Away We Go

 

My bead soup has left California and is making it's journey all the way to Delaware to the lovely Kathy Lindemer. Miss Pretty Things Lori Anderson told me not to worry about what my partner might like and to pick out what *I* think is awesome and that's what I did! I may have over-done it but I wanted to make sure my partner has plenty of beads to play with.

The big reveal is March 3rd and I cannot wait to see what Kathy comes up with! Go on over to the Bead Soup Party site and check out all the participants! 200 blogs! Lots of reading material... and you have no idea how happy that makes me :)

Pantone Spring 2012 Color Report

Before starting a project, I've been taking a peak at the Pantone color report for Spring 2012.

The colors are so bright and vibrant. And I usually only make pieces with limited color palettes. I haven't really mixed the colors. I need to be bolder. Take more chances. Who knows? Maybe I'll make something great. Lol.

I also need to try colors I probably wouldn't choose without it... like the pretty yellow solar power.

Hmm... Let's see how this goes, shall we?

BTW: 1/18 Wire Worked Earrings

I spent the morning clearing up my workspace. I should have taken a "before" picture rather than just an "after" picture. The table was full of little baggies and the bowls over against the wall held my finished pieces. I got that lovely set of blue drawers from my boyfriend for Christmas and today, I filled it up with my jewelry and went label crazy. Then I took the baggies of beads and dumped them into the bowls.

 Oh, I have a few plastic storage things but who am I kidding? These beads usually just stay in baggies and wind up strewn across the table, thrown in my backpack... or even in my purse! So I just put them in these bowls until I can actually get around to sorting them out.

After getting the table all clear, I pulled out my sketchbook and set to work. I still have oodles of doodles that are begging to be made into wire lovelies.

A few bends and some happy hammering and I've got a lovely frame to wrap with seed beads.

I lose myself in the wire wrapping. It's great fun. Usually, I have an audiobook playing and I just listen and wrap.

The finished earrings. Originally, I was going to have a pearl as the dangle but I thought the teal Czech round was more dynamic.

I'll have these up in the shop tomorrow afternoon.

What's on YOUR bead table today?

Check out the BTW Flickr group!

My Lovely Bead Soup Partner

The 5th Bead Soup Blog Party is upon us! YAAAAAAAAAAAY! *dances*

This is my second bead soup and I am partnered with the lovely Kathy Lindemer. You can check out her blog here. Aaaand check out her Etsy shop here.

I've been sneaking around her shop trying to see if I can get an idea as to what she might like from my bead stash... here are some of my faves:

After checking out Kathy's shop, I think I have quite a good idea of what beads will be making the journey over to Kathy's bead table. Kathy lives all the way over in Delaware and my beads must travel over from California so I must get on the ball and ship out the pretties!

Excited!!!!

Inspired by Mucha

Last week, the boyfriend and I spent the day at the Laguna Beach library. I go through spells of uninspiration and I need to spend the day sketching and doodling so we took root at a large table and I went through piles and piles of books looking for inspiration.

I've always loved Alphonse Mucha. One of my classmates at LCAD used Mucha as their inspiration for our character design class. The second I got my hands on their books, I fell in love. Such beautiful flowy lines. Lovely colors and design. In. Love. So last week, I sat with a book on Art Nouveau (and maybe 1, 2... 10 others :P) and doodled away.

Sunday night, I took one of my doodles and set to work. Oh, copper wire, you are such a blessing when I make loops and curls.

I added a lucite lily because there are a lot of pretty flowers in the Art Nouveau pieces I looked at.

Also... I have a lot of lucite lilies :P

These earrings are up in the shop now. And I love them so much, I made myself a pair as well :P

SIDENOTE!: There are still a few destash mags in my shop! I'll probably go through another magazine purge in a week or so. It's hard for me to part with my wire working and stringing magazines :-\

Gold and Blue

I made this necklace a few weeks ago. It was inspired by an outfit my cousin wore to Christmas... And the color combination gave me three other designs.

I'm starting to love gold tones. I used to only like silver and copper but gold is really pretty too.

This color combination makes me think of Spring. The cold blue color and the warm gold tone... I know it's silly, but cold and warm for me is Spring. :P

SIDENOTE! If you look up under my blogger banner, you'll see a link to my Etsy shop where I'm selling some of my old magazines. $5 per listing... and they're good magazines too. Beadwork, Bead and Button, Beadstyle... Lovely but I need to clear out space. Check them out if you have a chance. They're listed here.

Farewell, 2011

2011 was an interesting year for me. And at the end, it left me between a rock and a hard place. I'm still trying to recover and get through it but it's one of those "take it one step at a time" things... and more often than not, it's also "one step forward, two steps back."

I lost a job I loved. Working for Borders was such a stressful time but I adored it. I love books and loved the people I worked with. So when it happened in September, I was crushed.

I also was sort of asked to move out of the house I lived in for 5 years. At the time, it was a mixed blessing as the house was crowded and I needed a fresh start. But moving during that tough time was unbelievable. I worked myself to exhaustion.

There is no doubt that I am in a better place emotionally now. I live with my cousin's family who is loving and supportive and who lets me work off some of my rent but I really am growing sick of eating hot dogs and sandwiches everyday. And "should I get gas or food?" is such a depressing debate.

But I am creating things everyday. I am thinking of my business every second of every day. I made sales in December. More sales than I ever have and it was such an encouraging few weeks. I was able to buy Christmas presents because of those sales and I will forever be thankful to those people who found my shop and purchased the pretties. And while the sales stopped the week of Christmas and I was once again broke and stressed out, I was able to celebrate Christmas with my family which is all I really wanted this year.

I want to try and make creating my life. I want to live off of my art and creations. And I want to be happy.

2011 had too many tears. Too many arguments. Too much negativity. My rose colored glasses fell from my eyes and I saw a world I almost was tempted to leave.

2012, I have high hopes for you. I am going to work hard. And I hope that it will pay off.

Thank you for sticking with me, readers. I hope we all have a wonderful new year.