Drum roll please……

My 3rd Enchanted Adornments Blog Giveaway has come to an end! There were 58 comments left this week, and the giveaway entailed this lovely set of Pewter and Copper clay FAIRY beads from my talented friends at Green Girl Studios.

We are promoting Cynthia’s new book that is coming out November 1st: Pre-order it now! Enchanted Adornments: Creating Mixed-Media Jewelry with Metal, Clay, Wire, Resin & More.
I used the Random.Org number generator to pick a random comment!

CONGRATULATIONS to
Erin Prais-Hintz!

Please contact me via email LJEURTO[at]Gmail[dot]com
and send me your mailing address and I’ll get your Fairy beads out to you immediately!

Stay tuned for the next Enchanted Adornments Giveaway which will be posted next Monday September 7th!

Weekend Wind Down

Yesterday, Joe and I headed out in the rain to the Annual Clinton Arts and Music Festival in Clinton, NY. It’s a pretty nice craft and music fair, when it’s not raining. The rain let up finally and we were able to walk around a bit and take in some local craft artisans. Our first stop was at my friend Tara’s jewelry booth. The Beaded Bird had a pretty sweet set up there, with beautiful ceramic birds, branches, and iron bird baths displaying Tara and Barbara’s jewelry. The third lovely lady in their group, Patti, has started creating some nice jewelry displays that she had for sale at the fair. I bought one, and I absolutely adore it. Anything with buttons and keys and old things, I love- but make into a functional piece and it’s coming home with me!!

I also found a local lampwork glass artisan, Heather Leyh, that creates the coolest jewelry and glass beads. Heather trekked her way to Clinton all the way from Ballston Spa, which isn’t too far from Albany, NY.

I bought a couple of Heather’s lampworked glass buttons but wanted one of each thing in her shop. She had some really great rings, and pendants, and these silver rings that you can build yourself with some of Heather’s funky and coloful glass rounds.

Heather sells her wares on her own website, HeatherBeads.com, and has an Etsy shop too at HeatherLeyhDesigns.

I’ve already put one of Heather’s heart buttons into one of my bracelet designs! I felt it only fitting, to keep the button with other buttons, and paired it with

these grey shell buttons and some other lampwork glass and ceramic beads.

Check out what the other Beady Bloggers are up to this week, here are the weekly links:

The writing and art of Andrew thornton. Beadfest Philadelphia was packed with talented artisans and bead-makers. See what Andrew picked out!

Jewelry & Beading Looking ahead to the fall, Cyndi shows how to make a new necklace called “Autumn Arbor”.

Katie’s Beading Blog Katie’s mixing metals and a fun peyote bail with a giant crystal disk.

Lorelei’s Blog: Inside the Studio Lorelei is hosting a Necklace Round Robin, but you have to leave a comment to be entered to win a spot!

Earthenwood Studio Chronices Melanie shows off some fun experiments that she has seen coming out of her studio, mixing copper and pewter

A Bead A Day Have you ever used sterling silver curly-Q tubes in your jewelry designs?? Lisa is searching for cool ideas for these adorable tubes.

Art Bead Scene Art Bead Scene expands the editorial staff and welcomes Lorelei Eurto!

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva Cindy unveils a new series of Art Nouveau inspired beads. In French it’s known as “Stile Floreal” and in English it’s the “Floral Style.”

Carmi’s Art/Life World Carmi uses shrink plastic to make a neat little bracelet.

About.com Jewelry Making Do you use blogging to promote your jewelry business? Tammy has some thoughts for you on this.

3 Wise Old Birds

I recently acquired an original masterpiece from my friend, and fellow Etsian, Cori Dantini. I have been a fan of Cori’s work for a long time now and I have several of her prints framed, in my studio. I had wanted one of her originals forever, and finally worked out a bit of a trade for this sweet owl painting. Three Wise old birds sitting on a branch, in the Cori style that I love, with the pale coloring and multi layers. I hung this piece above my dresser in my bedroom.

