Local Show Announcement and NEW glass beads and glass headpins!

Hello beautiful souls,

I am excited to announce that we will be doing a local bead show at "the friendliest little bead shop," Bead Boutique in Kansas City, Missouri. If you all remember I spent many years working for Bead Boutique under the original and new owners. I am SUPER EXCITED to make a guest appearance since not seeing my bead family since about 2006! I will be doing a show November 17-19th, and then again on December 2nd(friends and family evening showcase), and December 3rd!

I have been making beads like crazy the last 2 days, and have many more days in the studio up until the show cranking out as much awesome new work as I can before then. I did a facebook live to show off the new work here. I feel super weird being recorded, but at least you can see all the angles of the beads like you were here with me in my studio :)

The spiny heart I will leave as is and take it with me to the show. The other two I am sending to a friend for a special collaboration. More details on that later :D

 I had the idea to make a hamsa hand and did a few designs. The one on the left was the first, middle second, and far right 3rd. Sadly, the middle finger of the center bead cooled too slowly and the glass cracked :/ The eye bead will be going for the collab as well. I can't wait to make more of them. 

 Who doesn't love glass headpins? Yep, I know... so I made lots. They can make tiny little pendants, dangles, or earrings. 

Oooo so pretty!! I got some gorgeous color in these Om headpins.

Christian and I went to First Friday so I will be posting photos and a blog about that soon. It was freezing outside. I took a few photos of Christian and me while we were there. Here is one of them :D

Boys, all 4 of the photos I took he's making faces. Lol. Oh well, I look good in the photos, right?! ;)

I will be back soon. Lots of beads to make.

Love, light, and creativity,

xoxo Genea

Find me on the web:

www.geneabeads.com, www.geneabeads.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/geneabeadslampwork, www.instagram.com/thirdeyegypsys.

Wine, Dreads, and Spumoni Zebras!

Hello friends!

Here's what's been happening in my neck of the woods....

 Before the temps really started to drop on November 1st I had the pleasure of doing the "Wicked Wine Walk" with my friend, Ronnie. This is a wine tasting done in downtown Kansas City in the Power and Light district. You visit several restaurants, taste wine and eat little nibbles. As you can see we had one helluva time enjoying our wines and taking silly photos! 

Guess who got some dreads? Yep, ME! Aren't they AWESOME?! We have kind of been toying around with the idea since we live in Portland. Dreads sure aren't for the faint hearted. They are a TON of work. Lots of little maintenance for nice CLEAN dreads. Know what the best part about them is? I get to make LAMPWORK BEADS FOR MY HAIR :D Woot! 

I also didn't get to post my "Bronze Berry Bliss" series of purple and metallic bronze beads in the far right corner. They went SUPER FAST so I think there is only one pair of headpins left and 3 pair of lentils. I really LOVE the metallics and chemical reactions I got with the glass on that series.

I also spent some time playing around with new glass combinations and found when I paired silvered ivory with this awesome older batch of odd lots glass I got this super neato frito metallic mauve! I paired it with another odd lot of this really gorgeous yellow mint green with splashes of aqua. I called this series "Spumoni Zebras" since it kind or reminded me of the ice cream ;) I was excited to hear you all really have been digging the new styles. You can find them in my Etsy shop. 

Well this is all the goodness I have for you today, but I am "cooking" up some ROCKIN' new stuff in the studio!

See ya soon! Thanks for stopping by!

xo Genea

Etsy Shop Update!

Hello friends!

Well I decided to list today so that I could crash in town tonight and stay in town on Saturday(Kansas City). Ricky talked about going into town to hang out with friends tonight and he works early so staying in town is really convenient. SOOOO... that is why I listed today instead of tomorrow. So early listings, YAY!

So this will just be a quick "here's what's in the shop" with quick links for ya ;)

Earth Droplets "Olive" Recycled Wine Bottle glass headpins.

Ocean Urchin Egg "Teal Tide"

"Slate Silver"

"Solar Flare"

Beach Stone "Sand Dollars"

Thanks so much for stopping by to check out the new listings!

Have a wonderful weekend!

xo Genea

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

HOT, HOT, HEAT and NEW Glass Headpins designs- MAKU Studio and Starry Road Studio

Hello friends!

Yeah, it is a band actually(post title), but this time I am talking about the weather. To say it has been hot is an understatement. You know it's bad when you see church signs like this! LOL. One of our local churches had the same message, but I just copied this one since I didn't get a chance to snap a pic here. 

So due to the weather production was SLOW this week. The one "break" we had in the weather after a storm made the temp drop, but the humidity PEAK. I think humidity is worse than super hot temps honestly. So I opened the window thinking I was going to get a good lampworking day in only to cut it short. 

I did, however, create some GORGEOUS NEW glass headpins. I didn't end up having time to list them this week, but you can expect to see them this coming week!

