Mother's Day Weekend...

You might have known her as Jenny Snyder at Bedford High School back in the 80's, but now you can see her as jewelry designer Jennifer Judd on Saturday, May 10th, at Elaine's Wearable Art in downtown Bedford.

Jen is lucky enough to be back in the local area--if you call Washington, D.C. local--as a US Air Force Major stationed at the Pentagon. Just over 16 years ago, she took on the challenge of an Air Force career and has enjoyed tours around the United States and even some time in Italy and Qatar.

Even though she wears camouflage at work, her jewelry art lets her show a more colorful side in her spare time. To make a break from her job as a human resource analyst during the day, she spends hours a week at her home workshop coming up with unique, funky and fun pieces of wearable art. Shopping is part of the thrill--finding fun beads in a variety of materials from recycled bottle glass to semiprecious faceted stones is a joy. She likes to discover glass artists who create one-of-a-kind handmade beads that add a flair to her projects. Her bracelet called "Jumble Love" was selected as the winner of the Beading Daily glass bead design challenge.

Another of her favorite techniques is to find a bunch of beads that might not seem to make sense together and sculpt them using wire into free-form funky focal pieces. Her "Hot Malasadas" is an example of jade, citrine, wood, and other materials working together for a fun and unique necklace that celebrated a recent vacation to Hawaii.

Featured materials:

- Sterling silver beads and components

- Semi-precious stones

- Lampworked glass beads

- Imported exotic glass beads--some of recycled glass

- Seed beads in lots of colors and sizes

- Leather cord

- Cotton fibers

Jen plans to demonstrate at Elaine's on Saturday (10-4):

- Bracelets featuring lampwork focal beads and fun combinations of stones, glass, & pearls

- Free-form bead and silver wire focal sculpting for necklaces

Motley Wrist Love

Over the course of the last couple of months, I've gotten to do a lot of traveling, and have found a lot of bead shops! They are great treasures in big cities and small ones. I've gone around this local area down to Fredericksburg and up to Leesburg; I've also explored the bead biz in Las Vegas, Pensacola, and Honolulu thanks to my lovely friends!!

One of my greatest joys is bringing treasures together from various shops into one fun made-by-Jen-Judd piece that you could never find any place else. That means I get to shop to my heart's content and then dream about off-the-wall bead combinations. I went with my seven-inch attention span tonight with some lovely results.

First, there are some semi-precious stones. I found the pretty carved carnelian focal bead but I wasn't sure what to do with it until I saw these carved tulip-shaped carnelian beads. I mixed them up with some glass for a fancy little three-strand bracelet. The other bracelet in the picture features butter jade, which is actually not jade, but is actually known as "butterstone" and comes from South Africa. Anything with the description of "butter" is perfect in my book. haaaaaaaaaa I mixed these creamy stones with some abalone and carved bone beads.

Next, a couple of chunky ceramic pink rustic focal beads called for some wood, pink opal, black onyx, and quartz. I threw in some funky pinky-purple stones that make me laugh. Enjoy!!

My sources for most of these materials: Bead Artist, Leesburg, VA; The Bead Gallery, Honolulu, HI; Joy of Beading, Arlington, VA; www.artbeads.com

Wedding Jewels?

I went lots of loopy again yesterday with a little custom piece to wear to a wedding. Black is just the color for weddings...anything to make me look smaller. haaaaaaaaaa

I pulled out a totally fun Lisa New bead and surrounded it with a big sterling beading hoop. Another great find was the fun green disc bead...part of a bunch I found on eBay from HMB Studios (seller id: hmbstudios). I love the way the hoop and the dangle move together. Plus, the disc bead adds another dimension so it's not just a flat necklace. Put it all together with some black leather and it's the perfect spring afternoon wedding wear. haaaaaaaaa

I'll be back at home in Bedford at Elaine's Wearable Art next Saturday, May 10th working some fun stringing and free-form wire & bead sculpting...come out and say hi!!

Sparkle, Little Pearl, Sparkle!

This is a serious pile of sparklies!!

As a fundraiser for my organization, I designed a simple Swarovski crystal, pearl, & silver bracelet. We took orders for these pretty little Mother's Day gifts, including a cute chiffon bag and a hand-stamped gift card and they were much more popular than we expected!

It took about a week and a team of "stringers" to put together over 130 of them, but they are gorgeous!! I've never crimped so much in my life...I have a new appreciation for ergonomically designed tools. Anything to avoid having to do a bake sale in the hallway every month.

If you need an idea to make some great money for your club, think about a simple stringing project. I'd even be willing to help with the designing if you provide the labor pool!

Springing Green

I'm finally getting some time to craft after a great Vegas vacation--with a few bead store trips thrown in between shows. Tonight I picked a great glass bead by Dora Schubert (from Germany) that I picked up in a set at Arts Afire in Alexandria. I love the fun floral bit of the bead with the green chalcedony and pearls. My attention span is only good for about seven inches, so bracelets are my game tonight!

Glassy-Eyed Girl

It was a great shopping day today in Old Town with stops at Bead Obsessions & the Arts Afire Gallery. I used great restraint around the gorgeous beads...something I'm not known for...and came out with some really wonderful pieces.

Tonight's project is focused on fun purple, blues and greens that grew from the great focal bead by artist Kristin Perkins (from Michigan). You can see the two sides of the same bead in each of the pictures. Love the great vintage beads and some recycled glass that created a great combination.

Halfsies in Splitsville!

I came up with an idea the other day while idly enjoying my commute...I could take my "halfsie" bracelets one step further and design several half bracelets that could be interchangeable. So, here's a set of them based on all glass beads of different types and styles.

I tried things from a single strand of cat's eye beads to a braided three-strand section of seed beads to a featured lampwork bead to a dangle-filled silver chain section. All of them tied together by a common delicious color combination of pink, orange, & green.

What do you think? Does it sound like a good idea? Would you buy a few sections to coordinate? Which sections do you like best? Let me know!!