A Study in Pink

So when I design a piece, I usually have a complete image in my head that I set to work on and maybe tweak a bit depending on the supplies I have on hand or at my whim. This, on the other hand, was a build as you go project.  I had just finished a red and gold necklace and wondered what the next would be. I went feeling through my beads and I found these gorgeous faceted pink beads that are some of my favorites but seldom used. I took a few out of their container and placed them on my workspace.

They landed pretty much in this sort of clover shaped position and that was enough inspiration to make what I consider to be a very lovely necklace.

It grew bit by bit as I gathered many of my pink beads to figure out which ones would work. I didn't want them to be too match-y. At one point, I was tearing through all of my supplies looking for a particular bead. It took forever to find, and when I finally did find them, they were so wrong for the necklace that it was kind of funny (kind of, as in not at all). I found the perfect substitute a lot easier and the layout of the necklace was complete.

Then I had a few stringing issues. I wasn't too upset that the way I wanted to do it didn't work out because it was highly experimental for me. It was a stringing technique that I dreamed up for this necklace that didn't work out because of my issues with knots. I've pretty much perfected the type of knot I use most often, but this would've needed an entirely different sort of knot. So, I decided to go with something that I knew would be successful, I added the chain (it wasn't always going to be chain but I figured it would keep it dainty if I used chain), then the clasp and...

 Voila!

Here it is in all its shiny, pink glory!

Here it is with a couple of different backgrounds:

This is one of many lovely necklaces I will have for sale this Saturday at the Vineland Flea Market. It's my first time trying this one, it's new. I hope I have great time there because it's weekly and it would be great to have a weekly gig instead of once a month like at Silver Lake.

I've Got Spirals on My Fingers! *

So I recently came across this video and I thought I’d give it a try.

 I was a bit hesitant due to my challenges with using the double needle technique (not technically using needles but both ends of mono-filament). But I thought the ring had potential so I made it.

It's really late and if I bothered to really edit the photos, this post might not get done, so I'm going to be showing pictures of it as they came off of my phone. Still, this one isn't for sale anyway, but when I do make some for sale, the pictures are going to look a LOT better.

I started this ring late at night a couple of nights ago, which is why the image is so dark. 
But I wanted to get a quick snapshot of what the base of the ring looked like.

And this is the finished ring. I really liked the combination of colors that I used. 
Rob says that it reminds him of a Venice Carnavale mask. 
Um, I don't see it, but okay! lol He did say he really liked it.

Here's the profile of the ring.
It seems a lot puffier here than it actually looks on my hand.

Here's the band, I really like the look of it.

Here's the finished ring again.

I'll probably end up keeping this ring. I had a few glitches happen while making it. I do plan on making a few more though, for sale in my booth. It depends on how fast I can make one. I'll probably try to crank out one more for now, but I really have to make some more necklaces for sale because I found a new market to vend at and I'm trying it out this weekend. Wish me luck!

*Fun fact: The title of this blog entry is a nod to the Beatles where at the end of Helter Skelter, Ringo Starr yells, "I've got blisters on my fingers!" from all the crazy drumming throughout the song.

Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology

So I was pretty busy last night, and by that, I mean this morning. I got to bed close to 3am. I was writing descriptions and listing things on Etsy. Before that, I set up my Etsy shop on Facebook. I don’t know if I sometimes have Type A personality spells or what but I feel so elated when I’ve had a productive day/night/early morning. Now I’m up way too early and listening to some Iggy and the Stooges so it’s all good.

I’ve made a goal to have at least 20 listings on Etsy by the end of August. After the progress of last night, I feel that this is perfectly doable and not a goal that is too far out of my reach.

Here is a link to what my FB Etsy page looks like. One of the backgrounds I had to choose from was Steampunk themed and I SOOOOO wanted it. It was gorgeous! But my jewelry (so far) isn’t Steampunk themed so it wouldn't be true to the biz. I did find one that just happened to have an 8-pointed star which is the symbol of my business. Not like my logo but still an 8-pointed star so I felt like that was an omen that I should choose that one.

I’m thinking about taking advantage of the overcast glow of the early morning to take some pictures even though I’m a bit hopped up on feelings of accomplishment and lack of sleep. I know that I’m going to crash in the near future, but I’m hoping coffee will delay that a bit.

Oh, and I just looked up Pantone's Fall colors yesterday. I know, it should've been much sooner. So here's the colors I'm looking forward to using:

A Quick Update.

[This was originally going to be a blog entry on my personal blog, (on New Year's Day, I challenged myself to write a blog post every day for a year) but then I read through it and saw that the whole thing had to do with jewelry making and the business side of things as well. I also owned up to the fact that I had been neglecting this blog for far too long. So I yoinked it from the grips of my personal blog and decided to put it here, where it really belongs...]

