Beading

The Victorians and people in past centuries were really big on what we today might consider morbid. Hair jewelry was particularly popular in those days (see first link below for historical information). They were not only keepsakes but served as mourning jewelry for the family and friends of the deceased. There are some modern artisans who continue to create designs using human hair. Designer Anna Schwamborn's pieces are a little more macabre as her creations are made not just from hair but incorporates the cremated ashes mixed in with black bone china (that's the black cylindrical parts). Some of her designs include the black rosary beads and hair tassel necklace above. She also used tightly wrapped hair to create a unique focal. She explains "the objects are supposed to be worn close to the body of the mourner symbolizing a lasting physical connection between two individuals even after death." Like the centuries old memento mori jewelry, her designs also remind people of their own mortality. What do you think? Beyond morbid? Perhaps this is not the way to mourn if it promotes the holding on rather than letting go? Or would a lock of hair in a locket be more wearable? Via Dezeen Before You Go : Jewelry Made from Real Hair - Past and Present Hair Drawing Jewelry by Melanie Bilenker How to Make Hair Fascinators ______________________________ Original Post by THE BEADING GEM Jewelry Making Tips - Jewelry Business Tips

Dutch artist Ambrosius Bosschaert was inspired by exotic flowers which became a national obsession during the 1600s. The May inspiration art piece "Vase with Flowers in a Window" was painted in 1620 and reflects the artists love of nature and his eye for detail. These etsy finds are wonderful inspiration...The shops...www.TesoriTrovati.etsy.comwww.PSPorcelain.etsy.comwww.MayaHoneyJewelry.etsy.comwww.missficklemedia.etsy.comwww.gaea.etsy.comwww.cathydailey.etsy.comwww.SerenaSmithLampwork.etsy.comwww.Moreskyejewels.etsy.comwww.StudioJuls.etsy.comwww.humblebeads.etsy.comwww.JoanMillerPorcelain.etsy.com

This past Tuesday, we at Allegory Gallery were fortunate enough to welcome Carolyn Holland for the first Words in Process event of the season. Carolyn did readings from her in-progress historically based novel, "Intertwined Love". She also shared slides of places depicted in the book and passed out packets including word games. It was a fascinating evening! For the second half of the evening, several members of the audience shared pieces that they wrote, including Joe Stierheim, Amy Yanity, Joanne McGough, and Tom Beck. If you haven't heard of Words in Process before, it's a reading series presented by poet, teacher and author, Amy Yanity. The event takes place at Allegory Gallery on the second Tuesday of the month from 7PM to 9PM. Each month, a new writer is featured. They read some of their work and talk about what went into writing it. The second half of the evening is an open mic and the audience is encouraged to talk about their writing processes. Mark your calendars! The next Words in Process event takes place on June 18th and will spotlight blogger, Melissa Firman. Please join us if you are around!

If I knew now what I didn't know then...that's how I feel about everything that I've learned about earring making since I started beading over thirteen years ago. While I spent my time doodling beaded necklace and bracelet designs in my notebooks throughout college, ideas for beaded earring designs didn't come so easy to me. Then a few years ago, I decided to challenge myself for the new year, and in January, I vowed to make one pair of beaded earrings every day for an entire month. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time, and when I was finished, not only did I have over two dozen pairs of earrings for gifts for friends and family, I also had much more confidence in my own earring making skills. Want to jump-start your earring making projects? Here are a few suggestions to get you going! Ideas for beaded earring projects. Beaded necklace and bracelet projects always came pretty easy for me, but beaded earrings? Not so much. Fortunately, as I progressed in learning how to bead and picked up new jewelry-making skills along the way, I started seeing how lots of these techniques could translate into easy earring projects. It's true: sometimes, the best ideas for earring making projects really are the simplest. Learn how to make your own ear wires. This seemed like the most intimidating aspect of earring making for me, but really, learning how to make my own ear wires has opened up an entire world of possibilities for me! Wouldn't it be fantastic if you could customize your ear wires using matching beads and colored wire? It's really easier than you think. You can either make your own ear wires using nothing but a thick Sharpie marker, or if you want to churn out perfect wires every time, it might be worth investing in the Easy Ear Wire Maker. Asymmetrical earrings by Jean Campbell Let Your Imagination Run Wild. Who says that earring designs always have to match? Michelle Mach doesn't think so, and neither does Jean Campbell! Earring making can be a ton of fun -- and a great learning experience -- when you just let your beaded earring designs do whatever they want to do. Surrender to the beads, and see what you can come up with! Mix and match your beads, color of ear wires, and dig through your craft supplies for things like ribbons, feathers, and vintage sequins for truly unique beaded earrings. You'll always find great earring making projects in every issue of Beadwork magazine. For over 15 years, Beadwork has been bringing us innovative, artistic, and beautiful earring making projects. If your collection of Beadwork magazine is missing a few issues, now's the time to fill in the gaps! Check out all the back issues of Beadwork magazine on sale in the Beading Daily Shop -- including some digital copies, too! What would your best advice be to someone just getting started with earring making? Would you recommend a particular beading tool, or a particular technique for making easy earrings? Leave a comment here on the Beading Daily blog and share your thoughts, tips, and advice with us! Bead Happy, Jennifer

