Exciting New Designs

Hello Everyone as some of you may know I've been busy for the last few weeks creating some new designs which I hope you will all find as exciting as I do.

First a little background.  In the past couple of years the popularity of Kumihimo, Viking Knit, and various other rope type necklaces has become increasingly popular.

The size of these ropes means that you either have to make a bail out of beads or find something with a very large hole.  As there doesn't seem too be many choices with large holes I decided to make a selection of slides and pendants to accommodate these large cords.

So today I would like to announce my new line of slides, pendants and cones that are made specifically for these large cord designs. 

I have the first of them all listed in the shop on my website in the 'New Items' category  

For a limited time I am offering an introductory sale price of 10% off the regular price. You will see the sale price in RED under the regular price and the discount will be applied when you check out.  This way you can see what the regular price is and your savings for jumping in early to try out these new pieces.

I have made several that are focal pendants on their own, such as the first photo shown here, as well as some slides that are decorative but also have a hole to make it easy to attach your own pendant to the cord.  The first photo shown to the right shows you one of these new designs from the front.  In the second photo you can see the large hole that goes through the back of the design.

I also recruited a couple of people to be guinea pigs for this project so I could make sure that they worked the way I envisioned and so that I could show you some beautiful finished pieces.   I would like to send out special a Thank You to Jennifer Van Benschoten of Van Beads and Linda Roberts of BeadsForever on Etsy for all their time, help and suggestions in this project. 

 Here is the first of those pieces I have to show you made by Jennifer Van Benschoten.  It is a lovely dutch spiral rope utilizing one of the slide sets that I call the 'Long Leafy Slide Set'.  She has hung a bead and a Peruvian ceramic leaf off the bottom of it accenting it perfectly.  This particular set has the largest hole in the slider of any of the sets and would easily accommodate multi strand designs as well as large ropes such as this one.  You can see more shots of this beautiful piece in the gallery on my website.  It is the Leafy Slider Necklace and it will be available for purchase from Van Beads 
This is just one example of the beautiful things you can make with these slides.  I will be showing you more project photos as they become available.


Any of you that know me know that I love large bold designs but really hate jewelry that it heavy.  So you will find that these slides and pendants while rather large are very lightweight and easy to wear.

Another problem with these large cords are how to finish them off at the end before you attach a clasp.  Most of the cones available are too small for the larger cords.  So I have also made a variety of cones.  Some of the cones will be sold separately in pairs others will be included with a matching slide as part of a complete necklace set. Such as this beautiful  round flower set.

One of the problems we encountered in this project was that some of the cones have a very large opening and they don't work as well with the smaller cord types.  So I am making all of the fancy cones in an additional smaller size that will work better with the smaller kumihimo cords and other smaller diameter cords.  This will make all of these designs even more flexible allowing for greater choices in the types of cords and sizes that you can use with them.  I'm anxious to see some multi strand designs in these as well.  I guess I'm a bit partial to multi strand pieces but I think they have lots of interest and movement making them lots of fun both to do and to wear.

I have made up a variety of these designs in various colors and styles and I hope that you will embrace them and use them for your holiday necklace designs.  Visit the BEAD SHOP to get your introductory discount.

The Witch and the Pirate

The Witch and the Pirate. Sounds like a good name for some fairy tale doesn't it? Here are today's installment of the faces in the window. I hope you all like them. Ya gotta tell me which ones are your favorites and why. I like to know these things. I think this witch has a lovely sneer on her face. And the squinty eye makes her look nice and mean. I had so much fun doing these.

The pirate. He has a gold tooth you know. Though he needed one. His ears are pierced as well as his nose so he'll end up with some gold rings here and there as well as the gold tooth. After I finished him up I looked at him and said I think he looks like Gomez from the original Addams family TV series. What do you think? Do you agree?

Funny Faces part 2

Well I've finally finished my income taxes and got them filed for 2007. Nothing like waiting 'till the last minute. I've now gotten my funny faces all painted and they are on their way to Christi for the silver. I'm really anxious to see them with the silver roofs and doors. I think these will be a fun product. I'd really like to hear from you folks how you like them, what you think and any related things that you can think of. Its always fun to brainstorm and this is how I come up with new products so please comment.

I managed to complete 11 different faces. I'll post a few every day until I get them all posted up here so be sure to check back and let me know which ones are your favorites. Today I've put up the ones that I teased you with when I started this project. The Kilroy and the Kissy Face elf. Tomorrow perhaps a witch or the pirate.

By Popular Demand.....

More crazy and funny faces. After posting the 'Wild and Crazy Guy' lots of people have commented that they would like to see more of this sort of thing. Also I was chatting to another artist at a recent show and we came up with a plan. This plan is going to be where the next funny faces will be appearing.

She does wonderful PMC and we decided to do some of the funny faces that will be looking out of windows. She will be doing PMC roofs, doors/shutters on the windows. You'll open up the cute little houses and be confronted with my funny faces.

So here's a sneak peek at the first of the faces. These I just finished building. They haven't been fired yet so there will be more details painted on after they are fired and the colors will be much more vibrant. I just wanted to let you all know that they will be available later on. I would love to hear your comments on these guys and any suggestions for more faces are always welcome. I love to hear what you like, what you are looking for.