Thanks Cori!

Meanie lady on the block

I never wanted this to happen, but I am now officially the mean lady that lives on my block.

Last night I’m sitting in my studio, minding my own business. I start to hear some ruckus out in the street. I look outside and there are 2 boys. Youngish boys, probably around 5th or 6th graders. They have a can of Sprayable fun foam. They look mischievous. And then they started spraying the Stop sign at the end of the street. It’s broad daylight, mind you.

They know it’s wrong, as I’m watching them they are working fast as to do it without anyone seeing them. But yet, must think they are invisible, as it’s broad daylight!!

They move on to the street sign, behind my hedge row so I can’t see, but I can hear their giggles. They want to run, but they are so excited, looking for more. It’s quite funny now, thinking back on it.

HOWEVER…Here is where the meanie comes out in me. If they think they can get away with that, they’ll think they can get away with anything. What if, down the road, they end up using spray paint? This was done recently in my neighborhood so I felt a sudden urge to scare ’em up a bit.

I find myself moving quickly down the stairs, out onto the porch, down to the side walk. I walk briskly towards them, they see me, and start to run- just out of my site, behind a parked van on the street. They peek their little heads around to see if I’m still coming. My arm goes up, and there is a flick of the hand that says- “Come here. Right Now.”

They start walking towards me. I’m surprised, and realize, I must look really serious, or really mean.

I give some stupid and nervous lecture about how it’s wrong to do that, it’s defacing town property, I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate it if they knew the boys were doing that, and if they don’t stop I’m calling the police. The looks on their faces made me know they were scared shitless. (at this point, I felt a little bad, but a little good knowing that my lecture was working) At this point, I asked them where they live, I said I wanted to speak to their parents.

One of the boys, the bravest one, said “We’ll clean it“. I said” Yes, I would like you to clean it up!” I start walking back to my house, they go to the stop sign. They yell to me” I don’t think we’re tall enough!!” I said- ” Get your parents, get a ladder, I don’t care how you clean it, just do it.”

Minutes later it was cleaned up, off of both signs. Afterwards, I felt like really- it’s no biggie, it would have probably washed off in the rain, yadda yadda yadda. But since we’ve lived here, there have many instances of kids messing around with the local signs. Streets signs on our corner have been bent, dessert/cake has been thrown at the speed limit sign by our driveaway,

spray painted signs down the road. Enough is enough.

And we’ve had trouble with older boys that live up the street- one day they were walking by and one of them was throwing a plate up in the air and catching it. They were in front of our driveaway when the boy missed catching the plate and it smashed to smithereens in the street. They kept walking. We watched this out the dining room window while eating, but it was Joe who got right up and went out there and demanded that they boy pick the plate pieces up. See, it’s not always just me!

You’d think they’d know by now, they can’t get away with shit like that on our corner. Nothing had happened in quite some time. I was surprised to have to deal with this little quandry, last night.

I’ve also been known to anonymously call the police to complain of noise, last summer, when some high school kids were sitting in a parked truck with some very very loud base that shook every window in my house for an hour. Enough is enough.

I’m so mean.

This made me smile today.

Good Things Come in Threes

No. 1

Red Creek Jasper rounds are strung on brown linen cording with little brass spacers in between each one. Continuing with the brass theme, I added a decorative brass button and small brass leaf charm. A simple design that shows off the beauty of these stunning stones.

No. 2

If I let my cat Marley outside she would definitely be one to chase the butterflies in the garden. Butterflies adorn this sweet pewter button from Green Girl Studios. And the little kitty button is from my friend D’Arsie at Mamacita Beadworks.

Silvered Coral Lampwork glass beads from SueBeads, are paired with Turquoise wheels and faceted Picasso glass rondelles, and brass tubes, all strung on brown linen cording.

