Peace, Love & Bead Bloggers!

Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a happy holiday weekend and maybe even got in a little bit of crafting!!

Please join me in taking a peek at what our fellow bead bloggers were up to last week:

About.com Jewelry Making
Heard about copper clay or coppr clay? Find out more about this great new metal clay product and check out some new metal clay projects too.

Beading Arts
Cyndi reports on her experiences with firing and finishing CopprClay pieces. This stuff rocks!

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio
Instead of continuing on with the tried and true techniques of jewelry design, Lorelei is finally ready to take the leap and try something new.

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean gets her cool stash from Use the Muse II, and muses about it.

Cindy Gimbrone aka Lampwork Diva
Cindy learns to make murrini and deals with mud.

Barbe Saint John - New Jewelry from Forgotten Artifacts
Sometimes you need to have a jewelry makeover.

Carmi's Art/Life World
Carmi tries Ice Resin and upcycles a greeting card into a necklace.

Jean Campbell
Jean gives a sneak peek of her next Beadwork magazine piece.

Katie's Beading Blog
Check out Katie's wire-wrapped dragonfly!

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Even without a lot of time on her hands, Melanie finishes a clockwork themed bracelet using Swarovski faceted rings from ArtBeads.com.

Strands of Beads
Melissa wants to know what outrageous materials are in your beading stash?

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
Stop by and say hello to Andrew in Charlotte, NC this weekend. Check out his new designs and some delicious new metal clay coins!

Humblebeads
Bead & Button stash and Heather's inspired creations are highlighted today.

Art Bead Scene
Art Bead Scene gets creative with the "Best of ABS."

This Week's Project: Watermelon in the Sun

Happy 4th of July to those of you in the US! I hope everyone is enjoying a nice day of sunshine and watermelon!!

I must first admit this week's project is not entirely complete, but I've gotten a good start on it. The only missing pieces are the tiny fuschia butterflies that I have been attempting to attach in a way so they appear to be flying around it.

I've had fun playing with it and expect to finish it in the near future! By then, I also hope to have a better photo. The ab finish on the sun is giving it a yellow tint, when in real life, it is more clearish pink. :)

I used the entire gross (or 144) of the 6mm bicones from the Rings & Things mix entitled, "the watermelon crawl". The pendant is the glorious 40 mm swarovski Sun prism.

Wowwee, wow, wow! I can't seem to come up with any more words than that. What has happened to my vocabulary? :)

I hope you don't mind staying tuned for the final piece soon to come, but this has quite a bit of sparkly sparkle to enjoy as is.

I also wanted to take a minute today to mention an extremely cool jewelry designer featured on the Beading Gem's website. I am signed up on her site to receive her blog entries via email because she consistently amazes me that she finds some often obsure, but FABULOUS and interesting jewelry designs and designers.

You are going to love this, I assure you!! The jewelry she featured yesterday is Real Ice Cube Jewelry!! I don't want to give it away because you just won't believe how COOL this is!! Enjoy!

Featured Designer: The Lone Beader

Oh Happy Day!! It is still Friday and the weekend is yet to come, that might just be enough time to relax!! As I mentioned yesterday, today's featured designer is The Lone Beader.

I came across her blog through Twitter or someone else's blog, sometimes you lose track! It just so happened I saw this photo of her beaded pin named "Rudy".

While I am a dog lover, I also have a little bichon named Rudy. As I worked my way through many stories and photos, I just had such a wonderful time and found myself in awe over and over again!!

In The Lone Beader's etsy shop you will find dogs, cats, birds, "paintings", rings, etc. Wonderful, meticulous work!

She is currently working on the White House and beginning to build this wonderful groupings of trees. If you have ever worked with seed beads, you will appreciate her current article about the 27 shades of green! Wait till you see all her little piles of seed beads on her work surface, wow!!

Thanks a bunch to the Lone Beader for allowing me to share her work with you!! Have a wonderful evening!!

Feelin Groovy!

Boy does it feel like a Friday! Is it possible to "feel" like a particular day? Yes, I believe it is. It's all about cues picked up throughout the day that signal a certain routine. Since I will have a work holiday tomorrow, I had started working on the Friday Featured Designer story until I realized it was really Thursday!! :)

Pretty funny!! So, just for a little teaser...tomorrow's featured designer is... The Lone Beader!! I can't wait to share!

