Can you resist The Green River?

I've got a new organic choker for My Etsy Shop tomorrow morning in shades of green, ivory, gray and purple!

No, this bead isn't named after the infamous crimes in Washington State, but for the bright green band that flows diagonally across the front side of the bead as you can see in this picture.

The back of the bead has a much more mixed color palette with more of the purples visible than on this side, but you'll have to check out my new listing tomorrow to see all of the pictures of this bead.

The black caps on the end really add an elegant flair to the bead and set off the colors in the body of the bead.

As with all of my chokers, this one is strung on a steel cable with a very secure magnetic clasp for ease of putting the choker on and taking it off.

Be sure to stop by My Shop tomorrow and see all of the pictures of this unique piece of jewelry.

Have a great night!

Ready For The Last Flowers Of Summer?

Ready or not, here they come.

This new choker has a new floral design that I'm trying out and really quite happy with. Entitled, "Summer's Last Flowers", it features two flowering plants with orange and blue flowers similar to forget-me-nots or hyacinths.

Swaying the last of the warm summer breezes, each plant has two last bunches of flowers showing their beauty in the last golden days.

The base bead in this choker is a very interesting ivory with mottled tans and dark lanes of color for that stone look.

As with all my chokers, its strung on a nylon coated steel cable with a magnetic clasp that holds the necklace quite securely since the clasp is interlocking barrels instead of the traditional magnetic clasp.

I'll be posting this lovely to my Etsy Shop tomorrow around lunch time (CST), so please check in to see more pictures of this piece.

I hope you're having a great night!

This Design Is Cursed

I love this bead. It's the second one I've made with a similar design since the first one met a dark fate.

I picked up the bubble bag it was in when I took it to work, and I failed to realize that I was holding it upside-down. The bead fell out of the bag and hit my desk. Instant grapevine pruning.

While I would rather have me break a bead than a customer, I was still rather upset about it. So I canceled the gym that night (any excuse, right?) and got back onto the torch. I made this bead and two organic focals.

Last night, after etching and cleaning the bead up, I took some pictures, and that's when I noticed it. It's amazing what the camera sees and what our eyes see through the camera that we didn't notice before. The bead was cracked, in several places!

YIKES.

Atop the bead, the vine was cracked, by the hole there was another crack and again across the blue grapes. So I will not have this bead design to show while in Door County. The fates are working against me.

That is why I have to tell you, that this design is cursed.

Will I try to lift the curse? Absolutely, but not until I get back from my trip to Door County.

While I'm up in Door County, I wont be able to post any new blog entries, but I will be back late next week and will hopefully have lots of fun stories to relate to you.

Have a great weekend and a better week!

You Won't Want To Fight These Summer Blues!

How many grape and vineyard names can I come up with?

I don't know, but we'll just have to see. This latest vineyard bead is called "Summer Blues" and features a new grape color--pale blue.

I love how the colors of this bead came out against the ivory background and the bright blue bunches of grapes.

As you can see, I also carried over a few tendrils onto the back side of the bead for more detail.

The blue in these beads is almost electric and seems to shine on its own power. More grape colors are coming soon!

There seems to be no end in the number of colors that grapes come in--at least in my world!

I still have more beads to photograph before I can post them. Don't worry, I have already pictures of more beads that I've made recently.

I've really been bitten by the glass-bug this week, and I'm so glad that I'm getting so much done and created. In a few days, I'll be displaying my wares in Door County to a few shop owners and we'll see what happens then!

Have a great night!

Standing Against The Fire

That's the name of this new tree focal bead I created this weekend.

A lone tree grows on a patch of ground while a roiling fire rages in the distance, and the tree does what it can only do--stand there and live life to its fullest. No matter how much time it has, it will enjoy every minute of it.

I can only hope to be as brave and resolute as this tree in my life, and I think we can all use this focal as an object lesson for life from time to time.

