WireHead Reads

Even an experienced WireHead can pick up new techniques and tips in beginner books. There are some good tips and techniques in the wire books I'm reading lately - a new twist on headpins, clasps and knot rings. I'm bending wire as you read. If want to read about the book a bit more, it's up on BeadLit. I'm going back to bending some wire - do some creating today!

Surprise

My Rainbow Spiral is in an Etsy Treasury. Cool surprise this morning.

Inspiration from Toronto's Chinatown

If I'm jonesing for some big city excitement, we hop in the car and drive to Toronto. A little color inspiration for you today - taken at a market in Toronto's Chinatown.

Love Links and the other life....

Seeing how far I can stretch the Glass Links. Three links are melted together link by link to create a short 3 link class chain. I'm calling them Love Links because they'll always be together. Wink! Crystal Love Links with cubic zirconia embedded in two of the three links. Purplicious Love Links are partially iridescent reflecting blues and gold along with the purple. I'll put these up on my website tonight or tomorrow.

I'm off to live my other life today - I'll spend a full 8 hour shift working as a video interpreter, signing telephone calls between Deaf and hearing people all day. I'm like an operator except with a videophone. Hard to get going after a nice couple of days at the torch.

Go create something beautiful today - Enjoy!
(Photo Credit)

Meet my photographer and new banner

I'm not staying on the computer very long today, I'm having a flare up of the repetitive stress injury, so it' a quicky post today. I've got a new banner designed by my budding photographer teen. (That's him above.) He prefers to take portraits and not do graphic arts but he feels obligated to keep my photos, banners, website fresh and not go stale. Thank you! He does most of my bead/jewelry photography although I'm still teaching him how to "style" the beads. He's a fast learner and I expect he'll be styling the beads soon.

Wire Head will be back - I'm doing lots of wire lately!

Red Hot Ornament Thursday

Trendy, popular - red hot! Wrapped bracelets are hot on the craft scene and I'm hot off of Color Week so using tutorials from the internet, I've combined the two into this Punk Skully Kid Bangle Bracelet. Instead of using an actual Skully Kid, I created a flat version in Shrink plastic and attached it to the bangle using black safety pins for true Punk style. It's just perfect for The Teens who hang out at my house.



So as Emily the Strange would say, "Get lost!" and go see what the other Ornament Thursday Grllzzz are up to!


Art Bead Scene
ABS Editor Cindy Gimbrone Goes Red Hot Crazy!

Beading Help Web is RED HOT!
Lynn Kvigne takes up the torch and shows you how to make a toe ring using fine silver.

Cindy Gimbrone aka Lampwork Diva
Trendy, Popular and Red Hot!

It's Red Hot July in Arizona!
Lisa finally finishes a project from over a year ago. Check out this "hot" take on a changeable necklace.

Katie's Bead Blog
Check out Katie's Red Hot faux coral necklace! It's a punch of color with a summery feel.

Linda Ausburg at BeadStyle Magazine
Linda shares a red-hot card she created.

Michelle is RED HOT!
Well, really, Margot is...

Savvy Crafter
Hotsie Totsie Plexi-glass Flower pendant over on Candie's blog!

Strands of Beads
The heat is rising, and Melissa is making a Red Hot Firecracker necklace!

Swell Designer a.k.a. Alexa Westerfield
The Swelldesigner gets red hot with a Hunka Hunka Burner Necklace!

Too Red Hot
Our own Michelle Zimmerman has been hard at work this month sculpting a devil of a project for your enjoyment.

WireHead Makes Jewelry

Made this anklet after my first wire wrapping class in 1997. Done in 20 gauge copper and Czech pressed glass beads, druks. See? I'm loving greens and teals! Nicely done if I do say so myself, good wraps on the beads and look at those loops!

Wire got me into melting glass because one addiction leads to another. Books are another obsession and I started buying jewelry related books the moment I touched a piece of wire. I'm BeadLit-ing on my first book but here's what it looks like - I'm always taking the road not taken so it's a bit off the beaten path - found object jewelry before it was called that.


I didn't intend to keep these but somehow I did. I got tooo busy raising my son so they were saved only because I neglected to give them away. It makes me wonder - Have you kept the firsts of your work?

Confessions of a WireHead

Challenging myself to approach color differently made me think about the beginning. What brought me to glass as a medium? How did it all start?

It was a piece of wire. Yup that's right, wire.

That lead to making headpins, clasps, and chains. I started to haunt the local bead shop and take all their classes in wire - not bead stringing as most people did, it was wire.

I was becoming a WireHead.

Not the science fiction kind of Wirehead but an avid wire bender. But I wasn't alone, most of the bead shop employees were Wire-Heads too. They taught the classes, I took them. We looked at the pretty colors of the seed beads and said it was one step from cross stitch, we were too edgy for that! (But I spoke too soon because they caught me in their colorful spell later on.)

We made the trip to the glass studio and all agreed we had to stay away from it, it was an addiction waiting to happen.(How little did I know!!)

I bought copper wire in all gauges for practice, then I bought sterling wire and twisted my way into the beginnings of carpal tunnel. I couldn't put it down, it was a compulsion - just one more link!

