Holiday Progressive Sale

It's time for a holiday sale!

Other than the discounts I've offered through the Bead Art Originals blog and discounts offered to repeat customers, I really haven't had any sales in quite a while. So it's time. :-)

I thought I'd try something a little different... a Progressive Sale. This is the best sale I've ever offered, so if you've been ogling something in my shop, this is your chance to save some money!

Here's how it works:

• Purchase one item from my Etsy shop and receive a 10% discount.
• Purchase two items from my Etsy shop and receive a 20% discount.
• Purchase three or more items from my Etsy shop and receive a 30% discount on your entire order!

*** PLEASE NOTE the following important information ***

Patterns are excluded from this special sale.

In order to receive the discount, you MUST include "Progressive Sale" in the Message to Seller when you check out.

The applicable discount will be refunded to you via PayPal.

May not be combined with any other sale or coupon code.

This sale will run from now (Monday, December 12) through the end of the year!

*** Merry Christmas! ***

Millions of Delicas...

So what do you do when you've amassed millions of Japanese Delica cylinder beads and you don't have a lot of time to do peyote? String them and crochet them into bead crochet ropes, of course!

At least that's what I've decided to do. It's not because I've given up on peyote. Nope. Not at all. But peyote requires that I spent hours sitting in a chair picking up beads one, two, or three at a time with a needle and following a pattern. Since we're in the midst of building our house right now, I'm having a hard time finding the time to dedicate to peyote. But that doesn't mean I can't gather up some delicas and string them to be crocheted!

And now, apparently, I'm on a roll.

I've made a couple of other bead crochet pieces with delicas (Sand and Stone, which is made with beautiful satin pale gold delicas and tiny 2mm jasper rounds, was one of the first).

I came across the jasper rounds last year when my husband and I were on vacation, and when I saw them next to these delicas, I knew they were meant to be together.










Then when I made Zuri using a blend I had made of opaque delicas, I immediately fell in love with what could be done with these tiny bits of glass.

This blend is made from 15 different colors - every color in the rainbow and then some! The rope has sections of blended color and other sections where I did little bits of pattern. Nothing was mapped out ahead of time - just strung on the fly - so I had no idea how some of the patterns would turn out when I did the crocheting.

That's half the fun.






Soon after I made Zuri, I used a blend of metallics to create Nuru. I lost track of how many colors and finishes are in this piece, but my guess is that there are at least 50 or 60 different beads (did I mention that I have MILLIONS of delicas? that's no exaggeration).


And now there are more of these pieces, as I've started stringing and crocheting even more blends. Since my favorite color combination is black and white, I just had to make one of those!

I haven't listed this piece yet, but I've given it the name Rufaro, which means "happiness" in the African language of Shona. At some point, I decided that these pieces should have African names - names with meanings that go with the individual pieces.










And then there's Masamba, which means "leaves and vegetables." A beautiful blend of six shades and finishes of olive green.
















There are more... Right now I have a mix of white, crystal, and silver beads on my crochet hook (we're traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday, and bead crochet is great for road trips!). And there's a blend of beautiful blues just waiting to be started. At some point, I think there will be a red one. Maybe a purple. The possibilities are endless!

And during all of this bead crochet, my measuring spoons are finally getting some action. I'm not much of a cook (I can, but I really don't like to), and even when I do I rarely measure anything. So my spoons have been relegated to the back of the utensil drawer. When I started putting together these mixes, I thought I'd use my measuring spoons so I could have similar amounts of the different colors/shades.

And just in case you're wondering, a 54" long bead crochet rope, using 7 beads around, requires approximately 8 heaping teaspoons of delicas. :-)

Artisan Clay Fall Fashion Show Blog Hop

I didn't make it onto the Artisan Clay Design Team, but I've been a big fan of Kristie's work for a long time. The Design Team has the privilege of creating something new each month with components Kristie creates and sends to them, but this month they're doing something different that lets me play along - the Artisan Clay Fall Fashion Show Blog Hop!

