A Year of Beads (Almost!)

I thought it would be fun to share the year of disk beads from the 2012 Bead of the Month Club.  Each month I would sit down with the color palette Brandi Hussey had created for the Art Bead Scene and mix up my colors.  From there I would make my disk beads.  We had 20 in the club this year and that's 200 beads a month and a whopping 2400 disk beads over the year! 

Well, it's almost a year in review - there were three months I haven't taken photos of and darn if they aren't packed away in those notorious five boxes I have left of beads to unpack.  I swear I will finish unpacking my studio before the New Year!

I had such a great time with each month's challenge but wasn't sure I was going to do a disk edition of the BOM Club again.  It was so much work.  But since several have asked about it I thought I would open it up to 10 subscriptions for 2013.  For the next year I have a list of my favorite paintings that I have hoped to interpret into beads for a while now.

You can find the BOM Club listing in my Etsy shop.

Hello Van Gogh

Some artists reach out across time and space and settle into our soul.  For me, it's Vincent.  There is such a longing and heartfelt admiration of beauty in his work.  I love where you can see his work change, from trying to meet the status quo of being a good draftsman to searching for his voice in color and texture. And then finally you can see where he reaches his stride, he has formulated a visual language that was his alone.  He dared to be original and made his mark in human history.  Are you following the crowd or bravely letting your own unique voice sound off?

This series of beads was created for last month's Bead of the Month Club.  I had so many requests to do the regular Bead of the Month Club after my Disk Bead Club sold out. I gave in and decide to do the club with a mix of beads through the year, like I did in 2011.  Although this year I'm going to look for paintings for each month for my inspiration.  I picked Van Gogh's Peach Blossoms for my first edition.

I still have a few subscriptions left for the Bead of the Month.  Click here for details. 

And ooohh, lookey - silk ribbons and Czech glass have found there way to Humblebeads on Etsy. 

A Bead is Born

While making my January Bead of the Month I snapped some photos of how I make my beads.  I thought you'd enjoy seeing what goes into each and every one of my disk beads.

First - it starts with color.  I love Brandi's color palettes that she makes for the Art Bead Scene. I print them out and start custom mixing my colors to match. 

Next, the colors are formed into round beads.

And here comes the hard part - I sketch out my canes and start to create them. 

The designs run horizontally in those tubes.

Paper thin slices of the designs are applied to each bead.  We then roll the clay smooth, shape each bead, poke the hole, bake and artfully arrange them before we tie them up into sets.  Jess is my official bead roller.  He takes forever, but he just does such a great job.

Here are the finished beads.  I only made 12 sets.  These sets each month are only available to my Bead of the Month Club subscribers.  I used the rest of the canes to make other beads and created leaves, birds and flowers to match, those can be found in my Etsy shop. 

 

I'm offering five more Bead of the Month Club subscriptions for the 10 months left in the year.  Each month I take the inspiration painting from the Art Bead Scene's monthly challenge and jump off from there.  If you buy the BOM Club, you don't need to take part in the challenge, that's just my inspiration. 

Bead of the Month Club Update

I thought I would share with you the beads that I have created so far for the Bead of the Month Club.  It is so much fun to give myself a day to play in the studio and make something special.  It's a nice change from my production work and often spurs on several other ideas while I test out prototypes.

The Cherry Blossom Tree pendants will be available at the beginning of May with 50% of the sales going to the Red Cross for aid to Japan.

I created this necklace with one of the Cherry Blossom Tree Pendants, as I made several extras last month.  I paired them with dyed buri nuts, resin beads and brass.

The Bead of the Month Club was sold out, but I have decided to offer 5 more.  You can purchase the year long subscription here.  You'll first package will include the 3 beads above and April's bead.  They will go quickly as two have already sold this morning.  Don't wait this will be your last chance. 

Do you schedule days to play and explore new creative ideas?  I highly recommend pencilling in a date!