The back of this bead shows the rich colors and swirling "flames" of the background, and I suppose the bead could be worn with either side facing forward, depending upon your mood.

This is one of the beads that will be going with me to Door County in our search for a gift shop outlet.

Have a great night and don't forget to stop by my Etsy Shop if you have a chance!

If Spring Doesn't Start Soon...

...I may have to use my talisman.

Winter has been especially long this year here in Chicago and we've gotten about four years worth of snow in the past few months.  That can get really old after a while of having to deal with snow, and salt, and slippery roads, and bitter cold and ...  The winter blues just go on and on!

Fortunately, I've created a new talisman that can be used to invoke spring and I may just have to use it if Spring doesn't start soon.

My latest bead in the "Silhouette" series entitled "Talisman Of Spring" has that mystical power to bring Spring (or at least warm thoughts of Spring) to a city near you!  

I've trapped the rich, emerald green of spring inside this bead with  layer of clear class.  Onto one side, a stark, black tree awaits its first new leaves.  On the other side, transparent dots have been placed to direct the magical forces into the barren tree and help jump-start this whole process!

As you can see, this bead really sparkles and is should make someone a very happy owner.  I'll be loading this beauty into my Etsy Shop tomorrow morning.

Don't let Spring get started in someone else's city before yours!

More Galleries On Web Site - Silhouette's Premiere

As promised last night, I did get my beads cleaned and photographed from Sunday's torching session and will have new item in my store tomorrow.

In addition, I also uploaded more grapevine focal beads to my web site and added a new gallery for my Dot Design focals that I made a few weeks back.

If you'd like to view the new gallery, click HERE.  

To see all of the vineyard pictures, click HERE. 

Now, on to the new Silhouette series.

Silhouette Series Premieres On Etsy Tomorrow

While I was pondering life all day Saturday from the comfort of my bed, an idea came to me about the types of backgrounds I usually use on my vineyard, tree and raised floral beads.  They're always opaque.

What would happen if I created a fully transparent bead with a raised design?  What if the back of the bead was textured a bit to bend the light as it travels through the bead?  

With those two questions, I created "Silhouette" a new bead series which depicts foreground items, such as trees and vines, as just their shadow while a bright and light catching transparent background is used to highlight the image.

This first bead in the series is entitled "Spring's Early Light".  In the foreground, a tree that is bare of foliage still in the early morning hours.  In the background, the cold, blue of night and winter is fading on the horizon with the first few light rays of warm sunshine and the promise of more ahead.

That is what this bead means to me and the images it brings to mind.  In addition to being very sparkly in the light, the textured back is also really cool to rub against your fingers like a miniature massager.  That was an unexpected benefit, but might be a hit with customers. Time will tell.

The transparent core of the bead has been encased twice for additional depth and interest and segregates the colors from the touch of the viewer like a piece of Spring has been trapped forever.

So, now it's your turn.  What do you think of the new design so far?

This bead will be added to my Etsy shop in the morning with additional pictures of it from various angles and more information. 

Have a great night.

Class was A Blast!

My Saturday afternoon chain mail class was a lot of fun and we had a great time.  There were only two students (myself included) and the teacher, Vanessa, who was very nice and easy to learn from.

We learned two chain mail patterns, the Box Weave and Byzantine.  These are actually two related patterns so once you know how to make one, the other is just a minor adjustment in the weave. 

I brought a focal bead that I'd wired up with silver wire as a focal for use in the class.  It's a bead I made back in June at Bead and Button, and intend to keep for myself once he chain is created.

I'm afraid the size of the rings used for this particular chain were much smaller than I had envisioned.  I'm not sure if I will be completing the chain in this size or upsizing the rings a bit for a more robust (and much faster to make) chain for the bead.  

I've got to order some tools and rings before I can complete it, but I hope to have them on order this week.

More grapevines coming!

I followed my bliss today on the torch and created more vineyard focal beads.  Most of the focals I created today are intended for use in wine stoppers and are much larger than my recent grapevine offerings.

