Bead & Button Withdrawal Therapy

I was not able to attend Bead & Button this year and I was totally bummed!  Last year I had a super time working with Jeannette Cook of Beady Eyed Women!  It was my first time ever at the show and I was there with a seasoned professional!  What I learned working with her is immeasurable and I am eternally grateful to Jeannette for the experience!  This year I know so many more people at the show...and so I have been watching the fun via the Internet.  But it's just not the same as being there! 

For my B&B Show withdrawal therapy I came up with some unique projects. 

I commemorated my time with Jeannette last year with some great new funky earrings, using her famous Curl technique!  "Mastering the Curl" is a must have technique for your beading repertoire!

Jill Wiseman of Tapestry Beads proposed a Hat & Fascinator Day for Saturday at Bead & Button and of course the beading community loved the idea! Bead & Button is a glorious week of women strutting their stuff, so here was one more exuberant way to do it!  Again, undaunted by my lack of attendance...I participated vicariously.  I up cycled a thrift store hat.  This past Friday afternoon and evening I pretended to be a milliner and decorated my own hat!  You may have seen my profile pic on Face Book...well here is another pic of me with my new hat! 

Can you guess my favorite color??

My local beading guild The Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild is having our annual "Strut Your Stuff" pizza party on June 21.  Guess what we've proposed to our members?? You got it, hats, fascinators and tiaras!! Get 'em out and wear 'em to the meeting!!!  I can't wait to wear this hat, you can't see the mock Bird of Paradise feathers I attached!! I was working on an idea for a fascinator.  Since I came up with this great purple hat my other project may end up as a necklace.  The scale of it is along the lines of one of New York City's most fabulous and outrageous beaders and my friend Suzanne Golden.  It is no where near as fantastic as her work, but I love Suzanne's style and fearless use of color, materials and proportion!

My project idea originated with a class with Carole Horn of The Bead Society of Greater New York. She came to our guild to teach for the first time last year!  When she demoed the class project she used plastic pony beads, etc.  We all loved the resulting piece with those huge beads and it stuck in my head!  Well, I had to make one!  Voila!  I'll have a huge flower to wear as a necklace soon!

I also checked in on my friend Kate McKinnon from time to time the last couple of weeks to see what she and Dustin Wedekind have been doing on their current book collaboration Geometrics.  Needless to say they are up to a lot of interesting things!  I had promised myself for weeks that I would pre-purchase the book, so I did and bought Kate's other self published books before they gone forever. 

This is how I salved my broken beading heart the past couple of weeks.

And now that B&B is over I will stop pouting and start planning for next year!!

Hugs!!

Silver Star Lace

Here is the bracelet I made to go with my Prismatic Infinity Necklace.

This bracelet is made using the Kepler's Star pattern from beAd Infinitum.

Silver Star Lace Bracelet

Just like my Jeanee-Rachel Star bracelet I couldn't leave those large openings un-embellished.  This time I used some lovely Chinese crystals I bought in California in January.  This photo does not do this bracelet justice.  Everyone comments that it has the look of "vintage" jewelry.  How cool is that?

I have another idea in my head that uses this pattern....coming soon. 

Bling Bling Bling!

Ta da!

Here is my latest beAd Infinitum Design Team contribution!!

I purchased these rivolis at B&B last year and they have taunted me, dancing around in a variety of design ideas ever since.

A couple of weeks ago, I had one of those "ah ha!" moments.  Also referred to as an epiphany.

The Infinity Prism pattern loomed before my eyes...remember my ribbon piece back in January?

I realised I had another way to use the prism and incorporate my rivoli stash! Yippee!!

Prismatic Infinity

This piece has three sizes of 8 sided rivolis that have flat tables. You can look into them and see an infinite prism reflected on the internal faces.

The pattern calls for drop beads at the corners, I used 1.8mm cube beads instead.  All of the beads are the same color ~ Silver Rain.  Yummy, but really tough to look at for long periods of time!

Detail of Prismatic Infinity Necklace

I used 4mm Chinese crystal rondelles in between the elements. 

The clasp is another Infinity Prism with an embellished Herringbone loop.

The Infinity Prism technique for bezeling is very satisfying and time efficient.  It is very versatile and easy to adjust to various rivoli sizes.  Although I haven't experimented yet, I believe it would be very adaptable to a variety of cabochon or rivoli shapes.  Hmmmm...I feel another project coming on!!

Please post a comment and let me know what you think!

New DNA Discovery!

Hey all you science geeks, math nerds and beadaholics!!

Gwen Fisher, of beAd Infinitum,  a rockin' mathmagician who applies her wonderful brainiac powers to beads, felt, fabric and probabaly pi to the gajillionth other materials, is at it again! 

What's all the flap you ask? 

She has discovered, nay, created beaded DNA! 

Yes, that's right, the double helix of beads!

No it's not an April Fools joke!

She really did it!

Check out her tutorial on You Tube, made with a cool software tool for the iPad called "Doceri".

Here's the link  Beaded DNA

Super cool right?  It will help your nerd look, look cool.

(I know you have tape on your glasses, don't deny it.)

Gwen's double helix earrings were so nifty I had to make a pair for myself!

Here they are....nerd glam!

