August Issue of Bead Chat

Happy Friday, y'all! 

The newest issue of Bead Chat is out and several of my favorite artisans are included.  Donna Millard makes art glass beads that will make you drool with her unique use of artful and whimsical color and pattern.   Please visit her Etsy  store, blog and Facebook page when you get the chance.  

B'Sue's pages feature our July challenge "The Music is You" and included my fun souvenir spoon necklace (Thanks for the shout out, Brenda!), Jann Tague of Clever Design's award-worthy beaded collar necklace, Judy Jones King of VintageFairJewelry's gorgeous polymer clay and mixed media coral beauty, Irene Hoffman's fun and colorful flower collage and Brenda's own lovely creation that includes a fabulous tassel - she even included a video this week to show you how to make your own!  I have to do a tassel necklace soon - they look like too much fun!

Marcia Tuzzolino of Aurora Designs is featured using her skill and artistry with Iced Enamels and mixed media and Cindy Cima Edwards has a great tutorial using Iced Enamels for a charm bracelet!   Terry Matuszyk of Pink Chapeau  has a beautiful leather necklace and Joan Williams of lilruby's beautiful work is featured as well.   Well done, everyone!

I love this e-magazine.  There's so much information crammed in an issue with really practical information for jewelry artisans with none of those annoying cards begging for subscriptions.   Y'all go show Bead Chat some looooooooooove.   :D  

Click to view August 2013 BEAD Chat Magazine by Artisan Whimsy on GLOSSI.COM

Spoons, Spoons, Spoons!

Happy Sunday, y'all.   

Please do me a favor and click "play" while you're reading this post, m'kay?  I'll explain later.  :D

Our July Challenge at the B'Sue Creative Group on FB was "The Song Is You".   Take a piece of music that inspires you and create a piece of jewelry around that song.  We were all posting *great* songs and someone chose the B-52s song, "Roam".  Bingo!  I love this song, this video and this band sooo much and had the perfect application in mind to turn this tune into jewelry.   

Go back about a year when I was playing with corks.  I also saw tons of posts of folks making resin spoons.  I love green design, so using discarded corks or repurposing an old unwanted item into something useful or beautiful really appeals to me.   Enter the lowly souvenir spoon.  I've never been a spoon collector personally; they didn't make sense to me.  A spoon?  From Niagra Falls?  Umm... why?    But I saw these cool spoon pendants and thought they looked fun to try.  I also didn't want a gravy ladle hanging around my neck, so souvenir spoons fit the bill for scale and proportion. 

As luck would have it, my local St. Vincent de Paul was having a half-price sale just about the time of my spoon fixation.  So that Saturday, I wait in line with nothing in hand and when it's my turn to check out, I ask for every spoon in their display case.  There were about 60.  The folks in line started asking me what I was going to do with them and I got several thumbs up & "You go, girl! "  :D 

I walked out with this: 

After I got home, I started to really look at them and they were lovely!  Some had pierced ends with little charms dangling, some were hand painted, most were just fun, colorful and kitschy.   I set about cutting off the bowls from the plain ones and started to play with images.   

Images courtesy of an old TCM catalog and the New Yorker.  :D  

Here are a few of the finished spoon pendants.   

So, those were fun to make, but like so many creative folks, I get bored easily.   I was on to the next project and barely made a dent in all those lovely spoons.  I plan to pull them out soon and make tons more resin pendants.   But here's the deal.  I had all these wonderful spoon tops that were just begging for something to be done. 

When I heard "Roam", I knew I had to break out those lovelies and make something wonderful.  So, a little elbow grease, a little Dremel work, a lot of screw hole punching, I came away with a charm bracelet!  Oh!  And another song inspiration - "I've Been Everywhere" by Johnny Cash!   I like the frenetic pace of this song and it pairs nicely with all these places on the bracelet piling on top of one another.   :D

I love this bracelet and I don't think I'll be able to part with it.  Except for Nebraska, New Jersey and a few other obscure places, I've been to all these places.  Kismet!

Nice Surprises

Happy 4th, y'all!  Everyone be safe and avoid saying things like, "Hold my beer and watch this!"   Don't drink and play with fire, people!  ;)

I had a couple of really fun surprises this week that I wanted to share.  One of the fabulous artists from our B'Sue Creative Group on Facebook, Marit Meijer, shared a beautiful piece she just finished.  She was inspired by all those cork pics I've been blogging about and decided to bling up a champagne cork.  Check it out!! 

I've been perusing Marit's blog and man oh man, does she have some gorgeous creations.   She blogs about her jewelry, scrapbooking, collage and all sorts of beautiful crafts.  She also makes a material list under each of the projects.  How cool is that?   Marit, I LOVE this necklace and you've taken the humble cork to an entirely new level.  Nice job!  And thank you for the shout out, I really appreciate it.  -r xoxo

The other nice surprise is in the form of a beautifully produced E-zine called Bead Chat, developed by Melinda Orr and Artisan Whimsy.   I'm featured, along with several of the talented members of the B'Sue Creative Group, on pages 43-44 with our chatelaine challenge and some of the kitchen sink pieces that we all love.  

Terry Endebrock, Joan Williams of lilruby and Catherine Shattuck of Cate's Emporium have their beautiful pieces featured as well!  Good job, ladies! 

I love the beachy creations that are featured in this month's issue and thank Brenda Sue for being so kind in submitting some of my work.  You are the best, Miss B'Sue! 

Click to view July 2013 BEAD Chat Magazine by Artisan Whimsy on GLOSSI.COM