Sue Beads

This month's component of the month is exciting - it's a lichen cabochon or pendant by Caroline Dewison of Blueberri Beads !  Here's what she made for us! I chose a blue cabochon - I got the one on the bottom right!  As usual, I didn't take work in progress photos, which I really like to do on these projects, but here's what I made! I was excited to receive this because I was attending the Bead My Love retreat in Delaware before this CoM was due, so I thought I'd get some great ideas there!  I really wanted to make this elaborate beaded cuff, but just don't possess the skills or patience or space to do it right now, but someday I will make one.  So for now, I made a beaded bezel, and used some of my new skills to add more rows to it. I added a stop-bead row of purplish-gray size 8 beads to the outside of the peyote bezel, and then did a brick stitch row of beads in that pretty blue.  I also added a row of blue beads between the peyote bezel a...

I have a trunk show this weekend on Facebook, at the International Glass Open Market page!  Please join me! If you're not a member, request to join!

I just wanted to let you in on the new beads I have been making - crusty rustic boho cut flower beads!  You can find them in my SueBeads etsy store and some are on my SueBeads FaceBook Business page!

Not even gonna say it - here we go with Linda's Component of the Month!  Linda is really getting into the clay and she made these awesome fall pendants. You can find her shop here . I chose the ochre one with the red leaf because I love those colors together!  I had many ideas but after I took Heather Powers' class at Allegory Gallery, I knew I had to make some small oak leaves!  You'll get to see an overview of the class on October 5 over at AJE. Here are my leaves roughly cut out. Yep, rough!  But they do get better.  You can see their progression here! This final photo is after they were filed, textured, filed, antiqued, and finally tumbled for a few hours. How I'm going to use them.  But what beads?  I knew I had to wire wrap at least part of it, because of the leaves, so I went to my bin of beads and found these - they go perfectly! I'm assuming they really meant they were ruby zoisite.  And I know they didn't cost th...

August just flew by, didn't it?  In addition to moving my daughter into a new apartment for college and painting it and generally trying to make it not a slum anymore lol, I took an intensive class at the Glass Center with JC Herrell, took a trip to Scotland with my family, moved Jason's kids into their dorms at IUP and had a Facebook trunk show on Glass Melters Open Market!   AND it's time for the August Component of the Month with Diana Ptaszynski.  As usual, I didn't take a photo of the component when I got it, but it was this awesome stoneware coin pendant.  My idea didn't some to fruition (I think I say that a lot); I was going to use one of the bails pictured below, that I found at  Lima Beads.  While they are lovely, the color just didn't go with the focal or my idea.  Fast forward panic - what to do?  I really hate gluing bails on pieces of art, but decided in this case if I wanted to get anything done, I would need to go with ...

Today is the reveal for the Beading Back in Time Group - our time period this quarter was Early Civilization (3500 BC - 500 AD).  I had aspirations of getting more done, but being a single parent with lots going on, it just wasn't possible.  I did make my version of faux Roman Glass. I originally wanted to also make Cleopatra beads (as shown in the photo below) but just didn't have time. Photo Credit - Siberian Times, 01 Feb 2013 I still will probably make some, just to see if I can get the same look and texture.  But on to the faux Roman Glass! I decided to choose pale aqua and medium blue for the beads, as these colors seemed pretty prevalent in Roman Glass that I've seen. Treatments with baking soda and tumble etching with silicon carbide made the beads look "ancient" to me. I like this pale aqua better - for whatever reason, this color took the treatments better and didn't leave a residue of baking soda. The medium blue ones are still in...

This month, the Component of the Month for the Art Jewelry Elements team was by Niky Sayers - she sent us fun farthing clasps!  I love her work - you can find her jewelry etsy store here - and her coponent store here - and was thrilled with the clasp. As usual, I forgot to take a photo of it on it's own before I started making something, so here's Niky's photo! And here's the one I received!   When I received it in the mail, I knew I wanted to make the clasp the centerpiece, and wanted to have a multi-strand bracelet.  I immediately thought of making many strands of seed beads and went to work looking on etsy for some beads that appealed to me.  I finally settled on the set here - they are called Olive Picasso Travertine and I purchased them from Beachartz on etsy.  So, as I made the bracelet, I decided that three strands were probably enough, given the size of the beads and the size of the clasp, and the size of my time! So, in general, I like t...

Hi Everyone! Sorry I've been absent of late - I've been working the real job again and it's really hard to even think about other things after I get home and have to do all the house stuff!  But, just to let you know, I'm not vending at Bead Fest this year.  Yes, disappointing, but it just doesn't make financial sense right now.  So, I am having a huge inventory sale on my Facebook Business page, SueBeads .  Here are some examples and links to the albums - all the details are in the album header!  Thanks for looking!  Inventory - Baker's Dozen Orphan Strands   Inventory - Cameo Beads   Inventory - Focals   Inventory - Miscellaneous Bead Sets  Inventory - Pairs  Inventory - Sets of 5   Inventory - Shimmer Beads  Inventory - Sparkle Mini Beads Inventory Sugar Beads Please feel free to share as I could really use the sales right now and you will get some great prices on my bead...