Thank You....

I just wanted to thank everyone for helping support the auctions I held for Bead Soup Blog Party. Whether you bid on the auctions, helped by spreading the word, and just left me words of encouragement, I am truly grateful.

Thanks to the generosity of two very special people, I was able to donate $50 to Beads of Courage! Your jewelry is in the mail!




According to the Beads of Courage website, that is enough to provide two children with their amazing program. The Program is a resilience-based intervention designed to support and strengthen the protective resources in children coping with serious illness. Through the program children tell their story using colorful beads as meaningful symbols of courage that commemorate milestones they have achieved along their unique treatment path. To read more about this program visit this page. I have been so moved by the unique approach to supporting the psychosocial health of children battling serious illness and believe the work they are doing is so very vital to children's emotional and mental health during their unique critical fight.

I received several encouraging emails from the folks at Beads of Courage and I hope to continue to raise money for them in the future. Stay tuned for more info about that!

Soup Ingredients!

Lawd have mercy, I've been neglectful in my Bead Soup Blog Party posts....


Sooooo, if your not my friend on facebook, then you don't know that my partner is Diana of Suburban Girl Studios! Diana makes gorgeous porcelain components and jewelry!

Being a woman of extreme means, I don't often get to buy art beads from other artists so participating in BSBP is really special for me because I get to trade beads with other awesome artists.

*side note: if/when I win the lottery, look out art bead makers everywheres cause i'll be on the loose with copious cash and suppressed ogling....

So Diana makes porcelain beads and we exchanged some brief emails discussing favorite colors etc. What I LOVE about BSBP is that you get to exchange a bit of discussion and then a little package arrives and it may or may not be what you expect! Sort of like Christmas....

So, Diana and I talked about colors, we were both into blues & greens etc. I told the "yeah, I like those colors but whatever, I'm completely flexible and I don't mind a challenge" (or at least that was what I was thinking)

SOOOO...I was completely tickled when I got this:




Because these are the colors that are way outside my comfort zone.

I got:

gorgeous lapis lazuli, AB czech glass, & to die for sari silk....



deep teal focal (and is it just my ignorance or is this so completely awesome that the back is glazed and the front is half-glazed, thereby making what is usually the ugly back of a ceramic into the totally awesome front?) because i know it is a complete pain to glaze both sides and the front is usually the one that gets glazed....





periwinkle toggle (super excited about this)....



periwinkle & teal beads and gorgeous green lampwork made by her husband (can we just uttter a collective jealous sigh that her husband makes lampwork beads?)



....and raku! gorgeous raku....Can I marry you raku? Oh wait, I swore off marriage after the first one went bad....okay, can we have a long, arduous, tempetuous affair? okay, good....



I'm so excited because this is a more cool blue/green palette than I normally visit. There are smatterings of purple (which I usually avoid) and deep royal blues and true teal/pthalo greens. I'm normally an aqua/robin egg blue girl so this is going to completely shatter my paradigm here people!

Diana's work is so lovely. I'm just bubbling with ideas! I think I change my mind daily when I gaze at the beads! That raku is just KILLING me literally. Those little raku charms (the ones that look like beads but are actually charms? Those knock my socks off...seriously.)

Bead Giveaway!!!!

Lori & I are giving away beads! As the send off to our little Cup of Soup idea for the month of August, I'm giving away a set of beads from the Whisper Collection. Go now to Lori's blog and check 'em out to enter!

Super excited about next month at Pretty Things. Another artist will be teaming up with Lori for a new challenge....yay!

Go to the shop and pick up your own whisper beads if you feel unlucky or want to buy your own!

A Cup of Soup, Shop Updates and more....

I'm a day or two behind posting this, so bear with me because I have lots to say and this is going to be a whirlwind, so grab a cup of coffee or tea or vino and sit down and buckle up....

I've been so busy over here in my little corner of the globe. Making, making, making. I was stoked to not only be in the Etsy Finds last week and that is in the middle of me making my new Erudite Collection as well as preparing for Indie Craft Parade. Then, on Friday, I had a nice little stint on the Etsy Front Page which led to some sales as well as some custom orders!

I know KJ is cursing right now, because I said I wasn't gonna do it. but I did. I couldn't help myself.

The new batch of Whisper pendants all hanging out together on my favorite rusty thing.

