Artist's Studio Tour

It's another red sky at night last night and today is a gorgeous warm sunny day!



I'm going to be participating in a local event - The Powell River Studio Tour.

"The Powell River Studio Tour is an annual self-guided tour of artists and artisans on the Upper Sunshine Coast of British Columbia that is free to the public. 2009 marks the 5th year of the Tour and showcases 30 individual artists and artisans plus another 25 represented at the gallery.

On this year’s Tour there are 27 locations from Lund to Lang Bay with each studio providing an example of the diversity and excellence of the art community in the Powell River region. An added bonus is the spectacular natural beauty that can be enjoyed along the way."

It doesn't actually happen until August 22nd and 23rd but I'm already gearing up for it and I'm pretty excited. As my studio is in my home, it means that lots of folks will be coming to my home. It will be a wonderful way to share my jewelry artistry and more of the detail of what goes into it. I'm planning to do some works in progress to document the process of designing and developing a piece.

Fun With Earrings

For quite a while now, I've been intending to play with some earring designs. Much of the designing I do is "on the fly" and this latest earring design was developed that way. I began with beads looped into a circle and just sort of winged it from there by adding a row of beads and evaluating the look and then adding another. The black and silver pair happened first with several false starts...beading and then unbeading. Ultimately, I'm satisfied with the result. So much so that the silver pair is mine. And then, of course, I wanted to work the design in some other colours so I had to put together a bead order. Which turned into two bead orders. And that's how I have "fun with earrings".



The gold pair of earrings is available for sale in my Etsy shop.

Quartz Crystal Necklace

One of the design techniques I seem to use often is Serendipity. This necklace is a result of that technique. The quartz stone had been in my collection of quite a while. I knew that I wanted it as a pendant and prepared it for that role by stitching it into a netted bezel. Then it hit the "projects in progress" pile. The rope it is a Russian spiral and was actually an experiment using a mixed bag of pink beads. When I saw the two pieces in close proximity in my heap of partly completed projects I pulled them out and set them aside to be finished and finally got to it today. The result is even better than I imagined!







This necklace is for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Maybe My Necklace

This necklace has been in progress for a while. In the beginning I thought I wanted to put a copper closure on it. I searched around the internet and bought a few pieces of copper but just didn't find one that I felt worked with the two bead colours. Finally a light bulb came on and I made a beaded toggle closure. The last stage of the project was figuring out how I was going to handle that large turquoise stone that I wanted to use. I'm very happy with the final result and I'm thinking I should be keeping it for me.



My granddaughter was here on the weekend and she was admiring the turquoise and topaz rope. I mentioned to her that I was adding the turquoise stone and that turquoise is my birthstone. Then I remembered that she and I are both Sagittarians but that I am December and she is November. And she reminded me that her birthstone is topaz. So the necklace has some symbolic significance for us. I may need to keep it.



As I said, I'm very happy with the final result. I've been saving that gorgeous turquoise stone for a long time. Waiting for the right necklace to pair it with.

Fresh Fruit Salad Bracelet

When I was working on this bracelet the colours made me think of a fresh fruit salad...and so the name. This is the second bracelet I've made recently that was inspired by a Toho Seed Bead Mix called "Earth Tone" from Artbeads.com. I love the variety of beads in the mix. There are seed beads in different colours and sizes, hexagon beads and bugle beads. The best part about working with this bead mix is that it forced me out of my comfort zone. This is not a combination of colours I'd have chosen to work with, however, I'm very happy with the result.



Here's my recipe for this bracelet:

2 - 8g packages of Earth Tone Toho Seed Bead Mix
1 - 10g package of coordinating seed beads
20 - coordinating drop beads
25 - coordinating #8 beads
2 - lampworked beads (I got mine here.)

Mix the beads together well using 2 drop peyote stitch. Finish the outside edge with picot stitch and add two lampworked beads with loops as a closure. Enjoy on your wrist!





The bracelet is available for sale in my Etsy Shop.

White Freeform Peyote Bracelet

About a week ago, in this post, I showed you the beginning of this bracelet. Sometimes it's a good thing when a project waits to be finished. When I take a break part way through, I'm often inspired to go a different direction than my original idea for the piece. That's what happened with this bracelet. When I went back to it, I knew that I wanted to include the Swarovski pearls and I saw that there were already obvious places on the bracelet that were perfect for those pearls.

Choosing the combination of beads that I'd use to support the pearls was simple because I used a Toho Seed Bead Mix called Winter Frost. Sometimes when I use these mixes, I add several other beads from my collection. This time, all of the beads I used were part of the mix. I especially love the consistent quality of these mixes.



The bracelet is available for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Kokopelli Howlite Necklace

This necklace got it's name after I photographed it and the following shot reminded me of Kokopelli. As the deity of agriculture, his flute playing chases away the Winter and brings about Spring. This is very appropriate for the necklace as I've been watching my garden burst into bloom as I worked on it and I'm sure I'm not alone in being ready for winter to be over.





The necklace is available for sale in my Etsy Shop.

A New Batch of Beads

I just received another order of beads from Artbeads.com and I love the way the beads always come wrapped. Makes it feel even more like Christmas every time an order arrives.



And here are the Toho Seed Bead Mixes that are so much fun to play with. I think they are a great way to get a colour coordinated mix of beads when you are relatively new to beading and aren't sure how to mix beads. They are so inspirational when looking through beads and thinking about what to try next and which beads to use.





I also got an order of mainly faceted bicone Swarovski Crystal Beads that you'll start seeing in my jewelry soon. I have a plan....

Works in Progress

Before anything else, I need to mention this gorgeous sunset I managed to get a pic of from my bedroom balcony two nights ago.



I do have a few things in progress. This is a freeform peyote bracelet I'm working on. It's very early stages and I'm using a Taho bead mix. If you haven't played with any of their mixes...check them out. They just happen to be on sale at Artbeads.com this week. But hurry, they are going fast because they are having a Dollar Days Sale. I've already placed my order and will place a second if the money gets to PayPal quick enough!



On this tray, I've got a pair of earrings in Delica's started. I'm also working on a necklace and pendant using some Howlite beads I've had for a while.



And finally if you are interested, I've put some photos of the "greening of my garden" HERE.

Aqua Sparkle Bracelet

Looks like I'm on a roll! I just finished another bracelet and listed it in my Etsy shop. The beads that I used are what inspired me. The aqua beads are Toho size 11's and are silver lined. It's the sparkle that makes me love them. I also used silver lined transparent triangle beads. These are also Tohos and triangles are one of my favourite beads to use. To the finished bracelet, I added an antique silver toggle clasp and an AB Swarovski drop. I think this bracelet would look amazing with a little black dress.