New Resin - Part I

Wow. I started writing this post TWO WHOLE WEEKS AGO. I remember being all proud of myself for getting some posts partially written and lined up so all I had to do was finish them and my blog would look all nice and current and stuff.

Little did I know that I was going to be suddenly working crazy hours, have a sick kid and an even sicker car and gee...this is what it feels like to lose a two week chunk outta my life and not have any real clear memory as to where it went or what exactly happened to it.

But back before all that happened, I'd uploaded all these nice pictures of new resin pieces and don'tcha wanna see what they look like?

I knew you did...














I made a point of selecting summertime images when I prepped this particular batch. These are all vintage seashell illustrations on script backgrounds. The beads are bayong wood.








Then it was time for some 70's inspired summer and surfer expressions. Sadly, some of the more interesting designs in this group didn't survive the resin process, but I still love this artwork. Makes me think of Op shirts and Dolphin shorts (and if you don't know what those are, this blog may be too old for you LOL)








These designs came from a set of vintage Hawaii travel posters and feature not only surfers, but a great view of Diamondhead as seen from Waikiki.





Next stop on the summer vacation tour - Paris!





During college, I spent one amazing summer living in Paris and it was one of the best times in my life. I would go back there in a heartbeat!





So, Paris-themed pieces are always going to resonate with me. Or maybe that should be res-I-nate ;-)





More Paris!





This is an older view of Paris...love the balloon flying in the background!





Ahhh, Paris. It just makes you want to sing "Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regretted rien..." (For those that have kids - if you see "Madagascar 3", this song has quite a scene in it LOL)





I love this collage with the Eiffel Tower, dragonflies, script and flowers.








From Paris, I stepped outside into the garde and grabbed not only these images of tulips and pansies from vintage floral catalogs and seed packets...

















...to these never-in-real-life truly fantastical florals.

















And what's a garden without some butterflies? Since a previous experiment with square bezels with strangely and horribly wrong, I was excited to see that this round went differently and they all survived.





Maybe EVERY garden doesn't have a fairy, but I'm sure that certain special ones, way off in their most hidden corners, do.























As long as I've wandered into the realms of fantasy, I thought I'd throw in a Pegasus and a few unicorns just for good measure.

I've got lots more resin goodies in store including new designs and bezel shapes, but they all need a second pour to get that nicely domed top on them and as soon as I stop living La Vida Loca, I'll get right on that!

KJ

P.S. Monday is my birthday and I'm sorta kinda toyin' with a birthday sale in the ol' Etsy shops so watch for more news on that if I decide I can pull it off given my limited time to process/ship orders right now.

Wheee!!!!

I've been lucky enough to have a few more of my designs published...





...in the current Summer issue of "Stringing" magazine.

I'm not sure why, but summer seems to be "my" issue - it was the first I was ever published in AND I seem to get the most items in this issue than any of the other seasons. It must be that whole "California Girl" thing :-)

I haven't received my copy of the issue yet, but given that they are already sending out the publicity e-mails...





(snippet from a recent one)...it can't be too much longer.

I still haven't made the cover, but I'm not giving up until I do. A girl's gotta have some kinda goal to work towards, right?

Oh, and since this issue has resin as one of its topics, I got out the resin-making stuff over the weekend and did a major pour so watch for new resin items hitting the blog and the shop in the next couple of weeks. Some of the items are deep enough that I will have to do a second pour on them. Then I'll have to do all the photography, editing, etc.

Keep an eye out!

KJ

Car Antics

So...that really horrible smell that's been increasing in my garage for the past few nights?

Yeah, that was gas.

As in...gasoline.

From my car.

Via a cracked fuel tank.

Which has to be completely replaced to the tune of a cool $2,000 or so.

Did I mention the car is 10 years old, has over 100,000 miles on it and is probably only worth about $3,000?

Sigh.

I wonder where the nearest bus stop is to my house. I should probably find that out...

KJ

Kid Antics

You have not experienced laughter to nearly the point of passing out until you have witnessed the following:

A 9 year old boy standing at the top of the stairs, stark naked, doing the Running Man dance and singing "...every day I'm shuffling..." (a line from the song "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO).

OMG...I have never laughed so hard in my life. And I wish I had it on video so I could share it...well...maybe not because of the whole naked thing, but SO FUNNY!

KJ

New Stuff That's Not Earrings

Okay, not really. It's two pairs of earrings AND...a necklace.

I know, it's VERY exciting. Do try to contain yourself.

Not only did I get some great new stuff at a couple of recent bead shows, but I actually had time to get my work surface organized AND get some things made. It's probably appropriate to yell "ALERT THE MEDIA!" at this juncture so g'head...knock yourself out.

I'll wait.

Okay, back to business.





