Terpsichorean

 Yay, I made something! I've been sick for a while and I wasn't up to beading, but now I am better and overflowing with creative energy! I have so many cool new and old beads to play with. I started by making a birthday present for my teacher Jolie, who likes black and brown and grey all together. The necklace is built around a banded agate focal, and features sardonyx, pyrite, Swarovski crystals, and a few Afghani coins.

Oh, and this lady! How cool is she? Beads Galore had bunches of these vintage Japanese stamped glass charms and I HAD to have them! I loved them so much that I also HAD to put one in Jolie's necklace, and I thought it would be cool to silhouette her against an old coin. The necklace is called Terpsichorean, because Terpsichore is the Greek muse of dance and she has a really fun name to say.

I love vintage beads

 One of my great joys as a jewelry designer is finding and using unusual vintage beads and components! I just listed these Absinthe Crystal Chandelier Earrings in my Gothic Jewelry section. They feature some of my favorite vintage beads -- those teardrops are hollow blown glass! How cool is that? I can't even remember where and when I got them, because I buy vintage beads from so many places.

However, I do remember where I got the vintage cabochon, teardrops, and bicones in Ghost Portal. They all came from this weird shop in NY that was tucked away in a warehouse-y/industrial-y district on Long Island. It was one of the must-stop-shops whenever my mother-in-law and I would go bead shopping. Sadly, the store has since been closed down and torn down, so there are no more fun afternoons of wandering around picking out weird vintage beads, but I do still have a pretty impressive stash from the few years that I did shop there.

What's Old is New Again

 The most recent Artbeads.com challenge is titled "What's Old is New Again" and the idea was to use vintage components (from your own collection or purchased from Artbeads) to create something new. I love designing with vintage beads, cabochons and whatever other old things I can get my hands on (keys, chandelier crystals, pendants...), so this theme really grabbed me! The hard part was deciding on just one idea so I could figure out what to order.

 Then I saw this beautiful LillyPilly lotus in the Pendants section, and I just knew that the black lip shell would be perfect with the vintage glass (or possibly crystal?) beads that I had received from a family friend in New York. Her mother had passed away and left her a lot of costume jewelry. After it has sat for a while, unsorted and unloved, she thought "Oh, AJ makes jewelry! Maybe she would like some of this" and brought bags of it over to my mother-in-law's home for me to sort through. These crystals were definitely the very best thing in there. I salvaged them from a two-strand necklace strung on the weirdest super-fine chain, which was so old and fragile that it disintegrated in my hands as I pulled beads off of it. There's even a vintage two-strand clasp with a crystal set into it, which I will have to save to use with the rest of the beads.

Searching around the site, I also found some beautiful brass links in the Base Metal section, which I felt nicely echoed the lotus design but also gave it a Victorian feel. Then to pull in the pure gold color of the lotus, I picked out some pearls from the Swarovski Beads section. I also got a few Findings to finish everything up.

When I came up with the necklace, I was torn as to whether I should sell it or keep it for myself... but then I realized that it was *perfect* to go with the costume for my solo this weekend, so that settled it! Here's a little close-up of how nicely it fits with my halter top. What you can't see is that the top has teal and brown beaded trim, and my pants have a teal and brown and black swirly print, and that I was wearing a ridiculous brown feather headpiece. I felt so pretty!

FTC disclaimer: Certain beads used in this project where provided for free by Artbeads.com in return for promotional consideration.

Something very simple

I made this set a while ago, and have been struggling to get enough decent photos to list it on Etsy. I still need some decent close-ups of the focal, which means I won't be posting it until I get a new tripod, but in the meantime, it can pretty up my blog.

The focal is a piece of brass filigree with a foil-backed green glass cab in the center. I bought it at the same place that I get all of my vintage keys at Gem Mall, and I'm pretty sure I got it for free. There was no price on the bag, and they're one of those vendors where they write all the prices on the bag, eyeball it, add it up in their head, and round it down to a nice even number. It's a little annoying for inventory purposes, but awesome for saving a few dollars.

The Gem Show Recap -- in photos.

Ok, I've somehow lost the ability to change my font, so we're going to have to live with this one. That's alright, though. The main attraction here is bead photos!

First, the above image. My vintage haul from East of Oz! In the center, some really wicked Japanese beads, black spiderwebby lampwork. They're actually hollow. I've had just a couple of these in the past, in light pink and light blue. To have a full set of graduated black ones is really cool.

On your left, some huge green satin drops. I forgot to ask where they were from. I'm going to guess maybe they're Czech or West German. Even though I buy a lot of vintage, I am not any sort of expert on it. I just love green satin glass, and these look like the antwerps from the old Quest For Glory games, which is funny.

On your right, some opaque green Czechoslovakian drops. They have a really cool deco look to them, and they also remind me of cicadas. I think I'm going to hang them from some sort of collar... Maybe something inspired by Flaming Teeth.

