Monday, October 29, 2007

Blue Moons

I made this bracelet for a friend of mine last week. She had bought another bracelet from me and I had decided to send her something blue, as she has been telling me to make something blue for a while now. I have known this friend since around the same time that I found my first bead store and fell in love with beads. In fact I think one of the first pieces of jewelry that I ever made was for this friend of mine, so it is only fitting that she is now the owner of this beautiful bracelet made of labradorite, kyanite, freshwater potato pearls, lamp work beads and sterling silver.



Sunday, October 28, 2007

Starry Night Skies

Lately, I have been playing around with the spiral stitch. It really is a fun stitch to do and the finished product is just beautiful.




With this necklace I used a double spiral stitch with peridot chips and delica beads. I used matte black hexagon toho beads as the base for the stitch. While it looks great, using the hexagon beads, it was kind of hard to do the stitch with them. They would line up and it was hard to get the needle where it needed to be at times. The finished product did turn out looking great in any case.



The focal bead is another bead made by Joe from Avenue Beads, http://www.avenuebeads.com/ . I like this bead because it has a lot of really nice green colors in it, like aqua, turquoise, and a little lime. They look really good with the black background and the high gloss finish to the glass.



I also used russian amozonite, the horse eye shaped beads, in this necklace. I have had these beads since the beginning of the year and have just been waiting to use them in a piece of jewelry. The color is just perfect for this necklace.



This necklace can be bought in my etsy store just click here for more details: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7624040




Monday, October 22, 2007

Finally Something New for the Store


Well, I finally made a new piece to sell in my etsy shop. I've been so busy lately making custom orders that I haven't had a lot of time to put toward my etsy store. This necklace is absolutely fabulous! The way that the light reflects off of each stone is just wonderful! I think fluorite, labradorite, and kyanite are my new favorite stones. They are so pretty. The focal bead is made by a wonderful lamp work artist that I found on etsy. Joes' store name is Avenue Beads, here is a link to his site: http://www.avenuebeads.com/


I have slowly been collecting beads over the summer and stashing them away in my storage bin. Seriously, I am a bead whore. I just can't get enough of them. So the other night I decided that I just wanted to create something new and fun just for the heck of it and this is what I came up with. It kind of reminds me of the leaves falling into puddles in the fall with the cool maple leaf clasp and the blue green colors.


Sunday, October 21, 2007

2007 etsyBEAD Holiday Kick-Off Sale!

This week is the 2007 etsyBEAD Holiday Kickoff Sale! It runs from October 21 - October 27. The more you purchase, the more you save!


10% off your purchase of $20 or less

15% off your purchase of $21 - $40

20% off your purchase of $41 - $80

25% off your purchase of $81 or more



Orders must be from individual shops; orders may not be combined from different shops to receive a discount.

Check out the etsyBEAD street blog to see all of the other jewelry artists involved in this sale. http://etsybeadstreet.blogspot.com/

Friday, October 12, 2007

Leora's Braided Bracelets

My sister, Leora, recently made these bracelets for herself and her daughter. They are so cool. I went to visit her this past week in Illinois and tried to talk her out of one of them because I just loved it. She told me that I could make my own though. Bummer. She got the idea from the August/September 2007 issue of the Beadwork magazine on p. 82. Leora of course switched it up a little and changed the pattern on the bracelets to make them her own. They are super cool!

Monday, October 8, 2007

Purple Haze

I have been pondering on using different sizes of beads in a piece where the beads would start out small and grow larger and then taper off again to the smallest beads. Then I came upon No Easy Beads blog where she had found an article in the step by step magazine that did exactly that. I haven't seen the article, but I saw No Easy Beads work and thought that is just what I was thinking of so I went ahead and messed around with my beads and came up with this bracelet. I used a variety of beads which consisted of delica beads in sizes 11, 10 and 8. I also used toho triangular beads for this piece. I think that the bracelet turned out really well and I really like how it looks on the wrist. I am in the process of making another bracelet similar to this one for myself in off white and aqua colors that I will post as soon as it is finished.




Sunday, October 7, 2007

Amber Dreams and Into The Mystic

These beautiful necklaces have been made by my sister Angie and I'm so excited because not only did she post pictures of her beautiful work, but she also posted her sons work too. It's so nice to see other family members bead work on this blog. Seeing as how all of us sisters live a good distance away from each other it's nice to see what we are doing. If anyone knows Angie they know that red, orange, and yellow are her colors and as you can see she does a wonderful job when using them as the main colors in her bead work. Angie has named this necklace Amber Dreams and I have to agree that it is a dream to look at. I think this amber one is my favorite, of course I've always been fond of amber. She bought the lamp work beads yesterday at Art in Park in Sierra Vista, AZ made by Andy Ray who is the owner Galactic Glass Studio in Tucson, AZ http://www.galacticglass.net/index.htm. I'm thinking that we will have to go to his store when I go to visit in December.
This necklace is made out of Carnelian, Amber, Quartz, and silver findings. The center piece is Hand made Dichroic glass.





















This next piece is called Into the Mystic. I like the name and I love the necklace and earring set that Angie made! Something about red and purple just works. I really like how she used both the white and red freshwater pearls in this piece, I would have never thought of doing that and now that I see how good it looks in her bead work, I might have to try it sometime. These are just beautiful and as I told ya on the phone earlier, 'Where's mine?' Great job Angie and we can't wait to see more of your work in the future. Hint, hint.



























This necklace is made of Pearls and crystals with silver findings and Hand made Dichroic glass.

Beading with the Martinez Boys

This beautiful jewelry was made by my two wonderful nephews from Arizona today. So yet another generation is beginning to bead and I am so happy that we can show their wonderful work on here for all to see. The first one was made by the oldest of the two boys, my nephew Skylar. He wanted me to point out to everyone that he made the necklace all on his own, with no help from his mom or anyone else for that matter. So way to go Skylar!





This is a necklace that Skylar made for his Grandma Lisa for Christmas this year.



This next necklace was made by the younger brother, my nephew Corbin. Corbin made this necklace and he has decided to keep for himself. Corbin also made some nice pieces for his Pokemon action figures as shown in the photo below




Pretty cool bud!

Pokemon Jewelry!