Sue Beads

Appropriately, Jenny provided us with kintsugi hearts for the Art Elements February Component of the Month. But not just any hearts - broken hearts, stitched up.  You may know that kintsugi is the japanese term for repairing broken things, in some cases pottery with gold.  That's what these hearts stand for! I chose one of the olive green hearts, mostly because that's my favorite color. And yes, as usual, I did not take a photo of mine before I started working on it! Here's a close-up of my heart:  I made a beaded bezel with some awesome metallic earth delicas I picked up on my trip to Houston in Fall, 2016.  Then I used some great old gold size 15s, and finally finished the bezel with bronze gold 8s and galvanized gold 15s that match the gold foil perfectly. I used an awesome gold heart charm from Cathy Daly that I purchased in her etsy store to finish the bezel. And here's a photo of it finished and hanging on a thin black cord.  I could ...

This week's internal challenge over at Art Elements was beetle.  I had just the thing I wanted to try.  My kids brought me back this scarab bead from the British Museum, I am assuming it's supposed to be faience (I know not real, that would have cost a fortune!!!!). I have wanted to replicate it for a while, and this was the perfect chance, as I was making headpins for a facebook trunk show! Here are my beads - the first one is the museum scarab, mine are the second two.  I used opaque turquoise blue glass, and two colors of transparent enamel powder to mimic the faience look.  I think the second color looks the best. Thanks for stopping by, and look for my post next week!

Our second weekly Art Elements challenge was Serenity.  I find my serenity at the beach - anywhere! I created these two things: This photo collage shows photos I've taken in St. Maarten, the Cayman Islands, Hilton Head Island, Clearwater Beach, Florida, and Oban, Scotland.  As you can see, I LOVE the beach! These earrings were made with my own beachy lampwork headpins and roman glass heishe beads! Visit next week for the week 3 installment!

And now, for a rare extra blog post, I bring you the Art Elements weekly challenge post!  The group of us over at Art Elements have internal challenges from time to time, and this will be a weekly one to combat all of the political noise and chaos that's taking place.  The first prompt was red!  This was awesome for me because I had just embarked on a quarterly challenge to myself, for the exact same reason as above.  My personal challenge will follow the seasons, so four pieces of beaded work.  Hearts are the theme.  This first, for Spring, is entitled "Take Your Broken Heart..." and will be finished with green beads and lucite flowers. I plan on stamping a piece of copper with the words, and attaching them to the frame at the bottom of each section. The pieces measure about 3x3.5 inches.  Summer will be a rainbow in the heart, and the title will be "Somewhere...".  Fall is TBD, but will probably center around a candle (for the holidays t...