Mixed Media

I don't think I really want to go and open my own store, but I was thinking in a daydreamy sort of way that I would like to open a store that was not quite a bead store and not quite a scrapbook store, but sort of a combination of both, and maybe more. I keep wanting to play with mixed media kinds of things and I know I'm not the only one, so I guess that's what I'm thinking of, a mixed media store! I don't think there's anything like that around here. Wouldn't that be fun? I don't think that I have the right personality to be a store owner, or I'd be a little more tempted to really do it. (Or if I thought my sister and I could do it together without killing each other!)

Ornamentea and steampunk

Remember back before Christmas when I said I was going to post pictures of the stuff I got from Ornamentea, and then I didn't? I never got around to taking the pictures at the time, but I finally did this week. I knew if I waited any longer it was going to get scattered all over the place.

Here is the contents of the Amazing Glaze kit:

Besides the jar of glaze itself (which is sort of a crystally powder) and the instructions, the kit had several bezels, the assorted colors of cord, and an assortment of stamps. After looking at the instructions, I have some fun ideas for what to do with this - some layered things with objects in them, maybe? We'll see what I come up with.

This next picture is part stuff from Ornamentea and part stuff from Loew's. I think you can guess which is which, really.

(Hint: the Ornamentea stuff is at the bottom.) The little round tin - which includes what seem to be shell casings - was the kit that came with a pre-order of the Steampunk book, and since the book has been released, I guess that means the little kit is no longer available. I really like the book, by the way. I was very impressed because a lot of people seem to use the term "steampunk" without really knowing what it means, and if you read through this book you'll come out of it with a pretty good idea, I think. Jean did her homework. (Which is what an author ought to do, yes, but unfortunately you can't always entirely count on it happening.) There's some great jewelry in here, but in between, there are short pieces about steampunk books - which is the original origin - as well as steampunk art, steampunk clothing, and more. It's really interesting, and I really think it's something that anybody trying to make anything that they're going to call steampunk ought to know.

I went to JoAnn's this week and bought alcohol ink, because I knew it was supposed to work on metal, and I got this idea that I would try to color the washers I bought at Loew's. I tried it last night, and the results so far are fairly encouraging, although I haven't taken pictures yet. (And actually the lid of the Amazing Glaze, seen in the picture above, got used as an experiment, too. It's no longer white!)

Deprived of my jewelry fix

Well, I was intending to post about the jewelry class I was supposed to take tonight, but it got cancelled. Bummer. (The store seems to have screwed up their record-keeping in a fairly major way, actually, but they gave me a store credit so I'm not going to slam them too badly. And with it being four days before Christmas, it had occurred to me that there was a possibility of cancellation.)

BUT... my Ornamentea order came today, so I have that to talk about! I'm going to take some pictures later. I promise to get that up by sometime tomorrow. After that, all bets are off until after Christmas.

Dallas report and bonus needlework

Ooh, this is pretty:

 

From Needleprint; it's an antique piece being sold at a Christie's auction.

I like embroidery. I've even been known to do some from time to time. (If you dig in my Flickr pictures, there are some crazy quilt blocks that I did a few years ago. And I've done a few pieces of cross-stitch and even needlepoint way back when.) And I am fond of scroll-and-vine patterns so it's not surprising that I like that particular piece. I swore off doing any more crazy-quilting, though, mostly because I was spending too much money on silk fabric and silk thread and antique buttons and such. The usual problem. I still have a lot of silk thread around, though, so I guess if I was to get inspired I wouldn't necessarily have to buy anything, though. Theoretically.


Anyway, back to jewelry... here's a bit cross-posted from my Livejournal about my Dallas trip:

One of the places I wanted to go this afternoon was the one and only Paper Source store in the state of Texas, which is at... Northpark Mall, I think? Or maybe Northpark Center? I don't think it's called anything so plebian as a mall, but it's a huge and very upscale one, whatever it's called, and I ended up getting the full tour, because even though I had looked up where the Paper Source store was ahead of time, I went the wrong way coming out of Dillard's, and had to make the full circle, almost, before I found it. (It's a square, actually, built around the four anchors - besides Dillard's, it was Nordstrom's, Neiman-Marcus and I think Macy's. No Sears here!) I didn't go in Nordstrom's but I did go in Neiman's. I was wearing old jeans from Wal-Mart and the aforementioned LLBean coat - which could really stand to be washed, now that I think about it - and oh my god, it was sort of comical to watch out of the corner of my eye as the salespeople sized me up and decided whether to try to sell me anything. A few did; most didn't. I've been in the N-M in Houston many times, and I don't think the employees there are near as snooty. But hey, I didn't buy anything so I guess the snooty ones judged correctly, really. However, I had a very nice conversation with a Chanel lady about Chanel Beige fragrance, which is apparently only available at that particular store. (I don't think that is the original N-M store because I think that was downtown, but it might well be more or less their flagship store nowadays.) I also sampled another new-to-me Chanel fragrance, "Bois des Iles" which I had read about someplace and knew to keep an eye out for. It smelled quite lovely, and so did Beige, for that matter, but not enough to tempt me to pay $200 for a bottle of either. (She should have tried for something a little less pricey, and I might have been tempted. But I think that her assignment at the time was to push Beige.)

I also went upstairs in N-M and looked at the jewelry - I just wanted to see what they were stocking. They had some lovely stuff - massively overpriced, of course. I did see some jewelry that looked like the stuff from that Elle magazine that I posted, but the "trend" I noticed was chain, chain, chain - necklaces with multiple chains in multiple patterns and sizes, mostly in gold. (Although there was some copper that was very nice.)