So how did these new designs come about? Well I had the extreme pleasure of doing a trade with Marianne Kasparian of  MAKU Stuido! Marianne asked me if I could make some headpin pairs for her to use in her work. Below is some of Marianne's incredible clay masterpieces.

Here are some of her AMAZING hearts! I just LOVE the ones with the nails!

This one even has a little heart window cut out! So awesome! You know how I love negative space and look at that COLOR! Wow!

Tiny ones for earrings???! OMG!

You might also recognize Marianne's work by her fabulously funky little birds. Look! This guy is even in my favorite colors! ;)

Maybe you recognize her work by her incredible ammonites. Aren't the just outstanding??!

So with her styles and colors in mind, I got to work creating matches. How often do we get to do this as artists(get to "copy" a style in your medium to match)??! As you may know that answer is, not often. So I put on my designing cap and dug into my glass. I picked out colors, silver leaf, fine silver wire, reactive and heat color changing glasses(raku) to make complimentary headpins.

I remembered seeing this gorgeous heart with that rim of bright lime green. I immediately thought of one of my odd lot glasses!

Here is a close-up of the bright green color along with the gorgeous rainbows in Raku.

I also wanted to create some headpins to match these raku fired beads that have an ivory hue to them with a band of silver around the core. 

Of course, I had to try some ammonites as well...

Here are the results!  From the top middle clockwise: Ammonite shell accents with Raku bottoms, raku bubble button dots with bands of sis and raku bottoms, black with a band of sis and fine silver dots, BRIGHT electric lime droplets with raku and stone bottoms etched, black with raku and stone bottoms etched, black raku stone bottoms etched with shiny bubble buttons, black with sis spirals etched and bubble buttons, black with sis bottom dot and shiny raku hearts, and raku spiral electric lime pods!

Here is the back view.

 WOW! Can you believe this fantastic collection of matching headpins?! I was SO EXCITED by the results!

Here is a close-up of all of that amazing "webbed" Raku COLOR! OMG! It's sooooo pretty!!

My good friend Karen had nudged me to see if I was going to make some more.  She had also asked me about a special design for an idea she had.

Here are the headpins I made for Karen. Some are similar to the ones above except for the 2 sets on the far left. The ones closest to the raku and electric lime pods are black with "curdled" sis dots and roundish. 

The other pair was this idea I had wanted to create especially for Karen. As you may know, her business name is "Starry Road Studio". 

Here is a close-up of the design.  I call these "Galaxy" Headpins.

There is black at the top scattered with far away stars and then some dots of silver for more visible stars. There is a band of "asteroids" next and then a rainbow "nebula" at the bottom! Aren't they just INCREDIBLE?! I just adore them! 

So this is what you can expect to see in the shop coming up this week!

See ya soon!

xo Genea

More stone texture beads in the shop! New colors and designs!

Hello friends!

OMG is it HOT outside. It is especially hot today. The kind of heat that makes your head hurt after only being outside for a few minutes. It is a sweltering 102 degrees outside today! I sure am glad to be back in the basement under a fan!

You may have seen my shop update on facebook a few hours ago. I got my listings done and then took a break to enjoy some lunch Ricky made this afternoon. I sure do miss eating meals together since he works so much! I then took my dad out for a sundae for his birthday. He is celebrating 62 this year!

So, anyways, here we are with my blog update and a little bit more inside info on the new beads and styles. You know designs are always fun to start out with and add to. I did JUST that for these new beads. I used some more colors, combined styles and did shiny and matte!

You remember this design, right?

Well if tit looks awesome on clear, surely it will be awesome on black! 

Oooo dont' you just LOVE this design on black with that wonderful "lava" texture?! A little band of some silvered ivory and BAM! A wonderful mix of organic design and texture!

Spiral Earth Stones "Black Lava Silver Thread".

So a funny thing about these new black beads. JUST today Staci was posting some of her new work. I about crapped a brick when she showed me her new beads! It was like our beads were planned to match except we had not see each others beads at all!

Can you believe this?! Our beads are like a match made in heaven! I am not totally sure if these beads are going in her shop or if they are getting submitted for a bead mag. We could always harass Staci and see if she is listing them ;)

I began to play with the placement of the ivory and raku bands. I thought I would crack out the Coral odd lots I had to mess around and see what I could get.

Here you can see the Peach Coral on the top with stone texture and matte and on the bottom left shiny. One has a rainbow band across the center and one has the silver thread band across the center. I just love the different look of them! You will notice that etched they are a little less saturated in color, but have this glow to them.

Sooooooooo I had to try ALL of the odd lot batches of coral to see how they looked ;)

WOAH! Awesomness!

Then I had to try a few other colors. Some odd lot limey greens, EDP aka "Evil Purple", and of course, BLACK. You know the black ones look AMAZING with the new wing dings! 

