20% off Instagram Story Sale and Auction

 

Have you had your EYE on our work? You can bid on this beauty here. All of these gorgeous dread beads are 20% off for our Instagram story sale. Take 20% off the marked price.

Are your dreads ready for a new wardrobe? It's summer, fall is upon us and festival season is in full swing, but you are planning your outfit and need the perfect dread bead to complete your look! Don't worry, not only do we have you covered with a 20% off sale(take 20% off of our posted price. sale ends tonight at midnight CST), but we've also got a unique, one of a kind crying eye dread bead made on gorgeous odd lot electric lime glass. Odd lots are happy little accidents when the color falls out of the normal range. This color won't ever be made again. This luscious green has been in my stash since about 2006! I only have a few rods left so you won't want to let this bead pass you by.  Follow the link for the eye bead on the photo above. To place a bid increments are at least $5, but you can bid as high as you'd like. Simply comment your bid and tag the last person you are outbidding. The winner will be the last person to bid at midnight tonight CST! Our current high bidder is @official_womankind for $105. This is the first auction we have done on Instagram so we are excited to offer this special work there! We post the most frequently on Instagram and it's the place where we are the most current on our work. As much as I'd love to, I can't keep up with updating the site so sadly it's behind. You can find our currently available dread beads on the dread bead tab on my Instagram profile and we do new bead drops on Mondays. I will be starting a new job at a local dispensary here in Kansas City, Missouri mid-September so I won't be able to create as much since I'll be working full-time and 10 hour days, but I will continue to post my work on Insta for my fam!  We will also be attending Summer Camp Music Festival. August 20-23rd in Chillicothe, Illinois. If any of you are going, we'd love to see you there! Drop us a dm on insta and we can link up there!  Thanks so much to everyone who has supported us on our journey! We are so grateful for your love and support!  Happy shopping and bidding!  Love, light, and highest vibrations, xoxo Genea

30-50% off Black Friday Sales Reminder

 

Just a friendly little reminder...

Hello my loves,

We just wanted to remind you about our Black Friday Sales comin' at cha.

Our Etsy shop will be 50% off for Black Friday and 25% off for Saturday-Monday. 

Our Arwen Collective Glasswork shop will be 30% off for Black Friday and 25% off for Saturday-Monday. 

Need to set an alarm for the sale? There is an alarm on our Instagram Story to remind you :)

We can't wait to have our art gifted to your loved ones this year. 

Thanks for all of your love and support

Happiest Holidays from Third Eye Gypsy.

Love, light, and highest vibrations,

xo Genea

30-50% off Black Friday Weekend Sales

 

We're doing it bigger this year! Hello my loves, It's true, we're doing it! We're offering our BIGGEST discount in many years on our Etsy shop for Black Friday along with our super awesome 30% off discount on our entire stock of dread beads.  As you all know we had to change gears with our business and move into creating dread beads and festival jewelry. We thought it would be awesome to clear out our Etsy shop and give you all a super sweet discount for all of your jewelry gift making needs! We really want our beads to go to a good home and be created into the perfect gift paired with your favorite handmade beads, gemstones, and whatever other treasures you might have in your stash. Our 50% off sale will be in our Etsy shop ONLY and ONLY on Black Friday. We still want you all to catch some deals even if you miss out Friday so we are offering 25% off Saturday through Cyber Monday as well.  We will be doing our very first sale at our newest shop location on the Arwen Collective website!  We have a wonderful group of very talented people on the site to fill all of your gift-giving needs. We will be stocking dread beads and festival jewelry in the future, but we decided to focus on stuffing our glasswork shop  full of dread beads for Black Friday. We are offering our largest discount of 30% on Black Friday and then 25% Saturday through  Cyber Monday.  We hope you will find something you can't live without and give that same gift to those special people on your list (even if that special person is just YOU)!  Thank you all for so many wonderful years of supporting me and my art. I can't thank you all enough for allowing me to create beautiful glassworks for you all. It's an honor that you have shared my creative journey with me. Happiest holidays and love to you all! Love, light, and highest vibrations, xoxo Genea

New Dread Beads Available on Arwen Collective

Our Webstore is now Stocked on Arwen Collective

Hello beautiful souls, 

We are ecstatic to announce that our current stock of dread lock beads are available on the Arwen Collective website! Arwen Collective is a collective of different artists and mediums. I am excited to be their featured glass artist creating dread beads and festival jewelry. You can get to our shop directly by visiting the link here. 

We are offering free shipping to the US and have added the following international countries shipping profiles: Australia, Canada, Germany, and the UK. If you are an international customer that would like to purchase multiple items or don't see your country as a shipping option, please feel free to email us at thirdeyegypsy@gmail.com so that we can combine your items and add your countries shipping profile. 