No. 3

Home is where my heart is, and this is what was on my mind last night as I was putting together this bracelet. Ceramic house beads (Jubilee) in blues and greens, are wire wrapped on one side. Hammered brass cable chain along the other side with wire wrapped Czech glass and brass tubes with turquoise wheels. Vintaj Brass lobster clasp, and a sweet Heart pewter charm from Mamacita Beadworks.

These will be posted in my Etsy shop later this morning!

Necklace Round Robin Proposal

I had such fun working with Heather, Erin, Erin, and Christine on the Bracelet round robin that we did that I wanted to do it again. Check out my bracelet, I just got it back from Christine last week! It turned out awesome and I love wearing it. Such a fun little collaboration of talented artists! Read about Christine’s additions to all the bracelets at her blog post here.

But this time, I’d like to do a necklace round robin!

I’m looking for 4 people who’d like to participate along with me. The best way to do this I think, is to let the Random Integer Generator pick the contestants, so all you have to do is leave a comment if you are interested in playing along. The random generator will pick the 4 contestants and we’ll get started right away. I’ll leave the comments open for a few days so you have some time to decide.

please read through the entire post before you comment!!

Here’s how it will work. All 5 (includes me) people playing along, will start a necklace design, as little or as much as they want. They’ll all pass the necklace starts to me and I will add a little bit to each one. I’ll pass them to participant number 2 and they will add to each one. They’ll pass them on to the next, and so on and so forth. In the end, all participants will end up with the original necklace they started! I love collaborative efforts but there will have to be some guidelines.

1. I’d like to limit the time spent on working on the necklaces to 1 week. SO then the whole project will last a little more than 1 month. This might be hard for some busier designers so if you can’t stick to this time line, you might want to rethink playing along.

Keep in mind, if you really want to order specialty items to use in the necklace designs, try to keep the design process cut down to a week, and take into account the time it takes to order and receive stuff.

2. If you’ve signed up to play but end up getting busy and you can’t participate afterall, you have to let me know immediately so that I can pick a replacement.

3. Stick to basic techniques, and keep in mind that not everyone (me for example) knows how to beadweave. Another point would be, if you add things like oxidized metals to your necklace, no everyone (like me for example) has the ability to oxidize the finished piece or their section.

4. If you want the necklace to be a specific length, you’ll have to add on a tag that states your desired finished size.

5. Don’t know how to start? How about just some chain with some beads dangling off of it? Or start a beaded strand and leave it open using a little scotch tape to keep the beads on the wire. Or you could start wire wrapping some of you favorite art beads. It’s up to you how you want to start the piece.

6. Each person will add to the starting design. The goal is not to take apart what has been started, but to keep adding elements to the current design. Each starting designer will need to write down on their tag, what kind of theme they want the end piece to be. Do they want a strung piece, a wire wrapped piece, a chain with charms, etc….. As for colors, the starting designs should give the rest of the participants a clear idea of an overall color theme.

7. Each person will be responsible for shipping the pieces to the next artist. Since the final person in the chain will probably have the priciest mailing- being 4 packages, it would be nice if all the participants could paypal a couple of extra dollars to the final person to help with the shipping of all the packages.

Some good FAQs:
Everyone should start their necklace however they want.
It may be with wire and clasp, it could be chain with a few beads, it could be a wire-wrapped focal bead.
If a necklace gets to the last person without a clasp, they will need to add one.
A necklace could be a one or a multi-strand.

Will we be adding the same component to each necklace or will it depend on the design in progress? I would think something different, so each necklace is completely unique and a play on what has already been added to it.

Should we take pictures along the way?
I suppose we should all blog about it at some point…I think it would be fun to see the progress along the way, but it’s not required. Of course we want you to blog about the final necklace when it arrives back to you. Of course, it would also be cool if you could link back to all the people that participated.

I might suggest that we each start a little note card with the bracelet so that each participant could write a little sentence documenting what they put in the necklace in their handwriting that would make its way back to us with the finished piece. That way we would know what component would be added by whom (if it weren’t exactly obvious)!

