Sue Beads

This month was my turn to provide the Art Jewelry Elements blog followers and designers with the Component of the Month.  If you may recall, this is what we're working with this month - my lampwork ruffle discs! This turned into a very real challenge for me.  I may have mentioned I am working a lot lately, to help my boyfriend get this very large job finished up.  I have not worked outside of my home for quite a while, so it's a challenge for me to get everything done and do the whole jewelry/bead gig as well.  I had other ideas, but they did not pan out.  I probably redid this bracelet 4 times, but here's the final result! I actually pilfered from another bracelet to finish this one.  I made it with freshwater pearls and turquoise tubes, with silver seed beads as accents. I used the ruffle disc as the clasp, the back I somehow finagled to make work!  I'm sure there are some kind of tutorials out there to show how to make a clasp out...

I have been a blog partner of Chinook Designs for a while, and Mellisa finally got back around to doing the design team again!  This time I was chosen, and we were given a very cool twisty bead, which you can find here in her shop! Here's a photo of my bead, it's purple and very cool! I used brown leather cord I purchased from Melinda Orr and made my own cord ends.  That was very tedious, but I'm glad I know how to do it now!  I also made the dangle from one of my own lampwork beads, a rhinestone rondelle, and a pretty potato pearl, to give the cord a little bit of femininity. Please go to Mellisa's blog to see who else is playing along with this design challenge!  It was fun, and I'm sure there are many other imaginative ways you can use this twisty bead!

I can't believe it's already the end of May - time just goes too fast anymore!  Here's my submissions for the Art Jewelry Elements Earring Challenge for the past two week! This first pair is made with my own enameled leaves and pretty blue czech glass and brass rounds.  Sterling earwires by me as well! This second pair, I made for my mom for Mother's Day!  My own lampwork beads, rhinestone rondelles, filigree bead caps and sterling earwires by me, as well. Please hop on over to the Art Jewelry Elements blog to see what everyone else made for the Earring Challenge!

Fellow lampworker Genea recently purchased a large lentil press from Zoozii's.  I mentioned to her that I had one and hardly ever use it!  She gave me a little challenge to get some beads done!  It was good for me, because I haven't been making a lot of beads lately.  I have no energy from working the job I am working right now, and no time if I want to accomplish anything in the house and yard and say HI to my kids now and then!  I took the challenge, and made some beads.  It was doable for me over two nights, I had a couple of hours and each of these beads takes a lot of glass and a bit of time.  Hope you like them, you can find them in my SueBeads etsy store!

Jessica Murray of Whimsical Monkey hosted an Earring Swap and today is the reveal!  My partner was Alenka Obid of Pepita Handmade !  She makes WONDERFUL polymer clay beads and creations!  Here's a link to her flickr page where you can see more of her work!  Here's what she sent me!  These earrings are made with her own polymer clay beads, aren't they fantastic? She also sent me this very pretty little treat: And here's what I sent her: And I sent her this little treat: And unfortunately, what I mailed her did not arrive in Slovenia yet.  Or, it's being held up in customs.  I have no idea... I feel pretty bad though.  I will be sending her a new set of earrings if they don't arrive today.  Please take a look at Jessica's blog to see who else made earrings!

Recently, I attended a bead show here in Monroeville, PA! I found these really great flowery spacer beads and had to have them!  They are pewter so they were very reasonably priced! I really like them a lot, but wanted to use them when making earrings, too. I really liked them, but wanted to use them when making earrings or dangles.  But being flat spacers, they just don't look right. That's when I had my little revelation!  I'll try and dome them!  If I try one and it breaks, no biggie!  But if they do work, YAY, bead caps! So I got my block out, Inserted the spacer in one of the domed crevices that pretty well matched the size of the spacer, And proceeded to use my rawhide mallet to beat the little things into submission! Voila!  A beautiful little bead cap made from some funky spacers that I love!  AND, the bonus is that they can fit a variety of bead sizes!  The pink quartz is a 10mm bead, while ... ...

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to everyone!  Here are the earrings I made for the challenge, with my own enamel beads! These were fun to make.  Please hop on over to Art Jewelry Elements to see which earrings I highlighted this week!

This week, Sally's prompt was Hope.  This is literally Hope!  This is my boyfriend's daughter and she is so cute and upbeat and such a very nice teenager!  Hop on over to Sally's blog to see what everyone else was hoping this week!

SO, it's been another busy week, and instead of making beads right now, or visiting blogs, or whatever else, I'm going through emails and at least trying to catch up with whatever is due...It's been quite hard for me to make glass beads lately as I really have no creative ideas in my head, but I do have an idea for a compound enameled component and if I have time (LOL) I may try and get to that this week.  It was a beautiful first real week of spring here, though, gorgeous pretty much each day, and this is a photo I took in my backyard.  I love my asian lantern and all my beautiful pink tulips that the deer can't get back here! While working this week, I spotted this store and really had to take the photo.  'Nuf said. Part of the reason it was so busy was because in addition to working each day on a really physically demanding job, Jason presented a scholarship to a very deserving senior on Wednesday evening.  The scholarship is in memory of his mother...

Woo hoo, two weeks in a row!  This is my photo for abstract - my Andy Warhol-ized photo of some tulips in my backyard.  I did this on my phone with pixlr!  The real colors are a very pretty red and deep yellow, they are really gorgeous flowers!  Hope you visit Sally's blog to hop around and see everyone else's photos!

Please head over to Art Jewelry Elements blog to see how you can WIN one of these funky ruffle discs!  All you have to do is agree to make a piece of jewelry with one of them and reveal it on May 31!