Spoils from Staci

Hello friends!

I told you I was doing my posts in backwards order. I actually received Staci's box before Karen's, but didn't get them all edited in order. 

Soooooooooo here is my awesome box from Staci! 

Ok so again with the awesome packaging! This is SO important peeps! I am a firm believer in packaging everything you send out like a gift. It's so wonderful to open up packages that are beautifully wrapped. It's an extra treat, and TRUST ME your customers will love it!

What is every more awesome is that Staci actually MADE this bag. She sewed up this sweet little pouch and tied it with a piece of batik fabric. So pretty!

Isn't she so cute?! She even made me a pouch in turquoise and my wrapping tissue was lime green with GLITTER :D AND... it was tied with batik fabric(one of my fave fabrics!) :D

She sent me one of her AMAZING bird skull beads! I am still in shock and awe at how real these look! So cool! I even have this amazing idea in my head for it :D

I just LOVE this medium spiral(which is fairly large next to my smaller work, but I love it!) and my URCHIN pendant! OMG I LOOOOOOOOOVE it! I had my eye on it for awhile ;) 

Here is a better pic in my hand. Um did you see this charm! HOLY CRAP it's amazing!! I told her she needs to make more! Just look at all of that texture on the urchin! Pretty sweet eh?!

She sent me one of her awesome sugar skulls! I can't wait to make this into my "halloween time of year" piece. I was just thinking I needed some tasteful holiday jewelry without being cheese and this is perfect! I LOVE sugar skulls too! 

I also received one of her wonderful spider webs and this pretty big piece of drilled beach glass :D

Check out these fanciful bronze flower caps. They are nice and thick.

Here is how the other piece came packed. I LOVE that she used this beautiful scrap of fabric to wrap up the jewelry she sent. I think the fabric has such a nice touch to the packaging for sure! 

Staci went through some of her past jewelry and sent me one her beautiful older works! It's so pretty! Deep purples and blues. I Love this chunk of kyanite on the left! 

Thanks for checking in to see my goodies from Staci! 

See you soon!

xo Genea

PRE-SALE for LIMITED EDITION COLLAB SETS ON CBC(Creative Bead Chat)!

Hello friends! 

It's just around the corner for our LIMITED EDITION COLLABORATION RELEASE, but we decided to offer up 5 of our AMAZING sets for PRE-SALE on Creative Bead Chat!  Not a member? Just hop on in and join! 

Here is what we have up for pre-sale!  To find out how to claim your set, click on the photo in the CBC gallery of the set you would like and follow the instructions. 

We hope you find something you can't live without!

xo Genea

Belated Birthday Present from Karen!

Hello friends!

I just wanted to share some eye candy with you. Yesterday I received my belated birthday present "Part 1" from my dear friend, Karen :D

Just incase you wanted to know what love looks like, it's something like this....

I always get excited when I see a box from this sender ;)

Yay! All wrapped up in a pretty sari silk bow! Love the colors!

Awww a card with my name and a flower on it :D

The first look inside...

Mmmmm lime green and aqua! My favorite colors!! :D

Look at these beautiful warm hued beads! Some heat patinated rings and loops, a gorgeous toggle, patinated copper chain, patinated shelld in copper, and these little rufled flower cups in a deep olive and bluish! This will be PERFECT for my Collab design I am making for Staci and my limited addition sets! 

Here is a heart similar to the one I have for the collab jewelry. Yeah, UH-MAZING huh?! I bet you can't wait to get your hands on one when we release them! 

Aren't these magical? I just love all of these colors together. Wait a second... you know what will match perfectly???

My "Bright Earth" wing dings!(they are currently out of stock, but I will be making more this week ;) I wonder if she planned that?? :D

OMG YUM! Karen's new BRIGHT PATINATED chain, loops, clasp and connector! In lime and blue, my favs!! :D These will also go swimmingly with another design I have in the works for Staci and my collab sets! So exciting!! 

Ok so I will show you what I am going to pair up Karen's new patinated works with, at least ;) One of Staci's amazing Batik donuts(Yeah, I bet you can't wait for these either! ;)!

Yucatan green, how do I love you so, let me count the ways..... *swoon* Karen and I LOVE this color combo. We love matching it up with my Okey Dokey Artichokey glass beads ;)

This photo is kinda teeny cause it's a cell photo, but trust me, they are magical together!

All I can say is WOW, and how grateful I am for such amazing artistic friends! I remember recalling how much I wanted some super creative friends that would gift me with their art for birthdays and Christmas' and things. Looks like I got more than one gift huh? <3 p="p">

Thanks for stopping by!

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

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