I am still amused about the salespeople. -- Oh, and also, I think I saw some of that jewelry out of that Elle magazine I posted about last week - the colored pavé stuff.

And a bit more:

The other plan I had for the afternoon was to find some bead shops. I found the first one quite easily - it was on Lover's Lane, not very far from said mall. I bought a few things but I was not blown away. Then I went northward looking for one that was allegedly in Carrollton, north of Dallas. I got very close to the place where I believe it to be, but I missed a turn or something, and by that time I was tired (I fooled around in the damn mall too long!) and I didn't turn around and go back for a second try at it, even though I will probably kick myself later about that. I headed off towards DFW instead and started looking for dinner, which I found just outside Grapevine Mills Mall. Fuddrucker's is not exactly fancy eating but it's not half bad, and I was hungry by that time.

I think the store I went to was called Beading Dreams. It reminded me a lot of Nomadic Notions/Z Bead, actually, although as far as I know it's not connected. I was right about kicking myself later; I wish I'd kept looking for the second store. But too late now - I'll just have to go the next time I'm in Dallas!

Experiments

I went up to Houston yesterday and went to Z Bead. The funny thing is that I haven't been there before, but I felt like I had the minute I walked in, and I guess it's not surprising, because it has the same owner as Nomadic Notions in Austin and San Antonio. It's somehow very obvious - the girls working there said they hear that a lot, even when people don't know ahead of time that it's the same. (I asked them if they knew why it wasn't just called Nomadic Notions like the other stores, but they didn't know. One possible theory I came up with: it doesn't sound hip enough. It's close to Rice U. so maybe they thought "Z Bead" sounded more young.) Anyway, I bought a few things - most notably, several stone donuts in different sizes - and I also signed up for a class in December; it's to make a beaded cuff. It's not all that far to go for a class, really, but I will have to make sure and go early to account for traffic, because it's always bad coming up Highway 288. Seems like no matter what time of day it is, there's always a slowdown somewhere!

Anyway, I don't have to worry about that for a month. In other news, I finished the donut (this is the non-stone, crystal and delica kind I'm talking about now) that I was working on, which was the vintage rose and clear one. (The Delica color may have been called luster crystal, actually, which is confusing.) It looks cute, in any case. Maybe I will do one set of the very pale ones. (I'm thinking of 3 or 4 of them as a set, strung on black linen cord, maybe.) Then I started another one, which will not be going with that set - it's erinite (green) and gold Delicas. That will be another set, the ones with gold Delicas, and the dark dark ones I did with the chocolate Delicas will be another. And then there's another set that's color-matched - pink crystals and pink Delicas, and so on. So I guess I will have four sets altogether if I finish all those.

Instead of taking pictures tonight, I worked on cleaning off my jewelry table some more. It's amazing how messy it gets for how few pieces of jewelry I actually finish. But I am thinking about finally actually working with the clay that I've been collecting up, so I figure I need a clear workspace for that.

I'm still experimenting with a lot of different techniques - you may have noticed. I have yet to really settle on one thing that I do exclusively - I don't know if I ever will, really, because what fun is that?

Here's one experiment I did lately: braided hemp. I tried little wooden beads and little copper washers, and I think they both look cute. I'm still working on how to finish things like this, though. I've had trouble with cord-ends that don't hold. Anybody got any advice?

Gifts and classes

I've been meaning to talk about the Christmas gifts I made for my family last year. Everything was sort of crazy and last minute and I didn't get pictures of a lot of them, but here is the necklace I made for my mother-in-law:

Just 8mm matte AB Czech beads in several shades of blue and green - I think those matte beads make up really pretty with just the beads and no spacers at all.

And here are a couple of things I made my sister (and she took these pictures):

 

As you can see, it's all pretty simple stuff, but everybody seemed happy with it. The top one is just Swarovski bicones on a headpin, which in my experience almost always makes a really cute earring. I made one of my cousins a pair using that "fire opal" color that were adorable. (It bugs me when I let stuff go without taking pictures; I need to make sure I take pictures of everything I make this year.) The other pair is just a 12mm Czech glass bead and some spacers, which is another simple idea I've used a lot.


I was thinking about registering some classes before Christmas last year, but the bead shop I had been going to (Bead Connection, in League City) didn't have any classes available, and I guess that should have been a hint, because after the holidays they were suddenly closed. So I had to find a new place, but driving up and down 518 in Pearland, I found one amazingly close to my house: Antiques, Beads, and Crafty People. They were very nice, when I went in. It's a small store - it actually was a convenience store, originally, I think! - but they have a lot of beads packed in there. I signed up for a class where we made this bracelet:

You have to remember that I took one basic beading class, where they taught you to make a simple loop and do a plain, flat crimp, and anything and everything I did in the two years after that I mostly just came up with on my own. So doing something like this that uses two wires was exotic to me. (I think this is a variation on right angle weave, isn't it?)

There's a journal entry in LJ in February where I note in passing that I signed up for more classes, and also that on the way home from my aunt's house in Bryan I was going by a bead store I hadn't been to before. That was Beadoholique, on the north side of Houston (which is not the same as the online beadaholique - note the difference in spelling). Beadoholique-with-an-O is a really nice store, maybe not quite as friendly as Antiques Beads - nobody is! - but they sure have some beautiful beads. And a really large variety of classes, some of which I'd love to take if it was a bit more convenient to me. Houston is a big place, though, and it's on the faaaaar side from me. It'd have to be a class I really, really wanted to take.

This is getting longish, and I need to go study, so I'll talk about those classes the next time.