I found these marvelous verdigris patinated pieces at a local bead show. I've worked with patinated brass before, but these pieces really have a lot going on. I can see at least 3-4 colors from dark brass through a couple of shades of green/verdigris to bright gold.





I added in some brass beads and wire-wrapping and some greige AB Swarovski crystals and these babies practically made themselves.

PLUS! Check out my new photo background! My old piece of weathered wood had gotten a little TOO weathered so I grabbed a couple of pieces of tile at Lowe's and this is my first photo shoot using one of them. What do you think?





I went a little nuts at this booth, but I couldn't pass up these great teardrop shapes and they just frame the seahorse charms so PERFECTLY!





This pair got some Swarovski crystals in a color called erinite. I wanted to contrast the bright sparkle with the kind of grungy look of the patinated brass and also play up the verdigris color. I initially went for some turquoise disks, but they were a little too blah with the brass...I'm kinda diggin' the crystals.





But, I promised you a necklace and here it is!





I started with this gorgeous ceramic focal from Slate Studios. The way the blue and purple glaze is swirled on the butterfly is just yumm-a-licious.





Then I started wire-wrapping on some Swarovski crystals (that erinite color again), some blue/purple Chinese crystals and some marquis-shaped Czech glass that has a lovely swirl of lavender, blue and teal along with a Picasso finish on it.





This necklace is delicate and simple so I kept the clasp the same - just a brass lobster clasp with a couple of wired crystal dangles.





All my favorite colors come together in this necklace and while the design is very simple, I'm proud of myself for finally breaking out of my "bead block" and getting something completed that I'm happy with.

I'm looking forward to getting more "play" time this weekend...maybe I'll even feel up to tackling a bracelet!

KJ

I Need A Pick-Me-Up Bead Porn

Yep, that's right. Bead Porn plonk in the middle of the week...just because I feel like it. I'm in one of those "nothing's REALLY wrong, but things just don't feel right, either" kinda moods and I need something to break me out of it.

Nothing does that better than porn, right?

Right.

So, here goes...

This was a case of "I'm going to get a jump on spring and buy springy-type beads now"...where "now" is defined as last December. Now, here it is almost summer and I haven't used them yet. But they make good porn ;-)





If they price for one item at a site is less than $5, I try to buy multiple items (assuming I like them, of course) at a time so they can all ship together.





I was mostly on the fence about this sea horse because of the color, but sometimes I convince myself that will be a challenge to my skills and that's why I go for the purchase even though it's outside my comfort zone. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't...haven't figured out which for this one yet.





I love a verdigris finish, yes I do.





So, why not get a bird to go with the flower in the same finish?

All of these items are from Patina Worx.





I don't buy seed beads much any more - my vision has gotten so bad that doing bead embroidery or peyote is a lot more difficult - but the colors and finishes on this set of what is equivalent to a size 6/0 seed bead just caught my attention. The vendor named them "Indian Corn" and that's definitely what they remind me of.





I have a lot of faceted fire polished Czech glass beads, but nothing in this size (they are quite large) or with this lovely frosted finish. Great olive green color with touches of blue in it, too.





I've bought a number of sets of these gilded melon glass beads in different colors, but am always on the lookout for more. They make EXCELLENT additions to any design. In fact, they've almost become a design good luck charm for me because the pieces I've used them in have always turned out to be some of my best work.





I love teardrop and briolette beads. The only problem is that I love them so much I tend to hoard them and not use them as often as I should. These were so pretty and delicate, though, that I couldn't resist adding them to the hoard. Maybe I need a self-challenge for this weekend to make SOMETHING with this shape in it.





Here's a more solid color version.

All of this Czech glass is from Arte Bella Surplus.





Here is where you can see I started to put on my "get ready for summer" hat. Love these bright, sunny yellow enameled teardrop beads. I totally have earrings in mind for them.





And where would our yellow sun be without a pretty blue sky to go with it? Ummm...set for the night, probably. Duh. You know you are losing it when you ask yourself stupid questions LOL!

Both of these are from Sue Beads.





I don't often go for buttons because I usually have no idea what to do with them, but this time, not only could I not resist that great blue/green color combo, I DO have an idea. Yay. Go, me!





These have already been made into earrings with some rose and smoky quartz, but I thought I'd post them again in the porn, just for fun.

The buttons above and these hearts are both from Gardanne.





And...back to sunny yellow again. I swear you can tell what I was thinking about on any given day based on my bead purchases LOL! These are polymer clay flowers.





And sky blue poly clay flowers...are you sensing a trend here? I have a feeling it was a rainy day and I was dreaming of sunshine and being outdoors.

Both of these sets are from Tooquarius.





One of my favorite polymer clay designers has started making accent bead sets to go with her pendants and charms and she uses alcohol inks to color them.