Make sure to visit all the blogs, and then stop back at Kristie's blog and let her know what your favorite design or component was. You're then entered for a surprise giveaway, an Artisan Clay component for one lucky winner (giveaway ends at the end of the day). :-)

Here are a few of the pieces I've made using Kristie's components:

Terra - An Earthy Beadwoven Necklace

Nina - Tubular Herringbone Necklace with Smoke Fired Clay Focal


Arianrhod - Beadwoven Necklace with Smoke Fired Clay Donut Focals


Lalita - Tubular Herringbone Lariat with Smoke Fired Clay Donut Focal and Pearly Fringe


Heart Suspended - Romantically Earthy Necklace with Smoke Fired Clay Heart

Lilavati - Brilliant Plum and Lime Beadwoven Necklace
featuring one of Kristie's beautiful clay and glass components


and one of my all-time favorite pieces, which now resides in Sweden
Atalanta - One of a Kind Beadwoven Necklace with Smoke Fired Clay Donut Focal and Driftwood

I have a whole collection of Kristie focals, just waiting for me to create something... I just need more hours in the day! (Isn't that always the case?) :-)

Building a House Takes a Lot of Time

Don't let anyone fool you. It takes a TON of time, especially when you're doing a lot of it yourself. It's lots of fun, at least for us, but it's also a mad scramble at times to ensure that we're getting everything done when it needs to be done.

My husband's back has held up quite well during the process (he has major back issues), and even though we'd have liked to do some of the siding ourselves we hired some awesome carpenters who are working so well and so quickly that we're just going to have them do it all. I must say I'm relieved that we came to that decision. It would take us four times as long to do what they're doing, and we'd both be worn out. My job has been to paint all of the siding before it goes onto the house (we're putting a second coat of paint on after it's up), and it was all I could do sometimes to stay ahead of them. The problem wasn't so much with my getting tired of painting, but because the siding is so large and awkward I was limited in where I could put the pieces to dry. At this point I think I have enough for them to finish.

We've also picked out almost all the plumbing fixtures (the plumber has been doing all the rough-in work) and most of the lighting fixtures. It seems weird to be picking out tile for the bathrooms at this point, when we don't have any real walls (just framing) yet; but we have to have the shower figured out for the master bathroom so the plumber can do his thing. That means a trip to the tile store. We settled on cypress for the decking material, thanks to the boring bees we have around here. Boring bees are called that not because they're uninteresting but because they bore into wood. Apparently they don't like cypress, so we're going with that to ward them off.


Even with all this activity going on at the house, I've been beading whenever I can. I try to have beads strung all the time so I can crochet in the vehicle when we're driving around, and when we're at home I'm usually camped out in my chair with beads in front of me.

I managed to finish off another set of bracelets for The Laughing Dog Gallery in Vero Beach, Florida. It was fun to pull out some of my designs and bead them up in new colorways, and I'm anxious to see how well they do in the gallery.


Just as exciting as having all these cuffs in a gallery is that two projects I created are included in the newest Interweave Press eMag, Fabulous Peyote Stitch Jewelry with Crystal Accents!


The projects I created for the eMag were this crystal-edged peyote bracelet:


and these little peyote bails made to hold a crystal square:


And now I'm off! It's time to head to the tile store to try to make a decision about the tile for the master bathroom shower. There are soooooooo many choices that it's going to take awhile to finally settle on something we both like. Maybe I'll do a little browsing in magazines before we go so I have some ideas...

:-)

Lest You Think I've Been Slacking...

Building a house takes lots of time. Don't let anyone tell you differently. In addition to all the time required to research, locate, and purchase materials, there's the time involved in painting hundreds of pieces of trim and hundreds of pieces of siding. We're making good progress so far and finally have some carpenters we love - they've finished shingling the roof (54 squares), installed all the windows and doors (41 of them!), installed soffit around the entire house, and they're now starting to work on the trim. In the meantime, we've had the local fireplace shop order and install the fireplace that will provide most of the heat for the house. And now we're busy figuring out the quantities of deck materials we'll need so we can get those ordered. Whew!

Even with all of that going on, I've managed to fit in some beadweaving. I'm not going to post all the new pieces here, but I thought you might like to see some of them.

I finished a bead crochet necklace that was begun in May, using thousands of opaque delicas. This piece is named Zuri, which means "beautiful" in Swahili.