AgDNA Earrings

Notice the little sparkly bits on the left? 

 Hint: those are some of the bits from my current beAd Infinitum Design Team project! 

Coming to this blog in a few days....

Here's a hot tip for you nerdy beadaholics....

Those sparkly bits are from the Infinity Prism pattern. 

Watch for the finished piece, coming soon.... 

Beaded Beads

Here are my latest experiments....

I am playing with the various beaded bead techniques in the wonderful patterns from beAd Infinitum.  Recently I made several Time Machine beaded beads, which got me to thinking that I could combine the lace overlay technique with the Ionic Polyhedra shapes (leaving out the ionic overlay). 

I made a simple bead first....

This bead is approximately the same shape as the Time Machine bead, although it is smaller.

It insists on being called "The Time Capsule".

Next I applied this same technique to the Cuboctohedron shape....

Here is the result!

So far the name for this little beauty is "Fancy Cuboctohedron".

Maybe I should call it "The TARDIS", what do you think?

Hope you enjoy the results of my exploration!

River's Time

The Collector

This is my latest beAd Infinitum Design Team Project

"The Collector"

I haven't stopped playing with the Infinity Dodecahedron,

 it lends itself to so many variations!

As you can see, I used a variety of beads for the second layer this time.  The base is made with 6's and 8's and the Infinity weave beads are 4mm drops, 5mm magatamas and vintage matte curled leaves (some refer to them as fingernail beads).

This necklace also includes two Time Machine beaded beads.

These are made with 8mm Black Onyx rounds, 6mm Aqua Fire Polish, 4mm Capri blue AB Fire Polish,

Capri blue Miyuki drops, 8/0s, 11/0s and 15/o beads.

While I worked on this project it occurred to me that I could apply the principles from

the Time Machine bead technique, to the shapes in the Ionic Polyhedra pattern.

I chose to work with one of my new favorite shapes, the cuboctohedron.  I added looped sections and lace overlay to each four sided face and a lace overlay with drops at each three sided face. 

This produces a softly curved six pointed star. 

The picture below is a view from the top down, so unfortunately you cannot see the true shape.

I see many more of these in my future...oh there I go again referencing time!

TTFN!!

To Infinity and Beyond....It's Ionic!!



Well, I'm finally back! I have been very busy! So I'll get straight to it!

I'm just not done making the Infinity Dodecahedra!  But as a Bead Infinitum Design Team Member I am challenged to move on each month to another of Florence and Gwen's fabulous patterns!  So here you can see the results of my playing with the Ionic Polyhedra pattern.  This pattern has multiple geometric forms to really challenge you!  I had to include some Infinity Dodecahedra with variations of my own!




  The Ionic Polyhedra pattern starts out with a simple Ionic Cube or Octahedron and transitions to more complicated forms.  Finally on the very last page is a matrix of the various Ionic Polyhedra that can be made using this technique.  The necklace above incorporates Infinity Dodecahedra with crystal tipped fringe, Infinity Dodecahedra with multiple over lapping loops, Infinity Dodecahedra with captured 8mm Czech fire polish, an Ionic Icosahedron (largest beaded bead) and 6  Lacey Cuboctahedra (my variation with only one layer of embellishment).  This is a long piece, 35 inches total.



Ionic Icosahedron



Lacey Ionic Cuboctahedron and Infinity Dodecahedron with crystal tipped fringe.

Undaunted, I had to try more forms.....





Ionic Polyhedra 345 Necklace

  These are, from the top down, Ionic Tetrahedra, Ionic Octahedra and an Ionic Pentacluster.  The Ionic Pentacluster is done with my own embellishment variation adding crystal clusters over the "holes". 

Here is another view of the same piece so you can see the base bead cluster showing through on the side and how the crystals sit on the five faces (both sides).

Ionic Polyhedra 345 Necklace

This necklace sits nicely in an open neck top and is 20 inches long.  I wore both pieces together this past Tuesday night to the Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild member meeting.  I received rave reviews!!  It is particularly special because some of the great reviews came from Marcia DeCoster, Kim St.Jean, Sherry Serafini and Barb Switzer who are here in Michigan teaching classes for our Guild! 

But I couldn't stop there....no, I had to have some earrings too....lovely little Lacey Pentaclusters.  They have only one layer of embellishment and hang from light silver chain on studs. 

Lacey Pentacluster Earrings

So, for now...that's all I have for you! <grin>  Well, except for one tip....if you have trouble visualizing or figuring out the bead path of any of these geometric forms.  Before you throw up your hands or beads, google the geometric shape along with the word "net",  i.e. Cuboctahedron Net.   You should see line drawings of the form flattened out; print it out, cut it out and fold it into the appropriate shape.  This will help you with the thread path and construction of the various forms without step by step instructions! 

Happy Beading to you all!!



Edited and reposted for the picture storage problem!

Thanks for the warning from "No Easy Beads"!!





First things first!

Okay, so here I am blogging! Wow, I never thought I'd actually do this! I was never one to keep a diary....well, this is way different if you ask me!

So here I am.  A member of the Bead Infinitum Design Team! Truth be told, that is my motivation for starting this blog! In the next day or two I will have some pictures to post and words about what I've made. 

For now HELLO internet blogging world!