Happy 4th and Giveaway Winner

Happy 4th! Just a quick post to announce the winner of this week's Giveaway, The Glyph Inspired Bead:

DougR!

Hope your sister the jewelry maker enjoys them!

Send me an email with your postal address and I'll send the beads out to you after the holiday!

I'm giving away beads all month in celebration of my wedding anniversary. Next week, a new set of beads to giveaway!

Whee!!! Enjoy the 4th!

This Week's Giveaway, Sgraffito and More Giveaways

Today is the last day I'm taking comments for this week's giveaway. Any comment made on any blogpost since Tuesday will be entered for the drawing of the Glyph Inspired Beads.



Which reminds me, there's more giveaways to be had. I'm one of the sponsors for this month's Art Bead Scene Challenge - The Lascaux Horses.



The Glyph Series is inspired by cave paintings and petroglyhs. I'm working on new Glyph beads this summer so I'm clearing out my inventory to make room. I'm offering up these to the winner of the ABS July Challenge:



I'm intrigued by the symbolism and meaning of the cave paintings. They could mean nothing other than what they represent or they could have been an expression of something deeper. So use your imagination to come up with something that expresses your thoughts, straightforward or cryptic. You could win more free beads!

I've experiemented with the Glyph Series before. A couple of years ago, I was working on a sgraffito technique using enamels. According to dictionary.com, the word sgraffito comes from the Italian word which means "to scratch." More widely done in ceramics, I created a prototype bead where I painted enamel onto glass and scratched out a glyph design. I'm adverse to sifting enamels and releasing the fine glass particles into the air where I could potentially inhale them. (To the safety experts - yes I have good ventilation but no powder booth). When the enamels are suspended in a binder or liquid, I don't need to worry about shaking them. But after painting, I wasn't able to get a fine line with the tool I was using and the enamel came off in clumps rather than the fine line you see in the link.



Not satisfied with how this looked and after several other failed attempts, I turned to another technique which you see in the ABS July Challenge beads.

Do you think I should revisit the sgraffito style Glyph bead?

Reviewing Bead Designs

Twice a year I take a second look at beads I've designed and just haven't promoted. Here are a couple I designed awhile ago - you can see the 2006 copyright on them - I made them during the winter of 2006 and took them to bead show in NYC that year.

I'm liking them, I think like the Glyph beads, they should be revived. Grouped with the Glyph beads, I can see a whole series like the Heartz n Skullz.


Opinions? Do you like these beads? What would you call them?

So, where was I?

Whew! It's been a busy weekend and it's Monday already.

Where was I?

Oh yes, cold connections!

Today, it's the venerable staple. I really like the look of a staple holding a cab or a special tiny object.

One of my favorite Glyph beads had a rough beadhole so I slumped it into a cab. I chose it to be my first stapled cab:






Yet another technique that allows the purist in me not to glue or alter any of my sentimental junk!

Dancing Again

I love this bead.

My best buddy has this one.

Dancing.

It's one of the Glyph Series beads I made last year. I'm going to be making these again come the end of the year.

I just wanted to show it in case you didn't click on the link yesterday to see it.

It's a good bead.

Is that like Martha's "it's a good thing?"

Some beads just need to be revived.....

The Glyph Series beads were made during fall 2006 - winter 2007. Sometimes I stop making beads just because I get interested in something else. Looking at this bead, I wonder why. This is a great bead - except it's stuck to the mandrel. I've tried everything to get it off.

Soaking it.

Using denture cleaner to fizz it off.

Even...Freezing it.

Yep, freezing it. It works sometimes because it shrinks the metal mandrel just slightly so you can pull off the bead.

Nothing is worked but I couldn't throw it out.

It reminds me, "remember? You liked this style of bead, make me again!"

Ok, ok, ok, so it isn't really talking to me, but it's definitely a bead that needs to be revived.

Have you made a bead, sculpture or piece of jewelry that you think needs to be revived? Share with me something that you've revived!

Color Take-Out

Today is our play date. I'm playing with color in a different way, trying to think like beaders and jewelry designers rather than a glass beadmaker. I hoard beads like beaders do and am drawn to beads I don't know how I'll use them so you can imagine I have a HUGE stash of beads. For awhile now, I've had an idea of selling a grouping like you order take out, you know when you order, "I'll take a number 1 and a number 6" and it comes to your table all together. I've finally decided how to go about it, with my mind set on color and what a beader wants to "order." I've started putting together mixes with this in mind and selecting from my personal stash of beads. It's called...

Beads to Go! Bead Mixes and are available only in my Etsy Shop.

Yeah, I know, I over-use the "!" I'm trying to convey emotion through the internet, almost impossible to do, but I try with "!" The jury is out whether it works or not. But anyways....I've put together some Beads to Go! Mixes based on my color work. Here's your chance to see how I'm doing.

A high contrast combinaton of colors, red and my beloved yellow. I've combined reds in the same saturation and hue as accent beads and have a smaller percentage of yellow for an accent. It's a bright and happy combination:




A mustard yellow or one with more black in it is combined with red again, it reminds me of Tibetan Prayer Flags:


How'm doin' so far? What do you think?

I make beads based on a color palette. I set out the glass rods in specific colors and then all my beads are made of those colors that day. One day, I set out black, ivory and amber. I was developing the Glyph Series so I selected the colors based on how I could "draw" with them instead of the selecting based on the pleasing color combination. It works as a color palette even though I didn't intend it.



I combined various orphan beads into this Beads to Go Mix called Sahara. I mixed in some ocher yellow and brown. It's interesting to look at the glass in a completely different way. I'm moving outside my own box, and is a challenge I haven't taken consciously before. How do think I've done?

Keep the names coming.....

Hello Readers!

At least I hope there are readers...afterall, I don't REALLY know that do I? I mean I can't see you and this isn't a book you take out of the library so I'm assuming someone is reading my blog and not just me when I proofread it.

How I love to digress, anyhoo...yesterday I was telling you about how jewelry designing colleague, Cyndi Lavin and I are trying to come up with a name for a necklace she designed.

Readers have been posting their ideas for a name - keep 'em coming! If you've posted once and think of another idea, feel free to post again. One particularly creative reader added a history which I found unique - you may not read all the comments so I'm going to post it here. It was posted yesterday by Kwikarma

"It reminds me of the 1900's in new orleans when the creole madams would lock their girls in their room and keep time to get the cut. They were very exotice, dark and beautiful. The key is also a replica from that era . I think it should be

Madame Labeaux' Sanctum"

Suggest a Name and Win FREE Glass Links

Are you feeling literary today? I hope so because my jewelry designing colleague, Cyndi Lavin and I need your help. Remember the Collaboration I did with Elaine Ray and Beverly Herman? I loved the color combination so much, I sent a few to Cyndi along with a Glyph Series bead to see what a different designer would do with them.

Cyndi has designed a lovely necklace using the glass spirals and petroglyph beads but since we're like Kandinsky, neither she nor I know what to name it!





Do you?

I know my readers are happy to suggest names, you've done it before with the rings I post.

I'm upping the ante today - post a comment suggesting a name and you'll be entered into a drawing to win two aqua glass links!

You can post a name either here or on Cyndi Lavin's blog. Comments made from today, March 31st until Sunday, April 6th will be eligible. Winner will be announced on here and on Cyndi's blog on Monday, April 7th, 2008.

I look forward to seeing the suggested names! Good luck!

Cindy