Now that we are caught up with all of our current work in the shop we will be creating new work.  We will be offering our newest work on Instagram first and then adding whatever doesn't sell from the Instagram release to the shop. I will be doing my very best to create as much new work as possible before black Friday. If you have any suggestions on colors, or themes you'd love to see or any past designs you'd love to see, please drop me an email :)

LIFE UPDATE

We have been a bit behind with our online presence because my dad suddenly passed just a short month ago and Leeloo(my 14 year old Australian Shepherd) had a really bad seizure. Those events shook me to more core and I was an anxious mess. I have since gotten Leeloo on cbd . She is still taking her milk thistle chewable tablets, fish oil, and is on a hormone to help her with incontinence. We believe Leeloo has cushings disease which causes her to: drink more water, urinate more frequently, have skin issues, and be restless. Now that we have taken her off prednisone for her allergies she seems to be doing better with leaking in her sleep. We are hoping that the cbd and fish oil will continue to help with her restless and skin itchiness. I have also been walking her daily in the evening to help her feel calm at night. It has been a huge help and stress relief to both of us. 

We are looking forward to having a great holiday season with lots of new and exciting work for you all. Thanks so much for continuing to follow along with us on our journey.

A new direction for our work and a 20% off Sale March 18-24th in our Etsy Shops

*Model and photo by Morgin Riley @autumnlocs

Hello beautiful souls,

It's been a minute hasn't it? I have been busy taking my work in a new direction and now is the perfect time to tell you all about it and have a little sale :) I have decided to move my focus of my work on creating dread beads and music festival/ burning man jewelry. I will still be creating beads, but mostly to create my jewelry. I will have extra beads and findings that I will be adding into my shop as I create. I have also decided to shift my focus on doing more on Instagram than Facebook. I will be doing DM(direct message) sales of my work through Instagram for my new work and then adding things to my shops. I will be combining my Etsy jewelry shop to my Etsy bead shop so it's easier to find my work all in one place :) Sounds a little crazy, but it will all fall into place ;) 

So since spring is the time for fresh new starts we thought it would be a good time to transition and have a nice little sale! We are offering a longer than normal sale so that the word can circulate about our sale and you all don't hear about it after it's happened. Our sale will be from March 18-24th and we are offering 20% off in our Etsy Bead and Etsy Jewelry shop as well as some DM sales on Instagram! 

Here is a nice little pile of some dread beads we have been creation that will all be in the sale as well. If you don't see them in my shop they are available for purchase by dm on Instagram. 

Don't have dreads? You can wear your dread bead over a necklace like I have shown it here over my Third Eye Pinecone necklace or any necklace of your choice. 

Did you know that our dread beads can also be worn over braids or over a hair wrap?! There is no end to the possibilities of these beads :)

I have also been busy doing lots of collaborations with some lovely dreaded people along with some jewelry artists! I can't wait to tell you all about my adventures and show off our combined work!

Thanks so much for journeying with me!

Love, light, and highest vibrations,

xo Genea

Third Eye Gypsy & Morgin Riley Collaboration Dreadlock Lampwork Beads

Hello beautiful souls,

I am super stoked to have had the opportunity to collaborate with the gorgeous dreaded Goddess, Morgin Riley(@autumnlocs). I had the pleasure of stumbling upon Morgin's beautiful photography awhile back so I couldn't wait to dress up her locs in my glass!

Aren't her dreadlocks absolutely gorgeous?! Morgin is not only a model and photographer, but she is also a traveling loctician(she does dreadlock maintenance, and installs). Here you can see our Instagram post with this gorgeous photo courtesy of Morgin, and our dreadlock videos of beads similar to the ones I sent to her.  You can snag any of these beads by dming me on my instagram. 

Morgin loves autumn hues so I sent her a collection of gorgeous earthy tones and my: rising sun, crescent moon, and evil eye/third eye dreadlock lampwork beads. 

Here is our "Rising Sun" dreadlock lampwork bead with gorgeous color shifting raku, and earthy avocado green, and a bright golden sun with a yellow green spiral stamped center. Available here.

Next I sent Morgin a crescent moon on a base of this gorgeous terracotta with a raku moon, and bubble dots with a thread of silvered ivory. Available here.

Last, but definitely not least, I sent Morgin one of my evil eye/ third eye dreadlock lampwork beads with an avocado base, raku, and a glittery brown eye. You all know how I love eyes! Available here.

Don't have dreadlocks? These large hole lampwork beads can be worn over a hair wrap, braids, or even used in jewelry making with bead embroidery, macrame, or any other idea you could dream into existence :)

You can find more of my dreadlock beads in my Etsy Bead Shop here.

How would you use these beads in your creations?

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Love. light, and highest vibrations,

xoxo Genea

Why are your lampwork beads "so expensive"? Creative process behind the creation of lampwork bead making (May 3, 2018)

Hello beautiful souls,

I am really excited to be writing this blog for you finally. I feel like it's way overdue and I am honestly surprised it took me this many years to create this for you all. What I have noticed while creating my work is that the general public is not informed about what it is I do along with the process and the other artists that are part of my creations. So the purpose of this blog is to inform you about just what goes into my jewelry creations, beads, and the other art beads I use created by other artists. Often times people will view my work and ask me "Why is it so expensive"? Here I will be breaking it down for you so you will go away with a better understanding of all of the love, creativity, work, and creative energy that goes into my work and other artists work. 