So I wanted to do some more in the peachy coral since I really liked the results. 

So I started out in the "regular" lentil size, but tweaked the design a bit. I used the "leopard spots" on the side instead of the "rainbow ribbons". Sooooo pretty!

Spiral Earth Stones "Coral Peach".

You know a set always could use a nice focal as well ;) I just love that band across the center where you can see the spiral come through. Look at that texture! It kind of has the texture of pumice stone ;)

Spiral Earth Stones "Coral Peach" focal.

So before this focal I actually made one before it. This one had a gorgeous rainbow band across it. It was SO stuck on the mandrel it BENT and CRACKED the corner off of the bead! What a sad day! :'(

You all know my very favorite color is lime green, right? So I HAD to try it out in green(as you saw in the little color sample I did above) BUT... why not stone texture and make them matte?! 

Spiral Earth Stones "Electric Lime"

So here you will notice another funny thing. sometimes etching makes the beads BRIGHTER. As you can see, that is the case for these beads. Amazing huh?! The green and coral really like to let the ivory glass web and curdle. I LOVE the look!

Ooooo look at that COLOR! I just love the details on this bead! Check out that amazing rainbow color fade on the left side! Wow!

Spiral Earth Stones "Electric Lime" focal.

So when doing this focal in black I thought I would lay a fat ribbon of rainbow right in the center! Oooo look at how pretty it is! Look at all of that color, webbing and that amazing ripple in the spiral! 

Spiral Earth Stone "Black Lava Threads and Ribbons" focal.

So you know when you create something and you don't know if you should do another step. Well this was one of those instances. I thought about etching these, but just LOOK at all of that VIVID color! I LOVE the contrast of the sharp shiny black, the amazing "silver thread" band and the webbed rainbows up the sides! I just HAD to leave this set shiny!

Spiral Coins "Black Ribbons and Threads".

Thanks so much for stopping by to see my latest update!

I hope you are staying cool! See you soon!

xo Genea

Glass turned into STONE!

Hello friends!

Wow, is all I can say. You know when you get a cool design idea and you just go with it? It turns out super amazing so you have to make a run of them? Well I did that this last couple days. I am SO STOKED with the results! 

Unfortunately, these may be a limited run of beads. Although the design looks simple, the many steps to create and clean the beads make them terribly time consuming. So for now what I have to offer today may be it, unless I get a wild hair or something, but one never knows with inspiration. Generally I get these ideas, make a bunch then I am over it or get inspired for something completely different. 

I do think I will have to blame my earth tone palette and earthy look on Karen Totten and Staci Smith. I have been trying to match my most recent stash of Karen's beads and Staci has been posting so many of her wonderful designs it's been hard not to soak all of that in ;)

I also got the idea from surfing around Etsy. I was actually snooping in Karen and Staci's favorites. It's always interesting to see what other people like. I saw some simple style beads that gave me an idea for this run of things except I took it a few steps further to create this design and style.

Oh did I mention they aren't perfect either? *GASP* Yes, I know, a recovering perfectionist not making "perfect" beads. I guess thats the nice thing about organic style beads ;)

Ok, enough already... where the hell are those beads?!

 

Spiral Earth Stones "Frosted Fiber"- OMG aren;'t these cool with their texture, stamp and band of silvered ivory?!

 

Earth Stone Droplet "Frosted Fiber"- What run of beads doesn't need matching headpins?! Only 3? Yep, they take forever to make to get the wonderful texture just the way I like it ;P

 

Earth Stone Ring "Frosted Fiber" Wow! Is this bead COOL! The hole is so big I can slide it half way down my pinky! Just look at that amazing webbed and curdled band around the outside and with that matte and texture?! Yum!

Spiral Earth Stones "Black Lava"-  Yep the same great spiral stamp and texture are on these beads and what's not to love about raku? It always amazes me when you etch a bead and the colors get more vibrant! I got some fantastic color in this set!
 

 

Earth Stone Droplets "Black Lava"- Mmmm headpins! Stoney, rainbowy, textury. Awesome!

 

Ripple Earth Stone Ring "Black Lava"- WOAH! Not only is a it a big holed ring, but a pentagon and it has ripply texture in it! SO COOL!

 

and a detail shot. Isn't that ripple stamp SO COOL?! I just love it!

 

Ok so this is kinda mean to post these, right? Well Miss Staci sure did snag these up amost literally after I posted them. They are SO delicious, I just had to share!  Maybe she will make one of her fabulous designs with them and you can have the best of both worlds? ;) Never hurts to ask, right? ;)

Earth Stone Droplets "Sahara"- I love this glass color and I love raku. I can't think of anything better!

Thanks for stopping by to be excited with me!

See you  on Saturday for the blog hop!

xo Genea