Summertime and the Living is Beady

These scrumptious crusty and ridged beads emerged from the kiln as quite a surprise. The clear base took on the color of the enamel and permeated in a most delightful way.

sometimes it's hard to tell just what the baking soda treatment will do to the colors of the glass. I have had some beautiful colors of purple turn out like this. I'll be listed more of these since they got snatched up by the first person I showed them to.

Yes, the outside ones were all beautiful shades of violet  and purple and now they are crusty cocoa

Some take it on much better.

I just did a post about headpins over at Love My Art Jewelry

You can see how many have been utilized and find a couple of tutorials on how to make your own from different materials not involving a torch as mine are.

I've been designing a lot of necklaces lately and selling them at our local farmer's market!

A BHClaysmith scarab with a bit of gold leaf added by me

A wee little Petra nest took wing almost immediately

I've decided not to sell this one with this amazing bead that actually has three faces. I had been hoarding it in my collection for over a dozen years since my first visit to the Tucson Gem Show.

I had forgotten the name of the artist and was reminded by a friend and found that she is 91 years old now and still making beads!

her name is Mary Tompkins and now I've decided (with the help of some facebook friends) that I should keep the necklace for myself.

I'm awfully fond of incorporating ceramic focals these days and they seem to help  the sales.

The large green one is by NKPdesigns. 

I throw in a few of my own beads so they won't get jealous.

These had their debut in Belle Armoire Jewelry this month.

They are called  "First Snow"

Those are my limpet bead caps and Kristi Bowman Designs wonderful copper paisley headpins.

It's my first time being published in that fine mag.

If you want to read something really funny try out this transizzle translator with any blog on Gizoogle.

You can read my blog with a totally different spin.

transizzled blog

You will be guaranteed to cry or pee your pants.

Reverse Procrastination

I was going to do a blog post about my WIP's that I had left behind before I went on my trip.

Somehow I was feeling guilty that rather than blog about the unfinished pieces I would go ahead and finish them. Weird psychology I know but that's what we do to ourselves, especially us self employed artist types. Skewed priorities sometimes!

Speaking of guilt/gilt, I picked up some gilders paste at the gem show and had a little gilt fest.

The organic looking pod thingy in this necklace was dyed turquoise blue but had some nice raised vein texture so I rubbed a onto that to bring bring it up a notch ( or tone it down depending on your point of view) That's a really lightweight iridescent shell bead encased which is perfect because I'm afraid those beautiful beads may be a bit fragile.

Just about everything in this piece has a bit of silver guilders paste on it.

The ceramic takes it on so well.

That's a bullet casing in the center adorned with one of my headpins/

This is a bit of a departure for me style-wise. Sorry I have no mannequin down here with me.

I had to make do with an antique rusted bicycle seat.

A little hard to get a good shot with this marvelous long focal pendant piece by Petra.

Making square shots of necklaces for Etsy is a continual challenge

Ukrainian artifact piece and some of my torch fired enamel.

No, I didn't make the lampwork bead. It's always a little funny using other's lampwork in my work. No problem with ceramic and otherwise but people automatically assume I made it and that can be confusing.

Outdoor shot of the ScorchedEarthonEtsy piece. I forget what she calls them...mystic sandstorm?

Let me tell you these oober headpins are fun to design with (lots in the shop today)

and you know what? ... those are gilded limpets that floundered in my shop because you all thought they looked dull and lifeless ( I'm assuming you did because I thought so too and they never sold)

They take the gilt quite well.

(Talk about a gilt trip!)

You've seen some similar to these before. Made with Petra's elephant hide ceramic beads.

There's a pair in the shop today. Different colors, tho.

Crublimpet earrings

Afghani silver components, coral and lava beads

These were made with those double headpins that I promised to make more of but never did.

Now I feel guilty again.

Some Afghani components and my torch fired enamel matchsticks

Let's have a better look at those headpins.

There are a few new things in my shop this week.

not listed yet

woooo!

mmmmm.....springy

and now for some textures and color from South America

Possibly the worst public art sculpture I have seen.

This was in Puerto Montt. So kitschy that it's cool, actually

how about them feet!

You would buy something from this guy wouldn't you. His name is Julio and he's a Guarani Indian from Paraguay.  Which reminds me I was going to do a post about the new stuff I bought, crafts and the like. Oh well, maybe next time.

Headpinterest

If any of you have been glancing by my Etsy shop you may have noticed that I've been trying to stock it with crusty headpins... so much so that I this is as close as I've come to "real job" with my business.

I even ran out of my wire and had vowed not to make the big long trip to the city to get more.

It's 200 miles round trip and I made a challenge to stay home  for a few weeks.

Luckily my husband had some copper covered steel wire squirreled away so I was able to a keepa goin'

I'm doing my best to keep up but there's only so much torching I can do day after day when my body tells me take a break... so it's the matchsticks' turn this week over at NuminosityBeads

Trying to keep a good assortment coming

I thought I'd entertain you with my first attempts at sculptural beads I did way back when I first started.

I never did get the ears down but they did have a Simpsonesque quality about them

Doggedy

I decided animools weren't my thing

neither were snouts apparently but he's got attitood... we'll give him that

Here's a WIP that became a finished piece

Oh yes and I've been trying to beef up my vintage and supply shop in the meantime

over here

OK, I lied about taking a break from headpin making.

I made some *oober long ones

* yes I really did see someone seriously spell uber like that in the Esty forums recently

( of course I'm not savvy enough to figure out how to put the dots above the u)

and did someone say shiny?

No, no one did but these have Double Helix Glass spots all ethereal 'n' stuff.

They don't show up too well when I crustify them

this is my half crystal shape style that you may not have seen much of.

Barbecue lava longies part crusty with spots of shine.

I'm telling you about this here because you deserve to know first so you can have the first ones on your block...or in Germany, Australia, France or Canada

or the midwest US

Please convo me via Etsy if you have request for other colors or shapes.

Thanks, Kim