MAKU Studio and Starry Road Studio specially designed headpin PAIRS now in the SHOP!

Hello friends!

Well they are HERE! You remember me telling you about the new headpins I created especially for MAKU Studio and Starry Road Studio, right? Well what kind of a person would I be if I didn't make more for the rest of you lovely people?! Sooooo I got to work and make some wonderful PAIR sets(can you believe it?!)! I was surprised at how many of you asked me for matching pairs. 

Generally pairs aren't my favorite because I am a crazy person when it comes to matching them up. So I generally make double of what I need   to match them up as closely as I can. I am so excited about these new pair sets. I am curious to see how you all will like these compared to my normal 5-7ish sets of glass headpins. 

Also, per a discussion with my Bead Babes on Facebook, we decided it would be best to leave the steel wire untreated. Many artists out there are really getting into patinas and such so for that reason they are being left "raw". I will get to work on a short tutorial on coating your wire when you have a design completed since I will need to do this myself for some earrings I made. So keep a look out for that on the top tab of my blog where the "tutorial" button is. 

I have heard that you can add patinas to steel so I am really curious about that. You can use Renaissance Wax and Clear Guard to coat your wire. So again, I will be working up something, but need to get it figured out myself ;)

"Ammonites and Galaxies"- I would have to say this set is my very FAVORITE. Look at the AMMONITES! Do you see that webbed rainbow bottom too? OMG! Trust me, these are so incredible you will hardly be able to believe it. There is SO much detail I could take like a million photos and still not have taken enough. Did you see the galaxy ones too?! SOOO pretty!!

Electric Lime Stone "Rainbows and Threads" Um.. yeah, if you aren't immediately impressed by the color, there is no hope for you ;P Just look at that ivory too! I LOVE the matte base with the super shiny dots and the stone bottoms! SO awesome!

"Rainbows, Threads and Buttons"- If that rainbow bubble button was a pool I could swim inside of it for hours. It's just dreamy.

"Silver Threads and Stars"- Can you imagine gliding through space floating through stars? That is what these make me think of.

I can't even explain how excited I was about how amazingly all of these turned out. I hope you love them as much as me! 

So you may have noticed that I listed on Wednesday instead of Thursday, right? Well the universe decided this for me yesterday when my oxygen concentrator crapped out on me. I guess my resonator went out. Luckily it's only a $35 part and an easy fix! *whew* I am SO glad I don't have to send my whole concentrator away for maintenance! 

I would have a photo here of the part, but my friend Brandon stole it to see if he could make a better one out of metal ;) Gotta love mechanically inclined boys ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by!

xo Genea

Wire-Wrap Connector Tutorial

Hello friends!

I have another quick little tutorial for you! I always learn so much while I am working on things. I found this method to work so well I wanted to share it with you! 

Materials 

round nose plyers

cutting plyers

bent chain nose plyers

6" 22 gauge dark annealed steel wire

Renaissance wax

clean cloth(use a scrap of a rag)

Patinated Ring in black- Karen Totten

TUTORIAL

Begin by coating your 6" piece of wire in renaissance wax. You can do this by taking a piece of cloth, rubbing a small bit of wax on the cloth and placing your wire in the waxed cloth. Pinch your cloth around the wire and run it through a few times. Allow a few minutes to "dry" (you can't really see if it's dry, but a few minutes will do). Then run it through a clean area of cloth. 

Grab your wire in the middleand fold it over your round nosed plyers to form a loop in the center(think like a bobby pin).

Next  with your round nosed plyers grab flat across the wire with just a little bit of the loop sticking out of the end of your plyers(use a little less than what you see in the photo). This loop only needs to be big enough to fit a small wire wrap dangle. 

Now curve the wire right until it just about folds on top of itself.

Now take the wire and slip your folded over "bobby pin" and slide it over the ring. This bend should "hug" over the patinated ring.

Now  pick up your bend chain nosed plyers and gently squeeze the bent over "bobby pin" to give it a more snug fit to the ring. 

Grab your round nosed plyers and grab across the patinated ring and the "U" shaped loop for stability.  This hold will give you some nice stability as you do your wire wraps. Dark annealed steel wire is MUCH stiffer than copper, brass or silver wire. 

Take the wire "tail" on your right and wrap a few times around the the patinated hoop.

This is how your wrap should look. See the nice tight coils to the right?