How awesomely rich are these colors? When beads look like candy and make you want to eat them, you KNOW they need to come home with you.

Both of these sets are from Menagerie Studio.





I definitely started thinking about summer designs here with these pretty ceramic seashells. I think it's my favorite season to design around. Being based in So Cal with all the beach influence, etc., sort of makes that inevitable.





I can't even count how many versions of starfish beads and pendants I have, but that doesn't seem to help me resist buying more. Add in an aqua background and I'm pretty much a goner.





In addition to ocean-themed designs, I also love to work with what I think of as the "beach ball brights" for summer. This ceramic set of beads fits in perfectly with that theme.





As does this set. It's great that both of these sets could be focals in a bracelet OR they could be accent beads in a necklace with a larger pendant focal.





So, it's a good thing I picked up this heart pendant from the same vendor. She had them in several colors - including my usual "go to" cool colors like purple, blue, etc. But, I decided to be brave and go with the orange. Then I found out later that one of Pantone's top colors is Tangerine Tango.

I love it when I'm brilliant...it happens so rarely any more as usually I forget what I was saying in the middle of a sentence or have no idea why I walked into a particular room in my house.

All five of the above items from the seashells through the heart came from Suburban Girl Beads .





There was a certain point where, in going through my bead stash, I decided I didn't have enough pink focal beads. Can't exactly remember why that was (see memory issues above), but it may have had to do with a shirt I was trying to match or something and noticing that I had a lot of seed, accent and filler beads in pink, but not so much in the way of focals. Anyway, it stuck with me strongly enough to get me to purchase this set of pretty lampwork from Radiant Mind.





More from the "I need pink focals" phase, plus, I was also looking to jump start some earring designs and wanted pairs.





Sue Beads to the rescue! I love the little added touch of silver, too!





I've been seeing more and more of this finish from the lampwork artists lately - not sure what the official term is as it's far more than just regular etching - and I can't get enough of it. This set made me think of all the different shades of beach sand. PERFECT for anchoring summer designs.





And, can't have sand without the water to go with it so I had to get this set, too.

Both are from Havana Beads.

That's it for this round, but it was quite a hefty amount of porn and should hold us for a while. I know I feel better...how about you?

KJ

More Earrings (and a dash of complaint)

First, the complaint. Is anyone else hating the new Blogger interface as much as I am? What a cruel and unusual form of punishment this is. There I was, cruising along perfectly happy with my old familiar comfortable interface (which, I might add, took me many years of painful learning to figure out all the kinks and peculiarities) and POOF! Along comes this new crap which, besides giving me a headache from too much white space on the screen, seems hellbent on turning all my pictures sideways AND wants to force me to use Google Chrome. No, I say. Just NO! Fight the power!

Stupid Google. (oh, and if you have any doubt about the power of Google, the first time I typed the above complaint, the entire thing disappeared from the screen and I had to re-type it from memory. The Google is diabolical)

Anyway, on to the earrings (before they disappear, too.)

The muse seems hellbent on earrings and earrings only for right now. Much like Google, she is diabolical. I tried making a bracelet over the weekend and wow...is it ever FUGLY. It's already occupying center stage in the re-do area, but it will have to wait. I can already tell that any attempt to re-do it at this point will only result in more wasted time, material and tears.

In the meantime, I got earrings. I'm still working my way through these banded, heat-treated agate teardrops. This pair has swirls of brown and cream and even some pale blue. I added faceted smoky quartz for some sparkle and to play off the brown tones and then found a strand of Czech glass melon beads that had the same color scheme (although they have a touch of green, too, in the right light) and added a couple of those. I'm running through the tail end of my stash of Bali vermeil quickly, but the gold just looks so rich with this color scheme, I couldn't resist using it. Most of my vermeil was bought years and years ago when I first started designing and it was much more affordable. I don't know if I'll be able to replace it when it's gone what with prices being so high now.

I went a little crazy on Etsy buying up so many of Kristi Bowman's awesome copper designs. Now, I'm thrilled to start pairing them up with some of my lampwork stash for some great finished pieces. These etched beads from Outwest have such great colors in them - purples, greens, etc. and they really pick up the play of color in the copper, too.

Purples and lavenders seem to pair especially well with the copper so I grabbed this pair of swirly beads from Bee Boo. I added some Chinese crystals for extra sparkle because the swirls on the lampwork have some sparkly goldstone in them.

These hoop components called for something extra special so I grabbed these beautiful glowing kyanite tubes and some Chinese crystals for extra sparkle.

Last, but not least, some more of the agate teardrops. I used blue/brown ceramic flower components from Karen Totten and, once again, smoky quartz and vermeil. Now, let's see if the new interface will actually let me post this without eating it or turning it sideways. KJ