New Challenges...

Sorry for the silence, beading has been consuming all of my time!  Friday and Saturday we were in Lincoln for the Lincoln Bead Show which took place on Saturday.  Here are some highlights:

• The meeting room where the show was held was large and fairly well lit (anyway our area was, people in the back section struggled though)
• The room we spent the night in at same hotel, not so great.  Think 70's disco movie, with the pool area rented out for birthday parties and there were 4 going on Friday night until Midnight.
• The "non" smoking room, may have been now, but wasn't for about the previous twenty years.  Yuck, old stale cigarette smell.
• Bathroom, postage stamp size, but had good water pressure and hot water.  Wasn't too scary if you kept the lights off or your eyes shut.
• The arm rails on the chairs looked like werewolves had previously stayed there.  
• The bed was comfortable and clean, though my side sloped to the floor.
• Mina hung out in the room after we headed down to work in the bead show, until it was check out time.  Check out time came sooner than she thought when she saw the mouse running around in the room.

On the plus side, we had a terrific show and spent time visiting with our other bead vendor friends and had fun visiting with new and returning customers.  The dragons were a huge hit!

On the new front, I am one of ten participants taking part in The Hole Bead Shoppe's Day of the Dead Bead kit challenge.  Here is a picture of my kit supplies:

My kit fee was $50 and I got a $120+ value!  Crazy the amount of items that were in the kit, and WOW do I feel the pressure to create an over the top, fabulous piece!  The kit has a wide variety of Lucite flowers and leaves, Vintaj keys and blanks, fresh water pearls, Czech daggers and fire polish, Swarovski crystals, a variety of seed beads and Tila beads, gunmetal plate spacers, Tierracast beads and spacers, and a Palmtree Queen Day of the Dead lampwork focal.  Here is a picture of the skull beads the Hole Bead Shoppe added to our kits:

Mine is in the second row, second from the left!  They are AWESOME!

I received my kit on Monday, and I have worked on my piece about 5 hours so far.  I have a long ways to go, I will keep you in the loop!

Passions

If you read the blog regularly, you know I am addicted to beads.  Yes, that may surprise some of you.  Just kidding, any beader knows it is just a matter of time before the beads consume your life.  Even just a few moments ago, as I sat here trying to come up with a post topic, I was on Etsy surfing the beady goodness.  Truly it is a sickness.  I have SO many beads, how can I want more...BUT I DO!  And while I am totally in love with, totally obsessed with, totally drowning in beads, I also want to learn more interesting ways to use them in my jewelry designs.  Not just new and interesting beads, but new techniques and ideas to change my jewelry designing.  Last night I worked on a piece using olive green faceted fire agate rounds, a base metal gold filigree cross pendant, and gold wire.  I used some wiring techniques I have not used before, but have admired online and in books and magazines.

Totally Twisted By Kerry Bogert

 

 I bought Kerry's book awhile back and continue to return to it for techniques and inspiration.  Last night I tried my hand at the wired coil drop similar to the red one on the cover.  I made two, one for each side, but they aren't quite symmetrical.    Not necessarily intentional, I mostly decided after I had my wire wrap done, that I wanted to put a link on to it.  I also hammered my wire, which I have done before, but did it a bit differently this time due to this video.

I was intrigued by the uses of lock rings and toggle parts being used in new ways!  Loved it, sat and watched the hole group of videos, including this one too.

The other new technique I am psyched about working with is this, from Vintaj.

DecoEtch Die from Sizzix

It allows you to run metal stamping blanks through your Sizzix machine to emboss on the metals.  This allows a nice deep impression on the metal and the piece can then be altered using alcohol inks or whatever your imagination can come up with!  Very cool, huh?  What type of new things are you interested in?  I would love to hear from you!
My videos are from YouTube.