Some New Photographs

I love the new light box and photo tent combination.  Now I think I need to get more familiar with how to tweak my camera.  But for now I am very satisfied with these pictures.  I have sent in the paperwork for the Shaker Village show that is the first week end in August and I am send in jurying pictures for a relatively new art fair called Art in the Gardens.  It was by invitation only last year.  It is held on labor day weekend at a historic old residence in Frankfort, KY.  Then next show would be Art in the Vineyards on September 7th.  A really fun one day show in a beautiful vineyard.

I have changed my pinterest account to be named Beadroe so to tie to my website.  And I have linked my blog and etsy acct to my website.  The website still needs some more tweaking but I am getting there.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheryl

Practice, Practice, Practice

I have made a vow to myself to make a concentrated effort to master the hollow technique using the puffy mandrel.  These are two attempts, it may not look like it but I see some progress.  Each time I am going to try with clear so I can sort of see what it going on with the air inside the bead.  They are definitely not round.  I added the black glass to try to mask the wonkyness. 

I absolutely love this combination.  This is a 104 COE German glass called multicolor combined with a crystal clear frit in a 96 COE.  The bead has hints of purple, green, and blue.  The bead is very shiny which indicates that there is silver at the surface.  I will definitely use this combination on a lot more beads. 

This bead is from a cobalt wine bottle.  I then added baking soda to the outside of the bead to give it a antique look.  It seems to age the look of the bead.  I may play with this idea more, maybe etch it and see if it adds another layer of depth.

This is a set that I made with a teacher in mind, but instead she liked the small lumpy hollow.  She wants a whole bracelet out of those.  Practice, Practice, Practice.

I also have been concentrating on adding items to my etsy store.  It was empty for awhile, now slowly filling it up.  This is the first time I have finished items for sale in my store.  I do not have any Art Fairs planned for the spring, so I thought I would try selling some pieces online. 

I have also still been tweaking my web site.  So far it has had over 300 page views, pretty cool.  Although I think some are for the wrong reasons, I am getting spam emails that seem to be aimed at hosting my web page.

Until next time, Cheryl.

Finally a Real Web Site of My Own

I have needed a web site of my own for a long time.  I made inquiries 3 years ago of my son, but he was not interested in doing it for me.  I even tried bartering jewelry for help in making one.  That didn't work either.  I made a promise to myself that the first snow day this year, after finding the web site Weebly.com, that I would concentrate on this task.  Well so have it, the first snow day was two days after my first cataract surgery, so I didn't much feel like it.  But since then I have made some progress.  The site is easy to use and I am still tweaking some things, but fairly pleased so far.  Check it out at Beadroe.com.

Since my last post, I have also concentrated on learning to use the Jim Moore coring tool that I bought used.  The learning curve is very manageable.  I am pretty pleased with my results.  Here are some of my first tries.

All of these beads are fairly big and would be best suited to hang from a chain rather than be on a European charm bracelet.

I would welcome any feedback on these beads or my new website.

Thanks for looking.

Cheryl

New Additions to my Studio

I have really been trying to get organized in the house and studio.  Before Christmas we made multiple visits to Goodwill.  They were the lucky recipients of lots of Christmas Decorations that I really did not need (like about 15 boxes or more). My studio has also seen some changes.  Danny has been working very hard to put up some new shelves that have freed up valuable space on my table near my torch.

This is the new rack he built for my Bead Rollers, they are made of graphite and would break if dropped so this gets them out of harms way unless I have using them.  At around $50.00 a piece they are my prized possessions.

This is the Photo tent we have been working on.  The frame is made of PVC pipe and surrounded by white fabric.  The directions in my jewelry magazine said to tape the fabric, but that just didn't suit me to I sewed casings that just fit over the pipe.  The hole is for the camera lens to fit through.  Danny made me some stands for the lights to be adjustable in height.  Here are some quick pictures that I took inside it to see how it was going to work.

I am pretty happy with the results.

This is our newest cat, Murphy.  He really is a hoot.

  

Customer Inspired Learning

I have said this before many times, the people that I am closest to provided unlimited ideas and opportunities for learning.  They push me to try things that I NEVER would have tried.  Making a pig bead would never have been on my list of things to try. But with each opportunity you learn different skills and assess your limitations.  I actually think he is kind of cute for a first try.  He is a little small but that can be adjusted.  My niece has requested this bead to be made into a pendant for her cousin. For some reason they give each other pig related items at Christmas.  She says she was struggling to find something new.  I hope this is close to what she had in mind.

I was also asked to make pendants this year for the Chicken Festival, now that was a challenge.  After many, many failures, I think I did OK. All of them sold even one that I thought I might keep for myself and wear once a year at Chicken Festival time.  All I have left are the many failures.  I wore everyone out getting their opinions, which I really appreciate their patience and honesty.  Sadly I didn't think they would sell and didn't take a picture.  London Downtown did though and posted it to facebook.  They bought 5 of them. 

 

They also posted a picture of our Miata carrying one of  the wooden chickens back to Hazel Green to

be decorated for the contest.  London Downtown really works hard to make this event eggciting.

Pigs and Chickens go figure.

Shaker Village Art Fair August 3rd and 4th

Danny and I had a booth at the Shaker Village Art Fair this year.  It is a jurried Art fair.  The first year I applied, I applied late and they already had too many jewelry artists.  So I was thrilled to be accepted this year.  The weather was of course very hot and humid, and threatened to storm all weekend.  The rain though for the most part held off, and went around us.  Lucky us, it did though leave a very humid situation.  I can't not remember sweating that much. It was all worth it though.  I got lots of feed back on my new designs and the customers were wonderful.  We were very busy Saturday morning and from there it was slow but not boring. I had changed quite a few things that I am very pleased with.  New table cloths, tags, shutters, and business cards.  I think I need a new sign to match though.  We learned a lot about outside shows but all in all we were pretty prepared. Danny took some booth pictures for me.

Both Danny and I would love to do this show again.  Interesting tid bit, I sold all of the olive green pieces that I had and all of the copper earrings that I had.  Go figure.

Bead Soup Blog Party 2nd Reveal

Today is the reveal for the second group of artists. To be honest I just barely got through the first group.  Can't wait to start on the second group of exciting designs.  Such a variety of talent. Just follow this link and the new designs are half way down. 
http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/2012/06/participants-of-6th-bead-soup-blog.html

If you love a design make sure to leave a comment, it really helps the artist to know what you thought about the design.