New Photo

Ok as promised here is a shot of some of the little porcelain canvass' I've been working on. These are sitting ready to be fired after being painted. I would love to hear from some of you that do PMC if you agree with me that these would be great framed with PMC. I have a bunch more of these to complete before my show including more oriental designs. There are about 3 or 4 oriental ladies in kimonos standing in various poses and maybe another oriental floral still. Also more fairies. It would also be good to hear from you which designs you folks like best. I always like to hear what people are looking for and what they like the best. Oh the photo is not the best it is a phone photo. I'll put up good photos of them once they are all done.

What's New

With a show coming up in less than two weeks I'm madly working to get some new things ready for the show. One thing I'm doing are some 'porcelain canvass' paintings. Porcelain canvass are very thin, very white industrial strength porcelain. Although these are now somewhat difficult to find they used to be easy to get at china painting shows. They come in a variety of sizes and are sold for painting portraits and scenes on for framing as they are much thinner than a tile. They are very translucent and lovely to paint on. I have managed to cut some down to sizes that will be suitable for pendants and I'm painting some oriental designs an some fairies on some. I think these will be wonderful for pendants with PMC frames made around them. I should have some of the paintings finished in a day or two and will post some photos then.

So I'll be in Tucson September 5,6,7 at the Fall Best Bead Show. I will have the paintings available for sale at the show so stop by and see me. I'll be in booth 69 just across from the registration table.

Christmas is coming

Hello everyone. I know that summer has just barely arrived and that people rarely think about Christmas before thanksgiving but here we go. I've been madly pouring snowbabies and a few of some little Christmas charms and it occurred to me that I should let people know. I've been having a flurry of inquiries about these things by those fore-thinking people that are nothing like me and they have spurred me into action. Thus the pouring. Since I am a glutton for punishment and I figure its only fair that everyone have a chance at these guys I figured I'd put it on the blog.

Since its just me, one artist, doing all the work the quantities of them is very very limited. I've poured around 200 snowbabies and significantly less of the little charms and I'm about at the limit of what I can accomplish by fall. (I also have orders for other things that I need to work on at the same time) So here's the scoop. Around half of the snowbabies are already spoken for and its looking more and more like I'm not likely to have any left to put on the website. So if you want snowbabies this year you need to contact me asap and get on the list. Same goes for the little Christmas charms.

Snowbabies are $15 each and as long as I have all the poses available retail buyers can choose individual snowbabies. You can see all the poses here: Snow Baby beads Photo Also four posts down on this page. The christmas charms I will be selling in sets there are five in each set as can be seen in the photo to the right. The cost of the set is $40. These charms are tiny so the detail on them is very fine they are less than 1/2 inch tall, so in the photo they are greatly enlarged. I will be starting a list for them on a first come first served basis as well. There will also be available 'snowballs' These are just round beads that match the snowbabies. They are available in 12,14,16,18,20, and 22mm. They are $2 each for 12&14mm, $4 each for 16&18mm, and $5 each for 20 or 22mm.

Thanks to everyone for all their interest in my work. I look forward to hearing from you all.

Flower Fairy part 2

Here is the Flower Fairy from the April 6th post after firing. I've painted her face, added a bit of color to her clothes and mother of pearl to the flower. So how do you like her now that she is finished? She is available for sale in the Amazing Porcelain Bead Shop

A wild and crazy guy

For all of you that like the wild and crazy guys I've got a new creation to show you. He is a woodland spirt of some sort. I think he has been hiding in the bushes and under bridges too long. I've seen lots of images that are similar to this and decided I finally needed to put one in porcelain. He is made of colored porcelains and all hand built. He is mostly light and dark brown colors. I think he is cute in a wild and crazy sort of way. For some reason this sort of thing really appeals to me. He is another of the new pieces I am trying to get done for the Phoenix Bead Expo which is May 2-4 here in Phoenix. You can get more information about the Bead Expo on my website Amazing Porcelain in the calendar section. I would love to hear what you think about him.

New Flower Fairy

Ok Back again finally. Been really busy, no excuse I know but that is really all I had to say over the last few months it seems. Nothing interesting to post about. Well today and yesterday I finally got to do something fun. Well mostly today. Yesterday got ate up assembling all the necessary tools, materials etc. So today mostly I built a flower fairy pendant. The fairy itself is cast but the clothing, wings, and the flower its sitting in are all hand formed. It is made out of colored porcelains and hasn't been fired yet so the colors are not real apparent. I will paint her face and probably add some details here and there after it is fired. They take quite awhile to build so the price will not be cheap probably $50-75, so I'd really love to hear back from everyone on how you like her and if you think these are a good idea or am I wasting my time. If I get a good response I'm going to try to have at least a couple of them at the Phoenix Bead Expo next month. Thanks for looking and your comments.

Well it looks like my hard work is paying off in lovely write ups. For the last month or so I've been working on snow baby beads and little children beads for an order. The order has been shipped and as you can see from this article at The Beadin Path the Customer really likes them.

