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June
29, 2008
Hey!
It's the late night special I guess... It's been a long HOT day. We are
wilted. I did promise beads though and I'm posting fairly late so I thought
really fun, colorful beads would be good. Perfect for the summer heat.
These have been hanging around the studio for a little while and they've
become some of my favorites.
1:
color shock barrels $63 SOLD, thanks!
I
love these. They are little and bright and cute. All roughly the same
size though they do vary a bit. If you could order 'whistle a happy
tune' beads, these would fit the bill I think. LOTS of detail. MUCH
smaller than they look in the photo.
(9
x 12 mm to 13 x 11 mm, total strand length = just over 4 inches)
1/16" mandrels
2:
caterpillar
beads $28 each
(specify
number/name when ordering)
I
started making these a while ago, and I called them my "caterpillar"
beads. Well, I'm sure you can see the resemblance. A few days ago
I was in my living room and a bright green caterpillar crawled across
the hardwood, confirming in my mind that the name was totally justified.
I didn't kill the caterpillar. Carried it outside, put it on a leaf,
nicely. Karmic thank-you for the bead inspiration.
These
guys have the same personality and bump-u-losity as the real caterpillar
without the high 'ick' factor. All have a transparent base (edwin
is DARK trans. root beer which looks opaque unless held to the light)
capped on each end with black and white twisted cane, and all have
their little asymmetries here and there. You've never seen a symmetrical
caterpillar, have you?
28
x 18 mm for edwin down to 24 x 16 mm for dante (including 'bumps')
3/32" mandrels for #1,3,4 and 1/16" mandrel for #2
THAT'S
IT FOR TODAY! COME BACK TOMORROW... YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU MIGHT FIND...
June
28, 2008
As
expected, it did get a little easier this time to get my act together
to post these beads. I don't know what it is that stops me. I'm sure we're
all familiar with that weird inertia that, for whatever reason, prevents
us from doing the things that our heart really really wants us to do.
It's just that the body and the mind aren't quite there yet.
What
would it be like, I wonder, if we did all the things we meant to do exactly
when we meant to do them? I guess there would be nothing to improve on
tomorrow. That would be dull. I guess I've realized over time that I'm
totally ok with the imperfect today and the maybe tomorrow.
Anyway,
a few beads - beads I made when I was recovering from being sick, so there's
a lot of overcoming inertia in these beads, the 'just get the hands moving',
the 'you'll feel better once you just do it'...
Some
of you might be able to relate.
1:
rhapsody in purple & blue $36 SOLD, thanks!
a cute little strand of beads - they "go" with the next strand
but i thought maybe they were too $$ all together, so I split them into
2 smaller strands. 2nd from the right looks weird in this photo - it's
actually a lilac-y purple with dark black/purple stripes.
And, you'll have to take my word for it, because you can't see the innards
in the photo, but the big disk, with the zebra-y thing going on, yes,
it is a seriously, seriously cool bead. And I used a lot of commas in
that sentence.
(18 x 11 mm for bead on left, total strand length = 2 inches)
1/16" mandrels
2:
rhapsody in blue & purple $43 SOLD, thanks!
Are you quirky? So are these beads. You'll get along just fine. Various
shades of blue & purple, some goldstone for sparkle, stripes, feathering,
odd bubbly encased swirls...
(feathered bead is 18
x 12 mm, total strand length = just over 2 1/2
inches)
1/16" mandrels
3:
rhapsody in green & blue $60 SOLD, thanks!
Blues and greens. Yep. Lots of summery blue and swimmy green. Stripes,
dots, twisties...
And a BONUS too (click
here to see). Cool.
(bead on far left is 19
x 11 mm, total strand length = 2 3/4 inches)
1/16" mandrels
June
7, 2008
It's
been so long since I posted beads for sale it's embarrassing to think
about how long it took me to get these few things photographed and online....
I've had to relearn the whole process again, which was frustrating. The
good news, though, is that it never gets harder than this, and next time,
it will be so much easier.
These
are just a few things I've had in the studio for a while. They're ready
to find new homes. Focal beads, for the most part, a mash-up of lots of
different colors and styles.
I grouped them according to the 4
classical elements - Earth, Air, Water & Fire. Maybe you need
more of one or the other in your life.
 Earth
1, 14
x 20 mm, 1/16" mandrel hole
$
20 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
An earthy bead, not without pizazz. Lots of dots. Base of black with layers
of brown, silvered ivory, white accent dots. Trapped bubbles too. Fancy!
 Earth
2, 29
mm x 23 mm, 1/16" mandrel hole
$
65 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
It
pains me to part with this bead, but I think it's time to let it go. Every
time I visit the studio I pick it up and look at the various inclusions,
the little silver particles, the subtle blues and purples amidst a field
of sandy taupe-y grey. It's smooth, and it fits nicely in the hand. Everyone
who picks it up comments on the "nice weight" and how much they
love the clear casing covering the whole thing. It's a calm, comforting
bead.