Since this is my first attempt at a necklace round robin, I’d like to just say that I’m really flexible, and if there are any concerns or questions, I’ll be happy to talk things over to keep this little blog project fun and easy going. There is no right or wrong way to do this, but I just want to keep it FUN.

I’ll go ahead and have the Random integer generator pick the 4 on September 1st.

After I announce who will be participating, I’ll send an email with more details and we’ll exchange addresses and all that good stuff. Good luck to everyone!! I can’t wait to get started!

(a very special thank you goes out to Kelley Wenzel and Christine Damm – thanks for allowing me to bounce ideas off of you and thanks for all of your valuable advice on this project!)

Emee Shop is back open for business!

Finally got my act together and got my mother’s shop opened again. It’s low on products but the pieces that are listed are really cute and very well made. I am going to push mom to make some new stuff. I’d like her to try her hand at some different things like Make-up or jewelry rolls, and laptop cases. Please favorite Emee’s if you haven’t already!

new EtsyNameSpace.Mini(6532403, ‘shop’,’gallery’,4,2).renderIframe();

Bead Porn, and Bead Fest purchases

Overwhelming!! Rows and Rows of fabulous beads.

It was like I had died and gone to heaven. Above is Heather Powers’

Beads at the Bello Modo booth. It was fun to meet Pam Maxfield,

and know that they put my orders together by hand when I order from them.

Here are Marsha’s pottery shards. (Marsha Neal Studios) I bought a few of these,

one of them a top drilled pendant, and the other few are drilled

in the center and Kelley had the brilliant idea of using them as toggle bars.
Below are more of Marsha’s pendants. I love her work and have for a long

long time. It was so great meeting Marsha in person.

Above is a nice pic of some of Sarah’s enamelled goodies.

C-Koop Beads= a coloful rainbow of metal findings.

I bought some clasps, and bead caps, and funky little

connectors.

Here is some silk ribbon that I picked up. Pretty and wide ribbons,
with bound edges, in gorgeous jewel tone colors.

Some Picasso Czech glass that I had on my shopping list.
It was tough to not buy one of every color.

Here are the strands of stones that I got.

I fell in love with this cool Jasper and bought several strands of it, at Bello Modo

and at Dakota Stones. Iron Zebra jasper squares,

Jade drops, Aquamarine barrels, Yellow jade, Turquoise wheels,

sodalite rondelles, more Turquoise, and some faceted ruby quartz.

Stopped by the Hands of the Hills booth and bought up some of there

brass and silver metal strands. These babies are heavy,

and will make great spacers.

I put some of the artbeads into a mosaic here- Starting from the top left, clockwise:

Marsha Neal Studios finds, Beads from Artisan Clay,

a Shibuichi Bee charm from LeAnne Hartman, Bob Burkett pewter components,

Green Girl Studios goods, and C-Koop Beads enamelled findings.

It oughtta be easy beading for a while with all this new stash, right?

I couldn’t even step foot in the studio last night, I am still so beat tired from the weekend.

And today I am even more tired after a full night of sneezing and blowing my nose due to the

lovely and NOT anticipated Yellow Golden Rod season. Allergies suck.

I hope to get into the studio tonight to possibly put the beads away and get something created.

Thanks for stopping by to see my goodies.

My weekend at Bead Fest: Philadelphia: Part 1

What: Bead Fest Philadelphia

Where: Valley Forge Convention Center, King of Prussia, PA

When: Aug 21-23

The Goals:

1. To replenish my bead stash

2. To not blow my entire wad on art beads

3. to restock my stash with stones and glass, you know, REGULAR beads

4. a little bit of networking

5. To meet some new friends and bead artists, and Jane Dickerson

6. To save a small amount of cash to buy food

Introducing my partner in crime:

KELLEY WENZEL

KelleysBeads

We scoured every aisle. In search of the perfect chain, the perfect beads, the prettiest colors, the best facets, the brightest bling we could find. We were successful and bought a boatload. The first hour and a half was a bit overwhelming. It’s important to pace yourself at a show of this caliber. The trick is not to spend all your money before the weekend is over. This is a very hard thing to accomplish. But we prevailed and I believe I’ve even come home with money left over. BONUS!

