Sue Beads

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!

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!

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!

It's hard to believe another two weeks have gone by, and it's time for another Art Jewelry Elements earring challenge.  Here are my entries for this two weeks.  The first is a pair of aqua blue beads I make, that happen to be some of my personal favorite beads.  The second set is from my new embossed bead series, made with disc beads from Michaels to compliment the design.  Head on over to AJE to see what everyone else made this past two weeks!

I can't believe it's been another week, and I'm just getting to listing a few sets of beads.  I guess this will be how it will be for a while, I'm certainly gaining more working with boyfriend than on this bead business right now!  I did list these beads in my SueBeads etsy store and hope you'll take a look.  I haven't been doing my weekly photography with Sally Russick, and I believe it's another posting for the AJE Earring Challenge on Sunday, I think I'll be able to get to that!  I may end up going to once a week listing for my beads, if I can make any during the week after the workday is over!  I'll think about that and let you know the dates so you can be ready!

Sorry I've been so absent lately - I have been working a lot with my boyfriend and there is just not enough time, as I'm sure you all know, to have a somewhat-full-time job, a business, two kids, college looming, graduation looming, sports, etc. and try to keep up with the social media as well!  I feel bad because I do read all of your comments - I just literally have no time right now to do everything.  I hope to figure out some sort of schedule for myself to accomplish my goals more readily!  Now, for the bead porn!





I've been making a few new styles of beads lately, actually I've been somewhat obsessed with these styles - the flowers, the ruffles, the ruffled discs, and now the embossed beads!  You can see a lot of these beads in my SueBeads etsy store!  I hope you take a look!  While I need to work to make some money for all of the above, I sure do love making beads and hope to be able to continue doing so!

If you read my post from Sunday, you saw the process that took place to come up with these little flower beadies (originally posted on Art Jewelry Elements)! I used the plant poke flowers for inspiration to create these little flowers, in some of the color combos I really really liked!  You can find the little flower bead pairs in my SueBeads etsy store!

Getting some new beads and headpins listed at SueBeads etsy store!  The headpins are made on brass and are 4" long - lots of wire to work with!

This week, from March 4-10, 2013, the Featured Beads of the Week are the Olive Chunky Discs.  They were $6 each, or $30 for the set - this week only they are $5 each, or $25 for the set.  You can buy single beads or extra beads too!  Just head to the SueBeads web site!

Today is the reveal for Erin Prais-Hintz' Challenge of Music.  The challenge this year was music with no words, or instrumental.  I chose Holst "The Planets".


I have always loved music, mostly contemporary, although my dad and I would play a game in the car where I would have to name the music that was playing and of course, he wasn't playing Led Zeppelin!  But I did gain an appreciation for all sorts of music.  TV shows of the 70's like Lawrence Welk (we watched this with my grandmother all the time!!!) or Hee Haw (yep, even Hee Haw had music!) allowed me to learn about different music.  It wasn't until I took a college course in Classical Music (we called it Clap for Credit) that I gained a real appreciation for instrumental, classical music.

In this class we learned about Gustav Holst and "The Planets."  This 7-movement piece was written between 1914-1916 and each movement is about one of the planets in the solar system - not including Earth, and…

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!

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…

I had some fun making these organic looking beads last week, you can find them in my SueBeads etsy store!