And along the bottom, some luminous foil-backed flowers. Look how they shine! Chris actually picked those out. Marie also had some in emerald green, but the darker glass didn't glow like this aqua does.
Next, my Green Girl Studios goodies! This grouping of beads didn't photograph well, most of the details just don't show up at all. Anyway, I've already got a plan for that mermaid ring. And the cool thing about a lot of these, mermaid included, is that they have words or even entire quotes on the back.
The dryad pony! She has a garnet eye and coral accents in her mane. I'm going to have fun matching leaves to her to make an awesome necklace. Because, of course, I don't have enough leafy necklaces already.
Mini-beetle! And matching spacers! Pretty cool, huh? This was actually one of the simpler and smaller mini-beetles. I almost bought a black one with green and black wings, but I am a real sucker for that green opal glass. Also in this picture, two ridiculously cute Japanese lampwork beads. They had all kinds of little animals, even a baby seal.
I bought way too many seed beads at work, there was no way I could photograph them all. Instead, here's the highlights! On the left, a very nice green-bronze marble. The most expensive seed beads I own. I didn't even add them to my database, because I'm going to be greedy and save them for myself. They're actually brighter than the photo. The middle two are Czech size 6 seed beads that have a mottled, stone-like appearance. I have some pressed glass leaves (and maybe some fire-polished) the same color as the blackish ones. On the right, magic-lined size 6! These dichro-like seed beads are unbelievably awesome.
And last but not least, some goodies that my friend Deb from Bead Indulgences gave me! Very cool ivory pressed glass skulls, a malachite cab, a serpentine donut, and Swarovski crystals. They have an official name, but I call them "dust grey opal." I was hoping for an opal version of shadow crystal, but they have a decidedly beigish cast. I've heard they look better if you string them on gold wire, so I'm going to try.

I forgot to photograph my rivolis and Czech glass, so I'll probably post those later this week. Also, I didn't photograph the crystals, because there's a lot of them. Most of them are colors that I already had anyway. And speaking of crystals, I'm going to try to put them all away before I crash tonight. I'd better get started!

It's raining on my parade!

We hit Long Island yesterday, and almost immediately set out for some bead shopping. I revisited Bead Market in Farmingdale, where I once again went wild on vintage. They had so many cool things that I just couldn't resist. I can't wait to get home and design with them!

Next we hit Beads and Stitches, which my mother-in-law thought was new, but I know that I have some beads at home with their label on it, so I think they'd just moved to a new spot. It was a pretty nice spot, in an older house. Very spacious, well-lit, and what looked like a pretty nice class room area. I was initially excited to see that they still had a good assortment of seed beads, but I ended up being enticed by their stone beads! I got some sardonyx, some wood or maybe petrified wood, some sort of purple stone, and also some glass briolettes. You may have noticed that I don't normally use stone beads, but these really spoke to me for my Fall line. It should be fun to see what I can create with them.

After that we took a quick trip to a nearby mall which had an Indian import store, which means lots of belly dance clothes! I got all kinds of cute skirts and tops that can be worn for dancing, Ren Faires, or just looking great. I was all excited to be able to wear some today, because yesterday was beautiful so naturally I imagined that today would be, too! Oh, how disappointed I was to wake up to cold, rainy skies! I'm going to have to wear pants, or at least a heavy skirt.

Today we're planning to hit Ace Handicraft, my favorite Long Island bead stop. I'll post about that trip this weekend.

Great big sale going on now!

Today I started my big sale. It's not actually a moving sale -- got at least a few more months of saving up to do, as it turns out. It's more like a "Making room for my awesome Autumn collection" sale, because the website was getting a little, well, over-stocked.

Things are very busy for me right now. In a little over 2 weeks, I'm leaving for my annual visit to NY to see the in-laws. My first two days there will be spent at a wedding. I still need to buy a dress for said wedding, and then make gorgeous jewelry to go with it. And before I leave, I need to photograph all of the 2008 LL-BFAC projects I've received and mail them back out. I don't feel comfortable with leaving other peoples' artwork in my home while I'm gone for a couple of weeks. And of course, I have lots of other little things to take care of, including jury duty on the 30th. Never a dull moment...

Because of this, I'm taking a small hiatus from weekly updates. During this time I will be putting more of the current stock on sale, doing general maintenance, and probably adding some items to the Gallery. I will also be beading new jewelry. On August 25th, once I've had a little time to recover from my trip, I will unveil the start of my Autumn collection. Expect to see soft neutrals and rich earth tones.

Coincidentally, my big sale will also run until the 25th! I kicked it off today by marking down all of my Crystal Bracelets to $45 from $60, and discounting some assorted necklaces. I intend to put a few more things on special, but there was a thunderstorm overhead so I had to shut down ;) I'll certainly post sale updates here.

Today's Cool Thing is the Vintage Indie blog. If you love the vintage aesthetic, and you love supporting Indie businesses, then this is the blog for you!