In the mean time, feelin' like Friday is similar to feelin' groovy! The novelty of my Time/Life Flower Power CD's is finally starting to wane, however, there are still a few songs I am still coming across and getting hooked on for a while. One of them is "Feelin Groovy" or the "59th Street Bridge Song" by Simon & Garfunkel. My favorite part is: Life, I love you, All is groovy!

Today's bead is reminiscent of the "groovy" psychedelic patterns of the flower power era. I always seem to do a double take when I see things like this. Love it! I'm so glad that boot cut jeans are still sort of in, it's like breaking out the bell bottoms all over again!! Just put on a pair of platform-like sandals or flip flops, put on your peace sign jewelry and don't be surprised if you start hearing..."Slow down, you move too fast, you got to make the morning last."

In case you would like a quick reminder of the lyrics, here you go: Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last. Just kicking down the cobble stones. Looking for fun and feelin' groovy. Hello lamppost, What cha knowing? I've come to watch your flowers growing. Ain't cha got no rhymes for me? Doot-in' doo-doo, Feelin' groovy. Got no deeds to do, No promises to keep. I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep. Let the morning time drop all its petals on me. Life, I love you, All is groovy.

Spikey Shell Beads

Today's bead is something a little different, in fact, it's a strung bracelet on stretchy cord. I believe this came from Pat Katan's craft store, but I don't know if it is meant to be worn as a bracelet or if it is temporarily strung for use in other ways.

Are there other ways to use these long, spikey shell beads? It looks pretty cool on my wrist, but it is a little heavy, so I'm not sure it would be a favorite to wear. However, taking it apart and using bits and pieces in a variety of other items might be fun and challenging.

I'd guess that these spikey shells are almost 3 inches long. Could you use a handful of them in an abstract focal piece for a necklace by incorporating other types of shells and pearls? That seems to be what is coming to mind.

I would love to hear some other ideas for using these if you have a minute!!! Please let me know what you think!! :)

Chaton Montee: Mysterious Swarovski Element

I had never heard these words before, I don't know if that means I am out of the loop or if this is more of an obscure product name. Not sure, but now that I know about them, it was only fair that I spread the knowledge!!

Knowledge is power, right? Does that go for bead knowledge? If you are not aware of a particular bead, could you be missing out on making your life's masterpiece?!! :) Okay, I'm getting a tad dramatic there, so on to the bead!

I discovered this swarovski elements product in the Rings & Things catalog and honestly just thought they were cute little sew on type beads. Well, who knew they had such a mysterious name: Chaton Montee.

I searched on google and found some info on the Eni Oken & Friends website, Jewelry Lessons. The page I found describing chaton montee on this site was informative AND had a couple great pictures of pieces using these components. Apparently the simple description of Chaton Montee is sew-on mounted rhinestone.

I have lots of ideas for these little guys, but am still in the experimental phase. I will keep you posted on final designs!!

Multi-purpose Resin Beads

Today's bead is an 18mm flat diamond resin bead in the color, "Ruby". As you can see I have an entire strand of these and I found it interesting that they are temporarily strung on white cotton cording. You can clearly see the white cording through the bead, so I wondered why it wasn't strung on a clear or thin bead wire.

Okay, okay, it takes me a while sometimes! Once I started playing with these yesterday I realized the purpose of the white thread was so you could see the dramatic effect a particular colored cording could have on these beads. Since I was in a "pink" frame of mind when I was selecting these products from the Rings & Things catalog, I thought these would work into the mix nicely. The ruby color is a perfect summer tone with a happy little aura. However, there are quite a few other happy little colors to choose from. The aquamarine and capri are very tempting too!!

As I was working with them, I discovered they could be tightly crimped into squares (sort of a 1 dimensional rubik's cube). I have a piece worked together now that will either be a bracelet focal piece or a cool pendant. I haven't perfected it yet.

The other reason I selected a strand of resin beads, in addition to the price :), was the suggested projects for them in the catalog. I recently purchased a stays-on ink pad and it looks like rubber stamping tiny images on these is all the rage!

I haven't tried yet, but I should be able to get several different projects out of a this strand.

Three more work days to go, yay! Looking forward to a long, crafty weekend!