Sue Beads

It's already the last Friday in September (can you believe it????), and today is the Artisan Clay Design Team reveal day! Kristie Roeder sends us a pretty piece of prettyness each month and we make something with it and show you! I am really excited about my piece this month! I chose this beautiful dark teal button. While I was at ArtBLISS, Ms. Jen and I discussed how we hadn't made any bracelets with our pieces from Kristie, so I was determined to do that this time. I immediately thought of chain as connector. I used brass chain I had and attached it to itself with some small jump rings. I made ribbed round beads in dark teal Bullseye glass that match really well with the button! I patinated some bronze wire with my new Lenk torch and used it to wire wrap the beads and pretty brass filigree bead caps. I will probably change the clasp, but I don't have another one at the moment, and don't have the appropriate gauge to make one out of bronze. This bracelet is meant...

Some of you may know that I am currently freaking out about my big show at the Delmont Apple 'N Arts Festival this weekend! They are expecting between 40-60k people and I do not feel ready! So, I would like to offer you a sale in my etsy shop ! Use the coupon code GET25 and you will get 25% off anything in the store until Monday, October 3, as long as you don't mind that I mail it on Monday instead of immediately! My headpins were very popular at my trunk show at ArtBLISS, so I will be adding more to the shop next week. If you have any color wishes, please let me know!!!

I mentioned in my previous post that on the Saturday of ArtBLISS, 14 of us got together to do a charm swap! The theme was simply Art Bliss. Your interpretation of art and bliss, basically! Below you can see photos of all the charms. Anne Savage organized the swap and, in addition to making a charm, she also gave us a charm bracelet with an ArtBLISS charm on it, to put all our charms! She is so generous! Her husband was even there taking classes - how great is that? 1st row - Laura Twiford, Jen Velasquez, Julie Jones 2nd row - Beth, Leslie Brier, Lori Burek 3rd row - Sandy Volpe, Anne Savage, Susan Kennedy 4th row- Melissa Meman, Sally Russick, Dawn Gallop 5th row - Jenny Davies-Reazor, Elizabeth Auld, Charm Bracelet We had a great time, sharing pizza for lunch. Jenn Velasquez taught us all how to make paper boxes, which was a lot of fun! Thanks to Anne, Elizabeth and Jen for making it a great charm swap!

Well, first I have to say I had an awesome weekend all around! My boyfriend Jason and I left on Friday afternoon and drove down to Ashburn for the ArtBLISS weekend. On our way, we stopped in Luckett's and bought a few cool things at that quirky store on the corner! We had a great lunch with a couple beers thrown in! We went to the Meet-and-Greet and had a great time there too! I finally met in person my bud Jenn Judd Velasquez! I also met Elizabeth Auld, who is amazingly nice! I saw too many people to mention, but a few were Lori Anderson, Kerry Bogert, Anne Savage, Melissa Meman, Sally Russick, Laura Twiford, Dawn Gallop, Jenny Davies-Reazor, and many others, and of course, Jeanette Ryan and Cindy Wimmer! It was really great and I highly encourage you to go next year if you possibly can! If you have any class ideas, Jeanette and Cindy would love to hear about them! Now, on to the eye candy! The first class I took on Saturday morning was with Deryn Mentock - it was called...

Hi Everyone! My shop is closed for the weekend (Sep. 23-25) because I am going to ArtBLISS! I will open back up on Monday! Have a great weekend!

I'm up to number 21 on the list- going slow but I'll do it! I have to go back to making jewelry for my show, so I'll stop back and read blogs before bed! Thank you all for the wonderful comments on my bead soup! I have barely started looking because I am crazy busy getting ready for ArtBLISS this coming weekend and the Delmont Apple N Arts festival the next weekend, my first really really really big show! But I have read each and every comment and appreciate each and every one! And, I am going to make it to everyone's blog too, it's just going to be slow because I am freaking out right now! Hope you all understand!

Today is the day of the big Bead Soup Blog Party reveal! Lori Anderson, the wonderful host of this event, reported that there are 362 participants this year! That's a lot of blogs to look at. I will try my best to get to each and every one, but it may take weeks! My partner was Laura Zeiner from Stick Lizard Designs . She has a lot of talent, that girl. If you recall in my previous post , she sent me these beads: And this is what I made: I love love love the focal she sent me. It's gorgeous! The lack of sun here in Pittsburgh does nothing for this rock! The colors and crystals are beautiful! I had no idea what to do with it, though, and I pondered for quite a while. I decided to make links with 18 gauge copper wire and think I did an ok job at it. I'm sure there are some better ways to do this, and I'd love to hear about them. I'm just really starting to get into the world of wire and so my skills aren't that great. In any event, I made some beady links ...