There are lots of reasons to learn a new craft or a new skill by watching a video. It's convenient, for one thing -- you can watch at home, anytime you want to, and you can stop and start the video wherever and whenever you feel like you need to see something demonstrated over again. Our new Craft Daily site is home to over a hundred premium crafting videos, with new videos being added every week. You can find crafting videos for learning how to bead, learning new jewelry-making techniques, and videos for the other crafts that you love like crochet, knitting, mixed media art, and sewing. You can bookmark the videos at the parts you want to watch again (or where you left off last time), mark your favorites for later, rate and review each video as you watch it, and even stream videos to your television! How would you like to win a one-year subscription to Craft Daily, and have unlimited access to all of these videos? We're giving away an annual subscription (a $200 value) to Craft Daily to three lucky winners -- and one of them might be you! (If you're already a subscriber to Craft Daily, we'll simply extend your subscription for a year.) To enter, all you have to do is fill out the Craft Daily Giveaway form. The winners will be selected on June 7, 2013. Good luck!

Have you ever become attached to a special jewelry project?The Cousin Creative Circle Ambassadors were given an ultra fabulous assignment earlier this year.We haven't shared our projects with you because they are going to be on display in the PrimaBead booth at the Bead and Button show that starts next week in Milwaukee, yay!Prima Bead is the sister company to Cousin that is specifically a retail catalog outlet. You can find Cousin products at LOTS of craft stores as well as Walmart, Meijer and many others. But, if you want to order from Cousin directly, you must have a wholesale account.Prima takes care of the rest of us who may not currently be in a business situation. :) They will be in booths 733 and 735 if you happen to be checking out the expo vendors at the Bead & Button show.So, back to the project...We were given a pretty good sized budget to create a fabulous attention getting necklace for display. It was really hard not to share it with you, but local friends put up with me showing them pictures on my Kindle Fire. Yeah, I've become one of those people.I missed the project so much that I decided to use a few of the leftover pieces and parts to make a reminder of it in a ready to wear necklace and bracelet.These pieces are about as minimal as the B&B project is extreme, but they are perfect for my everyday wear and remind me of the excitement AND fear of having the opportunity to make something special to represent the company as an ambassador for all to see (choke/swallow/breathe into a paper bag).I hope you will let me know if you happen upon it at the show. Please give it a little "hello" from me if you get a chance. :)

Throughout all the beading challenges I‘ve done, there have been many projects that required lots of planning and tweaking to get the right blend of inspiration and technique. Once in awhile, a project comes along that’s quite simply a no-brainer. The techniques needed to achieve a certain look are ready and waiting to be unleashed.So it went with the latest Egyptian gods piece. I needed a way to capture the image of Akhenaten’s Aten - a sun disk with rays of light ending in hands. This is the way that the sun god was always depicted during his brief time as the one true god, with cupped hands shown in profile, sometimes holding an ankh for the king. I didn’t have to look far for the perfect stitches to get this look. Circular brick stitch and branch fringe would do the trick. All I needed to decide on was a palette. I gathered up several shades of transparent and lined reds for the sun disk. For the necklace straps, I also added some bone white and black.I think the simplicity of this necklace is perfect for the short lived cult of Aten. My only regret is that I didn’t have any golden yellow to use in place of the bone white, but I’m still really pleased with how the St. Petersburg chain straps turned out.Copyright 2013 Inspirational Beading Subscribe to Inspirational Beading Get inspired on Facebook and Google+

20.00USDA very large (1 1/4") lentil focal bead made from ivory glass, a motley shard and black dots. It was made on a 3/32" mandrel. Both sides are slightly different. Each one of these big focals takes almost a full rod of glass!All of my beads are made in my studio by me, Sue, in Pittsburgh, PA. They are properly annealed in a digitally controlled kiln, and cleaned with a diamond drill bit and a dremel! All are wound on 1/16th inch mandrels unless otherwise noted.

20.00USDA very large (1 1/4") lentil focal bead made from ink blue with a silvered ivory shard and black dots. It was made on a 3/32" mandrel. Both sides are slightly different. Each one of these big focals takes almost a full rod of glass!All of my beads are made in my studio by me, Sue, in Pittsburgh, PA. They are properly annealed in a digitally controlled kiln, and cleaned with a diamond drill bit and a dremel! All are wound on 1/16th inch mandrels unless otherwise noted.

20.00USDA very large (1 1/4") lentil focal bead made from mango, swipes of violet and turquoise, a silvered ivory shard and dots of black!. It was made on a 3/32" mandrel. Both sides are slightly different. Each one of these big focals takes almost a full rod of glass!All of my beads are made in my studio by me, Sue, in Pittsburgh, PA. They are properly annealed in a digitally controlled kiln, and cleaned with a diamond drill bit and a dremel! All are wound on 1/16th inch mandrels unless otherwise noted.