So, I show you my very very very first piece of jewelry, an earring. I bought the pressed glass beads and made the loop in the headpin. I attached it to the purchased french wire.

Wow.

Not.

But I had to start somewhere and this is what I started with.

Wire.

How did you get started in your crafty endeavors?

Sunday's Color Mix...

Playing with color in the Beads to Go! Bead Mixes. Beads to Go! are only offered in my Etsy Shop. Enjoy!

Plug Ur Budz: Studio Saturday

I love to plug my budz over at Art Bead Scene - see which commenter won from my post on color last week and see what one of the ABS Editors is up to this week! In the meantime, I'll be out in my studio.....

Color Makes Me Wanna Dance!

Well, after a full week of color, I feel happy! Here's a video you may or may not have seen but I hope you all feel this way about your life and work - lots of color inspiration in here and it just might make you feeling like dancin' - go ahead, no one's lookin!


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Color is Magnetic!

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Here's quirky thought for Color Week: Humans are always swimming in a pool of air and magnetic fields that we don't see. I always wonder what would happen if we could see what we were swimming in - here's a video that does just that. Magnetic Fields in Living, Moving Color!

It's Red Hot at Ornament Thursday Next Week!

The heat has gotten to me! Why do you ask? Because I've created TWO projects for this month's Ornament Thursday! It's not the first time I've gone a little OT nuts. Maybe that was the cold? This time, it's the heat?

It's Color Week so I've paid particular attention to how I use color in the projects. Let's see how I do with next week's Ornament Thursday. Can't wait to show you!

Color Applied!

Here's a book y'all gotta get! Margie Deeb has outdone herself with The Beader's Color Palette. The book includes 220 palettes inspired by five diverse themes - a great companion text to Margie's podcasts.

To give you an idea of how the book works, with the inspiration and color palettes, a blog post from Margie's blog shows an inspiration photo:




A color palette based on the inspiration photo:


A close up of a bracelet made in the color palette:



(above photos from Margie's blog)

Color Applied! Cool!

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?

Keeping Your Color Work on Track: Blogs

I read alot of blogs. My reader is full and now I've added color blogs. Here are a few that I found helpful for the color study done for Color Week. For general color theory here is the Queen of Color, Margie Deeb's Color for Bead Artists

If you want your color study in a social networking site, there's the Color Lovers Blog

For the glass beadmaker, Kandice Seeber writes a wonderful blog called Color Addiction. What I love most about Kandice's blog is the glass "swatches." When a new glass color comes out, I like to wait to see what Kandice has to say about it. Kandice thoroughly tests each glass color and her blog is well written, not to mention the cute phrases thrown in on occasion, "oh my freaking YUM" stands out.




(Above Photos from Color Addiction.)

Some flameworkers aren't chatty, they just show you the glass like Seraphim FlameWorks: Double Helix Color Tests

(Above Photo from Seaphimflameworks Blog.)

I'll take it either way. Choose what you like and add it to your reader. It will keep your color work on track!

Color on Studio Saturday

We're going into my studio today for Color Week. So hop on over to Studio Saturday on Art Bead Scene to see what's up!

Ok, I've spun the color wheel now what? Color Celebration!

Get thee to iTunes and download some episodes of Margie Deeb's Podcast, Celebration of Color. A few episodes I recommend are "Balancing Act," "Triadic & True" and Why C-M-Y?

Margie is a "color zealot" to use her own words so she's got lots to say on color. She's been podcasting since January 2006 so there are alot of episodes to pick and choose from - choose a few that interest you.
I'll come back to Margie and her books again later on in color week but in the meantime, Color Celebration will get your color wheel turning!

(Photo of Margie Deeb teaching from her website.)

Wheeeee! I got crazy with scissors!

We interrupt color week for this announcement.....

I cut off my waist length hair today!

Wheeeee!!!!

If you have't seen my long hair - go see how long my hair was on Jean Yates' Amazon Blog today!

Now back to the regularly scheduled Color Week.....

Take a Spin with Color: Color Week Starts Now!

Color

–noun
1. the quality of an object or substance with respect to light reflected by the object, usually determined visually by measurement of hue, saturation, and brightness of the reflected light; saturation or chroma; hue.

HUH? Ok, you didn't come to my blog to read the dictionary for pete's sake! I know, I know,I know...I'm not going to launch into a dry explanation of color. Remember this is Color Week and I'm challenging myself to use color in unexpected ways. So, I need to point out that color is tied into vision for us bipeds.

80% of what we learn, understand and react to is visual. We require visual stimulation and that includes color.

We need color.

We want color.

It keeps us sane.

Color keeps us alive.

That's serious business, right? So maybe I should take an organized approach, right?

If you read my blog, I don't tread the well trodden path, I like to do things intuitively - mix it up and see what comes out. Now where might I find that in my quest for color?

Ooo - remember theSpin Art at the Fair?



Here's a Spin the Color Wheel that's fun and unexpected. After you've spun the wheel a few times, you can click around the site - it's full of awesome color tools.

Explore Color and see where it takes you.

(Credits: General facts about sensory input and human beings from Color Matters website; Spin Art Photo)