Cherry Blossom Time!

It's the time for blossoms of all sorts here in Washington, D.C. Even if you can't tell the difference between lovely pink dogwoods and fluffy cherry flowers, it's still a great time of year! And, what a wonderful rainy day I spent today working on some special pieces to mark the occasion...

I picked up some wonderful Humblebeads that are absolutely perfect! Plus, I have these fantastic garnet slices that totally look like crushed cherries--without the mess! haaaaaaaa

These special pieces are on their way to Bedford and will be available at Elaine's Wearable Art. In the meantime, I'll be working on some others for my on-line shop!

Blue Adventure

I am completely addicted to rock crystal and have it laying all over my work table. When I sat down last night to work, there was a big chunk calling out for some action. I went to my "blue" drawer to see what I could come up with. Lo' and behold, the result was a mix of all sorts of neat beads tied together with some quartz and silver tube beads.

The blues are from all over the place which makes this necklace an adventure for me.
- There's a vintage glass Mardi Gras bead that I found at a shop in North Carolina.
- There's a big, rough sodalite nugget, which was from my very first big wholesale show. I was so overwhelmed that day; I'll never forget how excited I was to see the strand of these crazy blue and white stones.
- There are a couple of sandcast trade beads that are painted with different shades of blue.
- There's a handmade lampwork glass bead from Linden Avenue designs.
So, take a little bead adventure...

Look Right....

You can see my Etsy shop right here on my blog page! I feel like a tech genius!!! haaaaaaaaa

So, for all those in the mood for shopping, click away!

Mardi Gras in Mookaite

So I'm a little late for Mardi Gras, but this is a festive piece featuring the purples & golds of mookaite. I used several shapes of mookaite and included some Indonesian glass. I also dug some special glass beads out of my stash: there are perfectly gold & purple handmade discs by Heather Boardman and some gorgeous little lampworked rounds from Lisa New.

I've been studying color theory lately and trying to move away from my normal analogous tendencies. For those who don't dork out on beads like I do, that means I gravitate towards colors that are similar--near each other on the color wheel. If you really dig my work, you'll see that this is actually an analogous scheme, too, since it stays on the warm side--red through yellow--but at least I didn't use orange, like I usually do! haaaaaaaa

The other bonus about this piece is that I found another way to get a squiggle in there!!! On that note, I'm going to be teaching my first classes on April 4th at Off the Beading Path...more to follow soon!

Two Plus One

I'm not exactly a math master, but when it comes to new designs, sometimes numeric patterns get stuck in my brain and come out in the form of an awesome necklace! Here are a couple of pieces that use one type of stone (or at least pretty close to one type) in different shapes and sizes in a two-plus-one pattern along with some macaroni-looking silver tubes. I love monochromatic designs that focus on the texture and these came out even better than I thought!

The first one is rock crystal. I absolutely love the ice-cube look of these rocks, plus, they come in such a variety of finishes and shapes that the possibilities are endless.


This one is in a little more yellow mood with pineapple quartz and chalcedony. It looks way too much like candy! I love it!