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 Photo by Parigo Studios

So let's start out with my handmade lampwork beads.  All beads start out as colored glass rods like the photo above. Glass rods vary in price from about $12 lb to over $100 lb depending on color, and chemical makeup. Rods heavily laden with silver are up in the $100 range since this is a precious metal and as we know, precious metals are expensive. Certain colors are more expensive as well like pinks because they are made with gold. 

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 In order to make beads we need a "handle" to hold the hot glass while we create the bead. We use stainless steel because it is not a conductor of heat. Using this metal allows us to hold the mandrel without burning our fingers. The metal will only retain the heat where it is heated. We use a bead release made from clay and graphite to allow our bead to "stick" to the mandrel while we create, but allow it to be removed when we are done making a bead. If you melt metal to glass it will be bonded for life. We call these flops "plant decorations" since they will remain stuck the the mandrel for life and pretty much have no other use than as a friend for our plants.

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 I am a lampworker so that means I create beads using a torch like this with a ventilation system so that the chemicals that are produced by heating the glass are safely removed from my work space. 

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 Photo by Parigo Studios

So before before there is even a bead to decorate we as lampworkers need to create the surface on which to put the designs, which is making a round bead. I create a round bead by melting the glass on a stainless steel mandrel dipped in bead release. 

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 Photo by Parigo Studios

Next comes decorating the surface. There are many different applications for designing the surface of a bead. One method is pulling a "stringer" which is a tiny piece of glass used to create fine details on the surface of a bead.

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 Stringers can be raised on the surface or melted flat  like you see here in my  "Happy Candy" lampwork bead set.

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 Other materials can be used on the surface of the bead to create different effects like: (from left to right) Baking soda(for rustic lampwork beads), Raku frit(a very colorful heat changing glass), silver leaf( to create a metallic look on glass or create an organic "frazzled" design), a lentil bead press(to shape the glass into a lentil shape).

 

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 Beads I created with baking soda and raku frit. 

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 Bead created using heat changing raku glass, and stringers.

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Beads created using raku, and silver leaf(see the "frazzly" glass). A respirator rated for fumes is used while making beads with silver as it is highly toxic when heated and breathed in.

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Lentil beads created with a bead press. Yay, they match my socks! 

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 Once the beads are created they go into a kiln to stabilize the glass. When we melt the glass we disrupt the molecular structure and put hairline fractures in the glass. Annealing the beads in a kiln removes this stress from the glass and "hardens" them making them durable. The beads anneal at about 950 degrees F and are slowly cooled to room temperature over the course of about 8 hours. 

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Once the beads are cooled to room temperature they are soaked in water to loosen the bead release and remove them from the mandrel. 

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Beads  can be put in an etching solution at this point which is an acid that makes the glass matte. Gloves are used while using etching solution because the acid can burn your skin.  

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 Once I am done etching my beads I scrub them with soapy water and a toothbrush to remove any residue. 

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 Once the beads are removed from the mandrel I use an electric dremel to remove any remaining bead release from the hole of the bead. When bead release is in dry powder form it is toxic to breathe into your lungs.

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 Did you know that not all bead designs turn out? *SHOCKER* As artists not everything we create turns out. In fact I have had many sessions when the magic just isn't happening so I decide to create another day. Here is a pile of flopped "Bead-inside-a-bead" hollow beads.

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Here is one of my "bead-inside-a-bead" hollow beads that did turn out. Pretty, amazeballs, huh?!

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 This is bead boxes full of my "bucket beads". These are all bead flops. These beads are not sold and were gifted to my mother since they were not "perfect" enough to sell. You can read more about these beads and see more photos on this blog post. 

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 Here are some of my Wing Ding beads which have been some of my most popular signature beads. I discovered them by mistake when I got frustrated with a bead that didn't turn out.  These beads also produced a lot of flop beads and I talk more about the cost of beads and flopped beads in this post. 

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 Here are some of my beads from my humble beginnings in 2004. Did you know that I was not instantly good at making lampwork beads? It was the first artistic talent I had to really "work for". It has taken me YEARS of practice to get where I am not. Those years of successes and failures have made me into the artist you see before you now. I have learned to so much in my many years of glass and I continue to learn each time I light the torch. It is my teacher and my mediation.

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 After 15 years of making glass beads I have create some of the most breath taking pieces of art to date. Here is one of my "Seahorse Heart" focals. This bead was a huge feat in glass as the bead is very big and thick and all areas need to be spot heated to avoid cracks and breakage from the glass cooling too quickly. 

I hope this blog has  informed you and helped you to find value in the process of the lampwork beads myself and other artists create. 

Love, light, and highest vibrations,

xoxo Genea