In addition, I've adjusted the designs a bit and have some surprises for you when the beads have completed annealing. 

Tomorrow's new listing in my Etsy shop, continues the grape theme with this bashful focal bead entitled "Vines De Mure".

These purple grapes, are hanging in front of a pastel pink background that is streaked with silvered ivory accents.  The background is encased in a clear layer and then decorated with the vines, leaves and succulent grape bunches.

This little beauty will be added to my shop in the morning, and I hope you can stop by and take a look.

Have a great night and a terrific week!

Trellis Vinery - Come Take A Peek

Tonight I went back to the gym again and had a very good (tiring) workout, but I wanted to get this posted before I completely collapse.

My latest entry into my Etsy shop tomorrow morning is called "Trellis Vinery".  It's a grapevine bead with a little bit of different design.  The background of the bead, which is a lovely light ivory color, has been created to have a grooved appearance that runs horizontally around the background.  Can you see it in the picture?

This design creates an interesting trellis effect, which is how the set got its name. 

This bead is a bit larger and more detailed than the ones listed earlier in the week, so I hope you get a chance to stop by the store and take a look when it gets posted with the additional (and larger) pictures and dimensions.

Have a great night, Everyone!

Woodland Vines Coming Soon

Tomorrow morning, I'll be adding another new grape focal to my Esty shop entitled "Woodland Vines".

The bead gets its name from the rich background color I used behind the grapes and vines.  The color is called Desert Chameleon and its a rich beige that works up great with a very cool grain pattern in the glass that reminds me of wood.

The background has been encased in clear and then decorated with some very cool vines and leaves.  This bead has four bunches of ripe grapes (two on each side) and multi-colored vines which add a terrific texture to the whole bead.

I just love grape designs in all sorts of art, and I'm very proud to be able to bring grapevines in my artwork.

Have a great night!

Harry Potter And The Academy Awards

My apologies to everyone who thought you'd get a preview last night of what I was posting into shop this morning.  I had a couple of distractions going yesterday that preventing a blog posting, but you'll be glad to know you didn't miss anything;  I slept in this morning and decided not to add a new item to my store until tomorrow.

What were the distractions, you ask?  Well, first off the Academy Awards were on.  Since we're big movie buffs, that night is rather like Christmas around here.  I wanted to see who was winning which awards and if Johnny Depp would pull-off the Best Actor for "Sweeney Todd".  He didn't, but I had to support him anyway since the movie was so terrific.  Go see it if you haven't already.

John Stewart was pretty funny this year and I think he did a great job hosting. Overall, I really enjoyed this year's show even though I haven't seen  a few of the nominees.

The other MAJOR distraction is "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" which I am re-reading.  I love this series of books.  Once I had read my brand new copy of book 7 when it arrived during the summer, I re-started the entire series with book 1 and have been reading it ever since.

The fifth book remains my least favorit and the hardest one to get through (it took a couple of months, but I was also reading about MACs at the time), but is really necessary to set up the rest of the books.  

I'm getting toward the final battle in the book and decided to give it a read instead of blogging last night.  Please don't hate me!

What's New For Tomorrow

Yesterday, I was working on grape focals again and created several new tabular beads with grapes, vines and leaves.  The first of these will be going into my Etsy shop in the morning.

Entitled, "Ripening Harvest", this tabular bead is adorned with three bunches of grapes, lots of creeping vines and vibrant green leaves.

I'm still experimenting with background colors for these types of beads as you will see as the week progresses.

This background is Moroccan Swirl and is encased in a clear layer to add some depth to the bead.

This focal bead is the smallest of the beads I made yesterday, and coincidentally is also the smallest bead.  I don't know why when I'm making these beads, they keep getting bigger as I work.  Probably because I want more room to add the grapes and vines onto the beads.

This bead will be added to Etsy in the morning, so I hope you'll come a take a look.  Have a great night!