Now take your round nosed plyers and grab the patinated ring and "U" loop and wrap your other wire "tail" to the left side. You only need to do 2-3 wraps on each side, but you can do as many as you like. 

**Designers Note** You can also do some fancy wire wraps with the remainder of your wire "tail" after making your securing wire-wraps! Play around as you feel more comfortable with this technique and see where the design takes you ;) **

Next take your cutters and gently snip the wire "tail". 

You can now pick up your bent chain nosed plyers and gently "tuck" the snipped "tail". Repeat on the opposite side.

Here you can see how the wrap looks finished. See how you have a "U" shaped  dangle loop that hangs on the inside of the ring? This is where your wire-wrapped dangle will hang. 

**Designers Note** You can do a wire wrapped dangle that will hang in the bottom of the "U" shaped loop, but you can also add a jump ring around the patinated ring and through the top of the "U" in the "U" loop as well for an earring!(See last photo with necklace and earrings for a demonstration of this).

Here you can connect a wire-wrapped dangle to the "U" loop you just created. For instructions on that technique, please see my other tutorial here. 

Here is what the patinated ring looks like with a dangle hanging from the "U" loop you created :D

Remember my new necklace and earrings? This is where I came up with this wonderful technique while designing my new piece!

 Center patinated ring, toggle, and "Clay Ding" beads by Karen Totten.

Black Loopty Loops and  Batik Style Hippy Girl focal by Staci Smith

Enameled hoops, "Wing Dings," glass headpins and design by Genea C-K

I hope you enjoy using this technique in your creations!

xo Genea

Bead Soup inspired beads in the shop!

Hello friends!

Well I am super excited about my new designs for the 5th Bead Soup Blog Party! I got to creating some wonderful beads for my designs and thought I would make some extras to share!  I even got into some ACID! Well maybe not the type that first comes to mind ;) I think you will just LOVE my new gooides, I know I do!

Here are the soup beads from Heather that inspired me for this new run of beads. 

Ok so you are confused as to why I'm sharing my bead inspiration here instead of on reveal day? Well you all know I am a details person and on the hop day my posts tend to get really long with details. I figured I would break it up this way and share about the beads now and the finished designs for the post date in an attempt to keep my blog short(ha ha).

 

Here is used our lovely transparent hot pink glass, Rubino Oro(Ruby Gold). I did the stripey design first, but it was too design oriented and Heather's beads are much more organic in style. I did my "Dersert Serpent" design since I thought it would be a lovely compliment to Heather's soup beads. 

Now here is where the excitement comes in. I loved the Hot pink above for my design, but in my opinion it's not so pretty etched. So I picked out of my very FAVORITE Messy glass colors, Mermaid. If you zoom in on the pic you can see the difference in shiny and etched. Oh and did you notice that the bubble button dot is SHINY?! >:D  Heather's teal bead is this cross of turquoise and teal so I knew that Mermaid was my color choice since it's also a teal, but more on the blue end.  I thought I would etch the glass to get it closer to matching Heather's beads. 

I love the mix of shiny and matte so I put a layer of nail polish over the bubble button dot to protect it from the etching acid. You let the polish dry, etch the bead and then remove the nail polish. VIOLA! Shiny and etchy bead = SUPER SWEET!

So that leads us to the new goodies in the shop!

 

Desert Serpent Jewel- Ok so this one was actually inspired by my bead swap with Staci of Artisan Accents.  Back for our bead swap she asked if I made the "Desert Serpent" beads in a focal size. Oh, well no, but that's a great idea! So here it is, only with a Jewel dot center :D

 

Desert Serpent Jewel "Tourmaline"- Can't decide? Love "little bits". Well here ya go! A little of everything in matte and shiny!

Speaking of Tourmaline, did you see the bracelet Malin made with my wing ding in tourmaline colors?

 

Pretty huh? :)

Desert Jewel "Mermaid" Mmmm yummy matte and shiny! So pretty!

 

Desert Serpent Jewel "Mermaid"- Focal size! Woo hoo!

 

Desert Serpent Jewel "Mermaid" set. "normal" size lentils in a set of 3. Yummo! 

Well I suppose I should get going. Mom has been patiently waiting to go on a walk with me today. It's so beautiful and sunny outside and in my basement room it's FREEZING! Time to go thaw in the sun! See you soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

xo Genea