Sue Beads

This month the Art Jewelry Elements Component of the Month was made by Francesca Watson.  Francesca is a very sweet person who makes beautiful jewelry.  This month she made the enameled discs with silver accents for us to use in our creations!  I made a bracelet this time, this is not the first one I made either!  I had something in mind and it wasn't coming out the way it was supposed to, so I put it down.  I let it percolate a little bit and finally the design happened!  I'm using ebony twisted wood beads and three of my own lampwork beads, separated by sweet little silver heishe spacers.  Stop over at AJE to see what everyone else made!

My latest pair of earrings for Art Jewelry Elements Earring challenge - lampwork by me (SueBeads) and charms by Marla James (Marla's Mud).  Check out Art Jewelry Elements daily for new and inspiring work and tutorials and information!

I had a couple of web site orders recently that contained some of my crystal bead styles (see SueBeads web site if you're interested in more crystal bead styles!) and since I was in the groove and had the press out, I decided to make some for the SueBeads etsy store too! 

The featured beads this week are Summer Minis!  For the week of February 25 - March 3, 2013!  Pretty summer rainbow colors, on special for $20!!!!  That's $5 off the price of the set!  Find them on my SueBeads web site!  And check out all my other made to order beads too!

My latest pair of earrings for the Art Jewelry Elements earring challenge!  Made with my own lampwork rounds, and Kristi Bowman's copper charms.  Brass findings and sterling earwires!

This is week 8 of Sally Russick's Focus on Life challenge and the word is Monochromatic.  This strawberry photo was the one I used for a previous challenge word.  I have been having a lot of fun playing on my phone with Pixlr and Pixlromatic and this is what I made.  I love the effects you can get from a simple phone app!  Too much fun!  Please check Sally's blog for everyone else's photos!

Bead Tutorial: Twisted Flowers Materials:
1 rod light turquoise
1 rod light ivory
Tweezers

Remember to occasionally flash your bead in the flame so it doesn't crack!Step 1:
Gather your materials. With your tweezers, pull a few stringers of light ivory. Also, pull a short (1 1/2") stringer of ivory with a larger base, so you can hold onto it to twist.




Step 2:
Make a basic bead of light turquoise. Make sure you are happy with the shape - you won't really be able to adjust it after you add your dots. Step 3:
Add 3 dots of ivory in thirds around the bead. Make sure they are evenly spaced and about the same size.

Step 4:
Melt the dots in. Be careful not to let them get too molten, or they will misshape.
Step 5:
Heat the space in the middle of one set of three dots. With your little handmade twisting tool, twist the space in the middle of the three dots, turning only about 1/2 to 3/4 of a turn. The more you twist, the more your circles will distort. After you twist the dot…