I also finished another bead crochet piece named Kaimana, which means "the power of the ocean" in Hawaiian. Kaimana is made from some of my all-time favorite beads, Czech glass seed beads with a picasso finish (which I purchased from an awesome Etsy seller named Shannon, aka beadsandbabble). Aren't these colors beautiful?


Those two pieces are by no means all I've been working on. There have been a few custom orders in the mix lately, including a pretty massive custom order for several pieces that will be going to a gallery in Florida. Here are the pieces I've made for the gallery so far, and I'm busy working on more! :-)


Oh, and that house I mentioned? Here's a fairly recent photo of that (before the windows were put in and the roof was finished). I can hardly wait until it's finished and we can move in!


What's everyone else been up to?

By the Numbers

As I was looking on the internet a couple of days ago for nails to use for the decks on the new house, I started to think about all the counting, adding, multiplying, and dividing I do during the course of a day. I know it's a long time ago, but I actually remember my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Wilson (one of my favorite teachers) telling us that we really needed to pay attention to math because we would use it in so many different ways. He was so right!

Math is quite prevalent in beading:

Doing peyote stitch requires measuring quantities of beads for a design, counting the beads to use in each stitch (particularly if you're doing two or three drop peyote), and measuring the length and width of the bracelet or necklace you're making to ensure a proper fit.














Bead crochet, if creating some kind of design (i.e., not just random stringing), also requires lots of counting so the beads are strung in the correct order. You also have to do some counting as you crochet to make sure you don't drop a stitch and inadvertently switch from an 8-around rope to a 7-around rope.









Right angle weave. More counting, as you're picking up a specific number of beads with each stitch. Start with four beads, then add groups of three beads to create the weave. Of course, that's just basic RAW - there are variations that use different numbers and give completely different looks to the finished work.














Herringbone, tubular herringbone. Yep. You guessed it. Counting. With herringbone, you're counting in twos most of the time, but there are variations that require you to pick up more beads. And you have to count them.

















So now it's back to counting nails... because we need to determine just how many hot dipped galvanized ring shank 3-1/4" long nails to order for our nail gun. More math: number of deck boards, number of joists, number of nails at each nailing point, plus some extras for attaching the boards we'll put around the perimeter of the deck. Oh, and we can't forget the hand rails.

Would you guess that we're going to need somewhere in the range of 7500 nails? Sheesh!

Silencing the Muse

At what point do I admit that I cannot possibly create all the things that I envision? I guess I should consider myself lucky that I rarely run out of ideas. I rarely have anything even resembling creative block. In fact, it's usually just the opposite. My Muse is constantly talking to me, showering me with ideas for everything imaginable. And, believe it or not, there are times I just want to tell my Muse to "HUSH!"

It's even worse right now. You see, we're building a house (that's the very house you see in the photo). Now you'd think my Muse would be content to just send along ideas for the house itself -- flooring, siding, how to build the fireplace, cabinets, door styles, window styles, bathroom layouts, kitchen counters, backsplashes, tile, built-in bookshelves, deck plans, etc., etc., etc. But nooooooooooo. He/she/it somehow manages to distract me from those larger decisions and whispers in my ear about how I could use some of the discarded building materials.

Bent nails. Jewelry of some kind? Perhaps a votive holder? Maybe a wall hanging. Bird houses.

Bits of wood. Picture frames? Tiny furniture? Little creatures?

I'm not sure how to tell my Muse that I just flat out don't have the time to consider all those suggestions. I already have all these beautiful beads that are calling out to me all the time. All day. Every day. And polymer clay. A big bin of polymer clay which, thankfully, is still workable even after a couple of years of having been stored in the bin. Yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. Art supplies - pens, paper, cardstock, paint. You name it. The Muse never shuts up, so I've amassed a big collection of "stuff" to try to stop the whispering in my ear.

The sad thing is that, despite my knowing that I'll never have time to make all the things I've thought of, I'm still collecting stuff. There's a whole box of discarded, damaged, and downright cool construction materials sitting in the basement now. Just waiting to be turned into something cool.

I sure do love making stuff... like this. Serpentine Shimmer, a 6' long ndebele rope made with silver-lined metallic delicas.