It all started a month or so ago when I was chatting with Kelley on Yahoo and threw out this comment: “You should totally fly up to Philly and go to Bead Fest with me!” I typed it out and thought to myself-“yea ha ha! that would be so great, but Kelley would need more notice, or have to really think that type of thing over….” and before I even got to the next thought on why it probably wouldn’t happen, Kelley typed ” I’m in!”

WHAT!??! All of a sudden before I even knew what was happening, tickets were purchased, hotels were reserved, plane itineraries were sent out and then the month flew by and Friday morning at 8 am I found myself in my car, and making the 5 hour trek to Philadelphia airport to pick Kelley up! Talk about a whirlwind!

Meeting Kelley in the airport for the first time, in person, was as great as I had imagined it! We get along great and have talked several times on the phone and chatted non-stop on Yahoo for months. We said hello and it had been like were long lost friends, just picking up on where we left off. We had a great time- we stayed at the Radisson that was attached to the convention center. We literally walked downstairs and through a series of hallways and the beads were right THERE! Millions and millions of beads. A bead shopper’s paradise!

Friday night we went out to dinner with my friend Beth Anderson. Beth picked us up and we enjoyed a nice and laid back meal at Champs- a local sports bar/restaurant. Afterwards, we enjoyed some wine and Mississippi Mud cake that Kelley made, back at our hotel room.

After Chatting and giggling til Midnight, Kelley and I had a heck of a time getting up the next morning but coffee called my name downstairs to the hotel cafe. We were ready and raring to go by the 10 o’clock open of the show.

Before heading in, I bee-lined it to the Interweave Press vendor booth to look for Jane Dickerson and to see if they indeed had a copy of the Chain Style book on display. They did. And I was thrilled. But. No Jane in sight. 😦 I found out later that Jane was super sick and had to leave early. Luckily Leslie Rogalski, Chief Editor of Interweave- took a little video of me saying Hello, to show Jane later.

Here I am posing with the book. You obviously can’t tell but, inside, I was jumping up and down and squeeling at the sight of it! It’s so beautiful- every photograph, every piece of jewelry inside, and no I am not biased. I can honestly say that even if that wasn’t my piece on the cover, and even if I didn’t have projects inside the book, you better believe I’d still be buying it immediately when it comes out on shelves. You really don’t want to miss it. It’s a good one!

After walking through the aisles and aisles of beads, we finally found the Green Girl Studios booth. I have been waiting for this moment for a long long time and I am proud to say that I did not make a total fool of myself and kept calm and contained when finally meeting Andrew Thornton in person. He is so charming and funny and I just loved every minute that we spent chatting at the show.

Another really cool person I got to meet in the flesh was Marsha Minutella from Marsha Neal Studios. I have been buying Marsha’s beads since (2007) the beginning of my beading days! We had the best time and I really enjoying laughing and being goofy at her booth. I of course, dropped some cash and walked away with some really awesome goods from Marsha’s tables. But the personal connections that day were the best!

It took me a while to finally find Kristie’s booth. Remember back a few weeks when I showed you the jewelry I made with Artisan Clay components for Kristie’s booth display? The pieces looked so great amongst some other really great displayed pieces from other designers. Kristie was so sweet and super pumped to be at Bead Fest. I wish I could have bottled her enthusiasm and high energy spirit to bring home with me!! I could use a little bit of Kristie Roeder every day! About 3pm, when my day has just about fizzled to bleh. Here’s a fab picture of the two of us.

Stay tuned for Part 2-

I’ll show off my bead loot and more bead porn pics!

All photos courtesy of Kelley Wenzel and her new D90!