Sampler

Remember back in September or so when I was working on the sampler grid thing for Claudine's class and I said I'd post a picture of it when I finished? (No, you probably don't. I barely did.) Well, I did finish it, way back then, and it's been on my wall all this time, but I never remembered to take a picture - but now I have! And here it is:

I don't think it's perfect, by any means, but it's pretty cute!

Circles & rub-ons project

I'm a couple of weeks behind with the weekly projects for Claudine's class, so I just did the week three project in the middle of week 5. (Actually, being rather famously a procrastinator, I consider this to be pretty good. But I've kept up with the classwork in general much better than I really thought I would.)

There's nothing terribly complicated about how this is put together. It has several layers:

• an 8x8" canvas
• a piece of scrapbook paper for background
• 2" circles pasted down in a grid
• rub-ons

Claudine's version looked quite different from mine - it had entirely different colors, and one big rub-on of a chandelier. I couldn't find the chandelier locally and I didn't love it enough to order it specially online, so I went looking for something else. I never did find one big one that I liked all that well, but I found these Heidi Grace ones in sort of a metallic turquoise color that I thought would do. So then that also gave me my color scheme - I was thinking of cool colors generally, sort of blue/green/purple. I found a stack of 8x8" DCWV papers that I think were called "Old World" that had a pale moss-green patterned sheet in it

I'm really pleased with how this came out - this is a fairly small piece, and I'm already thinking about doing a bigger version. I have all kinds of space on my walls. (Or I could also do a series. Hmm.)

Twisted

I got Kerry Bogert's Totally Twisted: Innovative Wirework & Art Glass Jewelry, and all I can say is, I'm sorry I waited so long to get it. I love wirework and I'm always saying I want to start doing more of it, so maybe if I try a couple of these projects it'll get me kick-started. We'll see. But anyway, this book is beautiful to look at and the projects look great and the only downside I see is that it's making me want to go buy more lampwork beads to use!

Meanwhile the Claudine Hellmuth class starts tomorrow, so I'm excited about that. (I'm still missing some supplies - most notably the Cuttlebug, because nobody ever puts it on sale and I'm playing a waiting game on that. I decided I could probably manage without it, anyway.)

Artwork

I don't know what's up with me and the classes all of a sudden, but classes and workshops usually make me happy, so maybe I ought to be taking more of them, right? Which is to say, I signed up for another class. I feel kind of guilty about spending money since I'm still not working, but I'm already signed up for these two (that is, the BeadFest class and the one I'm about to tell you about) and they're paid for so it's too late for second thoughts about that, really.

There should be a little badge in my sidebar for the new one, which is not a jewelry class but an artsy-collage sort of thing. It's called @ home with Claudine and it's an online class taught by Claudine Hellmuth. I've been mulling it over for a couple of weeks - I guess I first saw it on Claudine's blog and since I kept thinking and thinking about it, I finally decided to go for it. If it will prod me to actually do more playing with collage then it's a good thing. The supply list is a little bit overwhelming, but most of the stuff I don't have already is stuff I've been meaning to buy - like sampling Claudine's paint line, which I've been hearing really good things about. And the class doesn't start for a month, which means I can watch for coupons and sales and maximize my dollars, hopefully.

Barnes & Noble, part 2

You know, I had mostly forgotten about it, but I'm pretty sure my copy of Bead Simple: 150 Designs for Earrings, Necklaces, Bracelets, Embellishments, and More got wet in the hurricane. (I was just discussing with another ex-Galvestonian at Christmas how hard it is to be sure what become of specific items.) Now that I looked at it again tonight, it makes me want to go buy another copy.


I haven't watched Beads Baubles & Jewels lately, because I'm pretty sure I've seen just about every episode of the last five seasons, many of them several times - but looking at Wrap, Stitch, Fold & Rivet: Making Designer Metal Jewelry (Lark Jewelry Book) makes me remember how much I always enjoyed Mary Hettmansperger's segments. It looks like a good book. And I think Margot Potter's Beyond The Bead: Making Jewelry With Unexpected Finds needs to go on my "to buy" list, too.

Barnes & Noble, part 1

So I went to Barnes & Noble to look at mixed-media-type books. I looked at some straight scrapbook kind of stuff too (did you know there are at least two books called The Joy of Scrapbooking?) but here are some things I liked from the jewelry section.

(I'm gonna put the links in in two formats in case the ones with the pictures don't work right.)


Amulets and Talismans: Simple Techniques for Creating Meaningful Jewelry
This one had some good technique information as well as really cool ideas.



Custom Cool Jewelry: Create 200+ Personalized Pendants, Charms, and Clasps
I know this one isn't new or anything (I didn't look at dates, I don't know that any of them are) but I hadn't actually looked at this book in person before, and it has some really good ideas.


(Hmm, I can't tell what's going on with the formatting, maybe I'll break this up into a couple of separate posts so it won't be completely confusing.)

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!)