In the midst of all this fun, Lori Anderson over at Pretty Things put up some new designs from her Cup of Soup Challenge....my first thought was a big freak out because I had let the Whisper Collection dwindle down a bit and it was slim pickings up in that section in the shop....



Soooo, I've been busting a hump up in here trying to fill up the Whisper Collection since I know you are going to be inspired by Lori's designs. They are to die for. I mean, putting that copper piece around my focal is pure genius. So go have a look-see, if you haven't already because...well, Lori just plain ROCKS.

Make sure you keep tabs on that Lori girl, because you never know what she's got up her sleeve...like maybe a giveaway...or two (wink,wink). I know she has an awesome one going on right now if you help support an artist in need who lost her studio in a fire....and methinks there might be one more...


Wait, holy hell! I almost forgot to tell you about the owls....



These damn lovely owls. (sorry, I have a potty mouth)

Let me tell you about the owls. I suppose the owls are a bit like children to me. I don't have any children but bear with me here....

You give birth to them and you raise them right and they go out into the world and start to make you proud. Then one day they come home and tell you otherwise, like they hate you for giving birth to them or something or are going through that awkward teenage phase and brought home some god-awful boyfriend...So the owls retired for awhile and I left them to brood in all their owliness on their own...And I suppose the owls started to grow up and finally brought home a respectable mate (i.e. Lori's brilliant owl bracelets) and now I trust them again.

Okay...that was weird, I know....

..just go with it...

In the actual version, I stopped making the owls, as much as I loved making them, because they weren't selling, and because most of my work is one of a kind, I don't keep a lot of inventory and I can't AFFORD to keep a lot of inventory.

But I'm hearing out there in the ethos that people like the owls again so here is my solution:

I'll be selling the owls in made to order sets of 4 (or more). You can have them in all one color or a mix of the colors below. They will be $22 for 4 and you can have them in my four current colors plus my two neutrals:

COLORS
flannel (baby blue)
persimmon (peachy pink)
sage (soft leaf green)
lavender (light purple)
turquoise (deep teal blue-green)

NEUTRALS (not shown here, but available upon request)
white (not a bright white)
taupe (a nice earthy beige)

I do two finishes:

Antiqued: an all-over rusty aged brown (this is how Lori's owls were done)
Distressed Brown: This preserves the overall integrity of the color used in the polymer clay, but has the deep brown finish in the crevices.




For the not-so-selective, I'm also going to offer an OWL GRAB BAG for $18 for 4 owls. They will be a color selection randomly selected by me, which means they will have prototype colors that I am testing and small runs because I often still use the owls in my own work.

The owls will be available in my shop here as soon as I can upload the listings in the next day.

So whew, I'm tired...I need another cup of coffee....this one is cold now.

Pretty Things

You might remember a while back I participated in the Bead Soup Party hosted by Lori Anderson. After the Party was over, Lori wanted to keep the magic going! She arranged to purchase some beads from me sight unseen to stretch herself creatively and she has just posted up some of her creations! Be sure to hop on over there and see!

They are all so beautiful! Some of the beads she used were purchased from the grab bags, including some birds and owls.

Keeps your eyes peeled. Lori's got more stuff up her sleeve!

Collection: Whisper

So I've been developing some new beads lately. I'm trying to get away from stamped images and going towards more original carved pieces, which I then mold, similar to my You were born with wings pendant. But I also want to develop some cohesive collections, that include connectors/links, spacers, charms, and large focals.

I started with the Breeze Collection which I'm currently developing and expanding but I also started on the Whisper collection when Lori Anderson, of the blog Pretty Things, An Artist's Year Off, and hostess with the mostest of the Bead Soup Party contacted me about purchasing some beads, sight unseen, for a little creative exercise on her part. It seemed like divine providence or something, because I was just finished with the first round of the Whisper collection as well.

Lori is going to keep us updated on her progress so be sure to stop over and offer her some encouraging words!

The Whisper collection is all about working intuitively on the beads. I wanted to try for awhile to get away from making beads by rote, and really have them be a reflection of my mental process. When I was in college, my artist statement said that I combined mental whispers and ephemera to create a psychological narrative. Well, I'm still doing that....just on beads. It's funny, my work is much different now, but the way I work is still very much the same.

As for the Whisper collection, the weather is not cooperating today, so I should have some up in the shop sometime tomorrow. I'll be sure to keep you all posted!