 Earth
3, big
one: 20 x 19 mm / smallest one: 16 x 16 mm, 1/16" mandrel holes
$
30 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
A
trio of not really matching "squeezed" beads, blue and purple-y.
I
was making a project and these were left over but they're too nice to
live out their days in a bowl somewhere. This is really about the larger
cobalt bead and the other 2 are the add-ons. The smallest one is an odd
pinky-purple. The larger bead has great depth of color - papery-translucent
petals, little tiny bubbles trapped at the centre of the flowers.
 Air
1,
28 mm x 19 mm (13 mm thick), 1/16" mandrel hole
$
36 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
One
day I drove through the prairie, and the next day, I made this bead. As
I'm sure any prairie person can tell you, taking a long drive on a beautiful
day, as the canola turns vibrant yellow and patches of green everywhere
contrast with the beautiful big blue sky... well... there are no words,
really. This bead was a snapshot, a fleeting impression... the fields,
the leaves, the colors, the sky. It's a quirky bead, a fat rectangle...
prairie summer.
Water 1, 24 mm x 21 mm (10 mm thick), 3/32" mandrel
hole
$
45 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
Octopus
ink streams elegantly into the ocean... A very swirly base of many shades
of blues, greens, white... Transparents and opaques mingle, creating pockets
of depth. Goldstone stringer sparkles here and there. Graphic strands
of deep, dark black wind around it all. Cased in clear, and shaped into
an imperfectly flattened, watery bead.
 Water
2, 13
mm hole to hole x 17 mm diameter, 1/8" mandrel hole
$
30 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
This
is one of those beads you pick up over and over again. Every time you
do, you see it in a different way. The core of this bead is actually a
dark transparent green. Hold it up to the light and you'll see. A band
of silvered ivory travels roughly around the middle of the turquoise base,
and it is met by various elements on either side - graphic black and white
on the one hand, and earthy, leafy, patinated spikes on the other. A little
bit of green, a little bit of sparkle... Raised tactile detail... I think
you'll like it.
 Water
3, 15
mm hole to hole x 15 mm diameter, 1/16" mandrel hole
$
16 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
An elegant bead, small, periwinkle-cobalt swirls floating over a watery
layer of aqua-green transparent glass... Sparkly goldstone here and there...
Framed by a thick round of raised stringer on each end.
 Water
4, 18
mm long x 15 mm across, 1/16" mandrel hole
$
20 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
Some people you meet and you don't know what to think. The more you know
them, the more you like them. This bead is like that. Ivory base, little
dabs of striated, oceany aqua and blue here and there, dots, twisty latticino
ribbons throughout (with a subtle sparkle), a few black lines. Irregular
shape that defies description, other than to say it's flat.
 Fire
1, swirls:
16 x 20 mm / stars: 19 x 19 mm (really round), 1/8" mandrel hole
$
40 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
I've
had these sitting in my studio window for the longest time and they make
me happy every time I look at them. Each has a red core cased in heaps
of clear glass which lends a very marble-y effect. The red is more 'tomato
soup' red than cherry red. The first, which is really round,
is decorated with tiny starlike murrine chips, of which 2 are "floating"
between layers of clear glass. The other has a zebra stripe cane, and
around that, clear glass traps a thin, swirly ribbon of black filigrana.
Very optical, fun to look at.
 Fire
2, 27
mm long x 19 mm across widest part of cone, 1/16" mandrel hole
$
28 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
A
really detailed cone - fiery reds, yellows, turquoises. Twisted cane.
Layered dots. Stripes. Raised yellow dots punctuate the top and bottom
of the cone, adding tactile interest. This bead is etched, which lends
a matte surface with a velvety soft feel.
 Fire
3, 28
mm long x 16 mm across widest part of bicone, 3/32" mandrel hole
$
22 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
This
is a casual bead, more a sketch than a finished drawing. More jazz improv
than classical masterpiece. Bright colors stretched across the length
of the bead, some parts left more raised than others, lending a wobbly,
childlike feel. Bundled together with a stroke of yellow at each end.
 Fire
4, both
approx. 18 mm x 18 mm, 1/16" mandrel holes
$
32 USD - SOLD, thanks! LARGER
IMAGE
These
beads are a total contrast to the one I just described above. There's
nothing haphazard about these babies. Nice, fat lentils in hot, summery
shades of yellow, red & blue. Precise, detailed decoration. Made on
a steady-hand, no-coffee day. One staccato trail of bumpy raised dots
follows a winding trail on each bead. Nice contrast to the smooth surface
of the rest of the bead.
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