my art to their feature! :)

For the super bowl we had some friends over to hang out. Amanda came over with her darling kids. I just couldn't help, but snap a few pictures!Here you can see PJ(age 3) and Big Mike(he's big mike 'cause he's 6' 7"). Pj was playing around in a pillowcase :) I picked him up and put him inside. He was bouncing around and just layed down to wrestle with Mike.As you can see he found another pillow case. He was all tuckered out by the end of the night and crashed out on the floor just like this.This is my FAVORITE picture. He looks just like a little cherub *beams* Isn't he darling?!

Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of Tony. Unfortunately he was sick and running a temp. We gave him some meds and put him in bed to sleep off his sickies :(

Well that concludes my update for this week. See you soon!

Much love,

Genea

GB 24 HOUR SPECIAL 50% OFF ONE ITEM!

Hello friends!

Ok we are going to play a game! You in? Ok here is the deal....

2-5-10 GENEA BEAD'S SPECIAL- TODAY ONLY 50% OFF ONE ITEM! USE THE CODE "OMG" IN THE COMMENTS SECTION AT CHECK OUT!!

Woo hoo! Let's have some FUN!

Happy shopping!!

Much love,

Genea

Pastels and Tendrils

Hello friends!

Ok so I had hoped this update was going to come a few days earlier, but I wasn't sure what I was going to list. Kim visited today and she nabbed up some of my sweet new beads before I had a chance to list them! Don't worry though because I still have some AWESOME "tendril" earrings and some pastel pretties to share!

NEW IN THE SHOP....
So I guess we will do this from soft colors to bold colors.
Love, Peace & Flower Power- Pastels- A sweet little with a tiny heart, peace sign and daisy. Oh the possibilities for a funky design!Spring Dings Wing Dings- A full spectrum pastel rainbow of wing dings for your designing pleasure. You could make a bracelet or mis-matching earrings. Flutters Wing Dings- Spring dings alter ego. Soft pastel transparent colors. A whole lotta freckled wingy fun!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

TENDRIL EARRINGS!! I was so excited to make up these funky pairs of earrings. They are super LONG and dangly. They are visually and texturally exhilarating! I just LOVE spade drops and they are such a perfect fit for this design!Sour Fizz Tendrils- So bright you will have to wear shades! Electric yellow green, sour lemon yellow with a twist of pale lime!Watermelon Quencher Tendrils- Delicious and JUICY watermelon pink and lime green with accents in opal lime green and cranberry. Mmmm!Glowing Lantern's Tendrils- A mix of pale yellow, lime green and aqua with some dark grass green in the mix. Hypnosis Tendrils- a bold splash of black and white. Super crisp contrast with my favorite poked-eye style bead and stripey seed beads!Groovy Hippy Tendrils- Mmmm what can I say about this color combination? I just LOVE it. Tangerine orange, rusty orange, avocado green with a burst of turquoise blue!

Maybe I just love these because of this coffee mug and bead I made for Melissa's birthday one year?Ok so you are getting a side story on this mug. It is by a brand called "Typhoon" from the UK. They no longer ship to the US so the ONLY place you can find this is on places like Ebay. So if for some reason you come across this mug you could always send it my way! >:D

SHOW AND TELL...

I just love it when people send me pictures of what they make with my beads! My friend Jan was kind enough to share the designs she made!Here you can see my Flower Sprocket pendant along with some beads from a different lampworker. Jan got some of these beads from a friend and the just matched perfectly!
Here is a design she made with the Radioactive Happy candy set. Don't you love the way she used the button bead for the focal on the bracelet instead of a clasp bead?

Well it looks like this will be the end up my update for this blog.

Enjoy!

Much love,

Genea