No, not you. All the beads I made in the last week and a half are now glazed and fired.
I'll be sorting through them this morning.
Most of them will go to either the Etsy bead shop or the Etsy jewelry shop that I'm opening when I return from vacation at the end of the month.
On Saturday, I'm going to take a trip to Ceramic Supply to get some much needed things including a clear glaze so I can start working with my watercolors again. I need a break from working with the Coyote Celadons.
Tonight I'm heading to the Livingston studio to pick up a bunch of finished brown stoneware work. There should be pendants and my soap/tealight dishes mostly in earthy glazes. I'm going to package the dishes up Wednesday morning with either handmade soap or soy tealights and bring them to Piddlestixs on Thursday.
Oh and here's a peak at some fossil beads I've been experimenting with. I made molds of an ammonite and a trilobite. The trilobite still needs a little work...
Back to the grind!
I can't stop making earrings. No really, I can't stop because then I would run out of inventory, lol. These two pairs of earrings will be available at Piddlestixs tomorrow. Sorry the photos are a bit dark but I'm getting ready for a Labor Day bbq. Yum!
I paired some of my porcelain bauble beads with kyanite and sterling silver disks that I hammered and oxidized.
For this pair I was going for an autumn look...
The sunset-hued porcelain bauble beads are paired with faceted garnets and oxidized copper disks. The earwires and findings are Vintaj brass.
And for no other reason than because it's the weekend and they are cute, here are some random photos of my babies...
The big man. (The cat or the pig? LOL)
The trouble-maker.
Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!
So a few weeks ago I was chatting with Erin Siegel on facebook. We were talking about our favorite things; ceramics & jewelry and I suggested an earring swap. There weren't really rules, just that we had until the end of August to make and mail them out. Well, Erin's earrings arrived the other day and I LOOOOOOOOOVE them.
These are perfect for the fall! Erin used greek leather, carnelian, glass, copper and Vintaj brass.
It just so happened that when they arrived I had on a brown blouse so I pulled out the earrings I was wearing and put these right in.
Thanks again Erin, you rock! The earrings I made should be arriving today so make sure to check out Erin's blog in the next day or so to see what I sent her!
Here's just a sample of what came out of the kiln this weekend...
Now I have the task of sorting through and figuring out what pieces will become jewelry, what will be sold as loose beads and which ones just don't cut it...
I think I enjoy this part the most.
Who am I kidding? I enjoy all of it.
I have some new pieces I'll be bringing up to Piddlestixs tomorrow...
Pretty porcelain pendants.
I want to keep them all, but I won't.
There are a few new pairs of earrings as well.
Come stop by and say hello!
Piddlestixs
12 Morris Farm Road
Lafayette, NJ
Before I stop fiddling with all my purchases and put them away I thought I would photograph them for all to see (gawk at).
Commence with the drooling...
Awesome open-back bezels from Objects and Elements.
My favorite vendor in all the bead kingdom, the amazing Gary Wilson...
More goodies!
My friend Joanna and I each set aside $10 and went in search of an art bead. This is the pretty lampwork she picked out for me...
I bought her a lampwork gourd bead from Pumpkin Hill.
Some funky chain I just had to have...
I also picked up some patterned copper sheet metal, Ice resin and copper metal clay to play with. And while I'm thinking about it, here are the pieces I made in the resin class...
I can't wait to do this again next year!
I'm working hard to get my new Etsy bead shop up and running. I thought I would give you all a sneak peak at some of the pieces that will be available once it's open.
These are all made of porcelain and I just love how smooth they feel and how brilliant the colors are on them.
Many of these charms and pendants are patterned with vintage lace and doily's.
And some were patterned by using a dragon scale tool, like the blue charm pair above.
There will also be many other glaze colors including brown stoneware pieces in earth tones coming soon. Colin and I are firing the kiln every sunday so it's like Christmas on monday's when we open it up! Once the bead shop is up and running I'll start working on the second Etsy shop that will have earrings and pendants for those of you who don't live near Piddlestixs. Ok back to work now!
Bead Fest was amazing! Thursday morning Colin and I drove out to PA and met up with our friend Joanna (our room crasher, hehe). After we got our room all taken care of I skipped off to the first part of my resin workshop with the fabulous Susan Lenart Kazmer.
This was my first time taking one of her workshops and I hope to take many more as she is a fabulous instructor.
I met some really cool people in this workshop and even ended up sitting across from one of my Suburban Girl facebook fans! My friend Kecia (who is also on the Objects & Elements design team) was also there...
After part-two of the workshop on Friday I ran off to shop! I first ran around and met some of the Beads of Clay artists. And of course I picked up some goodies at each of their tables.
The amazing Diane Hawkey and Melanie Brooks.
The super sweet Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay.
OMG look at all her beads! My favorite purchase of the show was one of Kristie's large glass and clay pendants.
As I was wandering around I saw a table full of raku beads so I went over to look and that's when I met Olivia Dowdy of Odd Designs Pottery. We chatted and chatted and chatted!
I then made my way over to oogle some lampwork beads by Patti Cahill...
Hey look! It's my friend Suze Weinberg!
The show is huge but I ran into Suze again later in the day and Joan and Lisa were with her! BTW, Suze is doing multiple posts on her blog about Bead Fest so check it out!
Before I left (as my wallet was crying and my feet were swollen) I stopped over the largest necklace in the world and donated one of my purple ceramic barrel beads.
And that concludes my Bead Fest 2010 experience in a nutshell. One day I'll be a vendor but for now I enjoyed being a student and shopper. I can't wait for next year!
I went to the Livingston studio last night and there was tons and tons of bisque waiting for me. I couldn't believe I made that much stuff! I ended up glazing a bunch of my trinket dishes and a few pendants. I brought home a selection of bisque to bring to my studio for glazing and firing. Here's a small sampling...
Plenty of pendants and some experiments in there as well...
I have a LOT of glazing to do!
Now I'm off to pack for Bead Fest!