Well, I am all out of my spiral bracelets. They have all been sold! [Insert happy dance break.] So now I have money from buying them and I get to make some more, which is fun for me. So this is a win/win situation. Another win, is I get to buy one of those 6 ft. folding tables that are much better than the one that I have. It’s really heavy and is such a bugger to move every time I need to, even though Rob does most of the moving. It also takes up more space than a folding table would. My next major purchase will be a new pop-up-style canopy for my booth. The one I have now is on the cheap side, and it’s the kind with the splayed out legs. I want a sturdier one with legs that stand vertically. They allow for more room because they’re 10’x10’ top to bottom, where as the one I have now is debatably 10’x10’ at the feet and about 8’x8’ at the top. Splayed out legs are also easier to trip over. The straight legs would be safer for me as well as anyone around my booth. The way things are going, I feel like I’ll be able to do that soon.

Right now I have to go into super-productive mode. I have the Silver Lake market on the 9^th which means that I need to restock my booth. I should have been doing that since the end of the holiday season, but I needed a bit of a health break and I have been working on commissions. Getting back into doing the booths and all is something I am rather excited about. I am going to have a small part of my booth set up for seasonal products. For this month, it will be Valentine’s Day jewelry. Next month will be Spring themed with maybe a bit of the green stuff for St. Patrick’s Day. The market in April is on my birthday, so I might do birthday specials something like “guess my age for a 10% discount.” Hmm, maybe I won’t, because NO ONE would guess right unless they were very lucky. I have the family “curse” of looking WAY younger than I actually am. My mom says it bugs her to no end but I know deep down inside she likes it. 

So that's a brief update and I promise that new posts are coming really soon. Most will even have pictures!

Pantone Color Forecast -- Spring 2013

So these are the colors that are forecast for Spring 2013:

Challenge Accepted.

Okay, so I thought it would be really bad-ass if I just ended this with "Challenge Accepted" and strut off without looking back like there's explosions going on behind me. But I have to say that I'm really excited about these colors! Look at them! They're so Preeeeeetttty! And I can see myself combining them in ways that I may not have thought of before. Another bonus is that I'm pretty sure that I have all those colors in my stash already. I also have nail lacquer (that's what they call it now) that is the color of Monaco Blue that I bought a month ago or so. I feel like such a trendsetter! But I digress...

In a nutshell: 

*I'm super-excited about the colors. 

*I'm planning to start early. 

*Buckle your seat belts and be prepared for the awesomeness to come. <--Too much? Maybe, but we'll see.

November 1st "Eureka!" Moment

So this month I've decided to take part in the NaNoWriMo challenge. But I'll still be doing my beading of course. In fact, I have a boutique to sell at this Saturday in Signal Hill. It's at an Antique Mall so I'm sure to have better results than at Glendale a couple weeks ago. But none of that is the main point of this post...

Okay, so this may be a little hard to explain but I'm going to try anyway. Besides, I think it’s a great technique. So today I’m working on a bracelet and I need to add new thread. I already weaved in the end of the end of the thread I was already working with, and I was ready to add the new thread. Now, I would normally add the thread to my needle, go back a few rows, and weave and knot the new thread through to come out at the point where I would continue my rows -- dragging most of the length of the thread through the beads...

This time, what I did was go through the point where I would usually come out to continue beading, and I would only pull through a short portion of the thread and weave that back a few rows. When done, I put the needle at the other end of the thread and continue. This made adding new thread go quicker so I can get back to adding more beads as soon as possible . Quicker, except for this first time because as soon as I did it I felt the need to put a post about it on Facebook, but it turned into this blog post instead.  Anyway, I now have less chance of getting tangles just in the process of adding thread. Also, I don’t have to make any awkward twists and turns to make sure that the thread came out at the right spot.

I don’t know if a lot of people do it this way or not (have I just stumbled upon something that everyone does and I’m just out of the loop?), but I thought it would be a great idea to share and it’s something I’m going to continue doing from now on.  I hope people find this to be a very helpful tip! :-D

Today's gratuitous picture is of a cute, tiny snail that I saw on a leaf as I was leaving a friend's house on Halloween night: 

Smallest I've ever seen! About the size of my fingertip.

Necklace Display Templates in PDF

So here they are, the templates for the necklace displays that I posted a couple of posts ago. See the previous blog post to see how they are put together. You can attach them with velcro tape or double-sided tape. I hope these templates will give you a lovely yet functional display.

Here's the Low Profile Template

Here's the High Profile Template


Um, I guess that's it. I feel like there should be a picture here or something...

Oh, I know, here's an instagram pic of a teabag tag I had once:

I liked it because it mentioned beads :-D