Sue Beads

This month over at Art Jewelry Elements, it's Diana's turn to provide the Component of the Month!  She sent us these cute floral pendants, and I chose pink!  The reason I chose pink is because she had a pink one available, AND because right now it's my mom's favorite color.  So I thought I'd make her a necklace.   Usually I like to include my own lampworked or enameled beads in anything I make, but I just couldn't do it this time!  I am so busy getting ready for BeadFest (Booth 463!!!!) that I didn't have time to make custom beads.  But I still like this design.  I used 22 gauge sterling wire, swarovski elements crystals, and candy jade in pink.  I think it looks really sweet and I hope she likes it! Hop on over to Art Jewelry Elements blog to see who the guest designers were and what everyone made!

I just wanted to show you what I have been working on for Bead Fest Philly (Aug. 23-25 SHOP - I'm in Booth 463)!!!!!  I only have 4 button mandrels at the moment, so each bead session I can only make four buttons, but I really like them!  I'll make as many as I can before Bead Fest, and if you want any, let me know! 

I'm finally caught up on my earrings for the Art Jewelry Elements Earring Challenge and this week, I was the one who picked some earrings to be featured on our blog!  Here's what I made!  These earrings are made with some brass keys that I patinaed with Ranger patinas.  I love how the blues turned out! And these are some earrings made with my new abstract bird beads.  Not a lot of detail on the birds, just a nuanced design!  You can find these at Bead Fest Philly in August, I'll be in Booth 463!  I'll also start listing some in my etsy store soon! Check out of the AJE Blog to see what earrings were featured this week!

I have some new beads ready to go for BeadFest this year that I didn't have last year - I hope you stop by Booth 463 and see me!  Lots of flowers! Embossed Beads! Pixie Discs! Ruffle Discs! Birds!

I was lucky enough to be introduced to Alenka ( Pepita Handmade) through an earring swap a few months ago!  She makes amazingly cool polymer clay creations.  She announced a giveaway and blog hop a few months ago, and I am in!  She selected some components, put them in envelopes, and mailed them off to us, not knowing who got what!  This is what I received! Alenka didn't even know what she sent me, so she's surprised reading about this!  I have an idea already, incorporating my own lampwork beads!  I also know these colors happen to be Alenka's favorite colors, so I think she'll like what I make! I have to say, I really love this global community of beaders we have all created!  Alenka is really such a sweet wonderful person and I would have never known her or her art if it wasn't for facebook, blogs and blog hops!  It's fun!  Please stop back on August 11th to see what I have made!

Sally Russick is hosting a Black and White Jewelry Design Challenge!  Here's my piece! I used a black and white heart from Nancy Schindler, and I made some matching lampwork beads!  The beads were made with clear, coated in white enamel, and then striped with black!  They go great with Nancy's heart focal! Here's a closeup - I am having a jump ring issue as you can see.  If anyone has a better idea of how I could attach the pendant to the bracelet, I'm all ears!  Right now it's with two jump rings and I just don't like it! Here's the rest of the participants - I hope you check out what they made too!  And thanks for hosting a blog hop Sally! Sally Russick Monique Urquhart Patti Vanderbloemen Veralynne Malone Duane Clark D Lynne Bowland Michelle Buettner Pam Sears Therese Frank Dawn Doucette Nicole Rennell Cynthia Machata Alice Peterson Carolyn Lawson Evelyn Shelby ...

I mentioned in an earlier post that Jenny Davies-Reazor and I noticed that a lot of our beads go together!  So I thought I'd show you what I mean! These are some of Jenny's beads that I traded her for at Bead Fest Philly last summer. I love them, and have been hoarding them.  But I think for the Bead Hoarders Blog Hop I'm going to make something with at least one of them! So, here's how our beads go together! I'm probably going to work with the man/tree/nature face first, and the bracelet bar second.  The pink will end up being a necklace for my mom, I'm sure! Hope to see you at Bead Fest - maybe you can pick out a Jenny bead (Booth 461) and complimenting SueBeads (Booth 463)!

I was lucky enough to have flower earrings I made published in this latest issue of Bead It Today!  These are the earrings - aren't they cute???? You can find lots of flower beads in my SueBeads etsy store, and I'll be selling them at Bead Fest Philly too!  Hope to see you there!

I've mentioned a few times that I have been working on a huge job with my boyfriend; we finally finished that job last week.  Saturday, June 22 to be exact.  We were so happy that it was over!  We were ready to start on a couple new jobs when - DISASTER showed up in the form of a storm.  Here's what happened to my backyard. TWO large trees fell, through my stockade fence, on my Versa-Lok wall, on my aluminum pool fence. On some landscaping, but most was spared. These are the wonderful guys who cut the tree in pieces so we could get rid of it quicker - the power company didn't want them to, they wanted to just let it fall where it was and ruin everything. This was the end of the day on Wednesday, my boyfriend, his son, me and my two kids cleaned it almost all in one day... The pile that was left to remove from the back. This is where the trees hit the stockade fence. The aluminum fence was cruched. I also have to mention, we had...