No I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

Ok so I'm the worlds worst blogger. I admit it. Writing has never been one of my strong points. I'm an artist its the creating that is fun. I'm trying to improve this aspect so hang in there with me. I hope you will visit my New Jewelry & Bead website to find wonderful things to include in your jewelry projects. I've got it set up so the jewelry and the beads are in separate areas but you can purchase from either or both areas and check out in one easy step. I hope to have some exciting new pieces to put on their soon.

I've also been working on the Ceramic Bead Artists website This project is a sort of gallery to showcase all of the different styles of ceramic beads and bead artists that are out there and to raise the awareness in the market place of the time and effort that goes into these works of art. If you are a bead artist working in any of the fired ceramic type clays ie. earthenware, stoneware or porcelain think about joining us. There is a tutorial section to show people how things are done. To help out people that want to learn and to give the non artistic public a better understanding of the effort that goes into these pieces.

In between all that website work I've also been doing some porcelain and I've added a couple of quick little tutorials to the new tutorial section of the Ceramic Bead Artists site.

I hope you will stop by and have a look and let me know how you like all the improvements.

Confetti Heart Necklace

This Necklace is created using one of my multi strand sets. There are multiple holes in the top on each side of the heart and corresponding holes in the lower edge of the small hearts. As you can see the idea is to help maintain the desired order of the multi strands allowing you to set up the way the necklace is going to hang. This gives the designer an advantage over simply putting multiple strand through a large hole bead in that they have some control over how the strands will lay. This necklace has five holes that can be used on each side of the necklace and additional strands were added as well. Two main strands on each side were strung with beadalon cable for strength. The additional beaded strands were strung using dandyline for flexibility. Then the decorative wire mesh was added just for show. I wanted this necklace to look a bit chaotic like confetti in the breeze so I used the multiple colors and added sequins to enhance the confetti look. For a larger image have a look at the Deviant Art Page

Apothecary in Miniature - the finished product

Well the Apothecary Jars are finished. The photo here shows three of the finished jars which you may recognize from the previous post photos. To see all of the jars, some of which are still available visit my miniature shop
I also did some of these designs on small vessel pendants you can see a couple of those at the Ceramic Bead Artist site

Apothecary in miniature

Over the last week I've been working on miniature apothecary jars. The first picture shows how I lay out the design with pencil on the little unfired pots. (Click the pictures to see larger ones) The other two photos show the pots that I have finished so far. These are all painted with underglazes and they haven't been fired yet so the colors will be a bit more intense once they have been fired. These pots have been done for several people that have asked me to make some. I'm not sure how many they will want so there may be some extras.

Check the website in the apothecary category for available jars.

Murrini

For a long time I've wanted to do some murrini work with colored porcelains. This is a process similar to what many of the polymer clay artists do when they build canes. However, with porcelain it is a bit trickier. More attention has to be given to getting the various pieces to stick together and rolling the 'cane' to smaller and smaller forms doesn't really work. Some reduction can be done by careful pinching and pulling but in general the design must be built more or less the size you want it. You can enlarge it some by cutting thicker slices and rolling them to enlarge it but again care must be taken to avoid distorting the pattern. The accompanying photo shows the first murrini that I have done. The smaller slices shown are basically just cut from the piece and sanded a bit to smooth them out well. The larger ones were rolled to enlarge the design. There were several issues I encountered with this pattern that I think I can eliminate in future designs to make future ones better. However, for a first attempt I think this came out pretty good and for what I was making them for I think they will work out quite well. I will be using them for a component in some pendants that I will be working on in the next few weeks. When I get some done and fired I'll post the finished results as well.

Organic Dreams

Last fall when I created these organic pieces I didn't have the time to do up any examples of what could be done with them. Finally I've been taking some time to dress some things out. Here is one example of the sort of thing that can be done with the organics. For this one I've strung in some swarovski crystals, seed beads and some hematite stars. To see more of the 'blank canvasas' look under 'free forms' in my shop.

Hot out of the Kiln

Hello everyone. This is one of the last pieces I will finish before the To Bead True Blue show in Tucson. This is probably my favorite piece of all the ones I have done leading up to this show. I could easily keep it for myself. I would be interested to know how the rest of you like it.

Cala Lily

This is one of the cala lily pendants that I have done. They are all porcelain and finished with Mother of Pearl and a gold trim.

Organics

These two items are examples of my new 'Organics' line. This is only two of the rather simple shapes that I have come up with for this line. Also included are some leaf shapes with little tendrils, shell shapes, flower shapes, and some more abstract shapes. The idea with the organics is that the designer who buys the item would include beads, a wire wrapped stone or some other object inside the 'Organic' component. These two are shown with a very simple inclusion of a stone or a few beads just to give you the idea. The 'Organic' is designed to be a sort of frame to set off a special stone, bead, charm, etc. and as such each comes with holes to attach the special piece. I can envision them with added wire spirals and curls or interesting groupings of crystals. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the designer. These are designed to add a focal point and greater interest to an otherwise simple design. A jumping off point to take a design to a higher level and give it more shape and interest than simple beads or stones alone. I hope you are as excited about the possibilities as I am.