Piano Playing Birds Lay Better Eggs

I thought I'd jump in and play along with this month's Art Bead Scene challenge.  The inspiration painting this month is a funky outsider art/folk painting by Ruby Williams. 

Along with the bird from my shop, I have an Elaine Ray almond bead, the leaf is from our dear Erin at Every Heart Crafts and the glass, unknown.  It was a gifty from Rosanne, maybe she'll remember for me.

The prizes for the monthly challenge are beads from Diane Hawkey and Jangles, so pull out your beads and play along. 

And speaking of beads and playing - you HAVE to stop back on Monday. 

I'm going to host a fun challenge/contest to celebrate my work in the Best of Stringing.  Play along to win a free subscription to Stringing along with other prizes!

Rings & Things Blog Partner Project

Rings & Things sent their blog partners some sterling silver and gold-filled wire connectors to play with a while ago.  I finally got around to taking photos, so today I'm presenting a free project featuring the gold-filled wire connector and a hardware store retaining ring. 

Rags to Riches Pendant

Supplies:

1 1/18" retaining ring

gold-filled connector

Branch lentil bead

headpin

copper seed bead

Vintaj flower beadcap

2 brass 7mm jump rings

2 gunmetal 6mm jump rings

2 gunmetal 4mm jump rings

18" gunmetal chain

Tools:

bench block

ball peen hammer

round nose and chain pliers

wire cutters

1. Slightly flatten and texture the gold-filled connector with the ball peen hammer.

*AVOID the loops, they will break off!*

2. String the seed bead, lentil and flower bead cap onto a headpin and create a wire-wrapped looped.

3. Attach the lentil to the connector with a 7mm jump ring.  Attach the bottom of the connector to the bottom of the retaining ring with the other 7mm jump ring.

3. Attach the top of the retaining ring to the connector with the 6mm jump rings.

4. Cut the chain in half and attach each side to the pendant with 4mm jump rings.

You can work magic with a bench block and ball peen hammer, I consider these as essential as my set of pliers. 

Book Fair

Head on over to the Art Bead Scene today to enter to win one of the two books we are giving away!

Speaking of books, here are a few my beads or projects are appearing in at the moment.  I've been quietly working away on updates to my website and one the new features is a press page that shows which beads are in current publications.  I still need to do an official press page, but I feel like I've sort of lost track of which magazines I've been in now.  That's a good thing, right? 

I've been working on new submissions for the magazines for next year, oh how I love to steal away time to create new jewelry!  And I'm waiting patiently to hear back about my book proposal.  But that's all I can share about that for now.

With needle, thread, beads and wool

It's not quite fall here in San Antonio yet, but the mornings are chilly and tease us just enough to think it may be around the corner.  It never fails, every fall I pull out the wool roving and seed beads to see what I can create.  I have this whole series of nature designs sketched that would look awesome in wool and beads, but for now they patiently wait.

Some sea inspired beads

I first created this piece as a promotional image for the Bead Cruise and now for 2010 I will be teaching this design.  If you read the Art Bead Scene you already got the scoop, if not head on over to the Bead Cruise website to see the 5 new classes that we are offering.

Maybe I'll go pull out the wool, you know just to look...

Bead Trends Winner!

The lucky winner for the Bead Trends giveaway is Debbie from Pairie Emporium!

Debbie won a 6 month subscription to Bead Trends, provided by the magazine, and a $30 gift certificate to Humblebeads.com.

I want to thank everyone who played along and offer a 10% discount for your next  humblebeads.com order.  Use discount code BeadTrends09 when you check out.  This discount will expire on 10/21.

Picture above is my Harvest Dandelion that is featured in the Letting Go necklace.  That was the most picked project.  Letting go seems to be a common theme for many of us!