Bead Bracelet of Queen Ahhotep I. Material: Gold, Semi-precious stones. Second Intermediate Period, 17th Dynasty, ca. 1560-1530 BC. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. It is decorated with hieroglyphs of polished gold set in lapis lazuli. pic.twitter.com/HIXJ16zLiU
— Archaeology & Art (@archaeologyart) August 20, 2022
Custom necklace with dark blue lapis
Delivered the latest custom order today, a short necklace with lapis. All metal beads are from customer’s original necklace that broke long ago. It had natural dark blue stones too, but those got lost. I’m sure there is a variation of Murphy’s law that states: “if a part of the whole can be lost, it will be the most valuable and hard to replace part.”
Luckily, on my recent bead hunt for something unrelated I met some irresistible lapis, and it went to good use here.
I was given full freedom to make whatever would look best from the bunch of loose beads that was given to me and whatever else might work, for which I’m really grateful.
Necklace with many kinds of vintage fresh water pearls
I’ve started working on this necklace in the middle of many art shows happening all at once or back to back at the end of 2019. For a while, all attempts to make much progress were very futile.
Then just as the beginning of 2020 started to look a little more promising, COVID-19 demanded major adjustments to both creative and non-creative aspects of what I do, and all I could manage was projects with deadlines attached to them.
It is wonderful when people have interest in your work, yes, and it means even more to me when their lives are affected by the pandemic. It’s just that jewelry you started because an idea looked cool in your head fails to materialize for weeks and months, and then it’s a challenge to recall what you wanted to create. Luckily, I learned to take notes, and this time notes let me work in tiny spurs here and there without losing sight of the final look.
Like it happened before so many times, the original pearls came from the Blackbird Granary in Mt. Angel, Oregon.
Bead Bazaar Plus 2019
I will be showing my handmade jewelry and fine art at the Portland Bead Society’s 2019 Annual Bead Bazaar October 12 & 13th, 2019. The show will be held at the Portland DoubleTree Hotel, 1000 NE Multnomah St, Portland, Oregon 97232. There will be beads of all sorts (of course!), cabochons, semiprecious stones, beautiful finished jewelry, leather garments, glass art, and much more. Click the link below to see what various artists will bring to the event!
Bead Bazaar Plus 2019 on Facebook
Updated on October 11, 2019
Stage 1 of readiness for the Bead Bazaar Plus show. Jewelry is not up yet, but most of the artworks are already in place. The rest will be done tomorrow before the show opens. Come if you can, from what I saw today it’s going to be a great show!
Bead Bazaar Plus 2019 on Facebook
Updated on October 12, 2019
In a first for me, everything was done and ready by the time the show started. I am surrounded by lots of beautiful things. There are beads here. Some are very tempting.
Blackbird Granary find
A perfect weekend should include lots of coffee, pouring rains, and stumbling upon some quality vintage beads for my future creations. Blackbird Granary in Mt. Angel surprised me with some wonderful freshwater pearls today.
My introduction to ear climbers
I was asked to make custom ear climbers, and I never made those and never even heard of them. So the first thing I wanted to do was make a test pair and wear it for a little while to see how those things would feel, how to best keep them secured on the ear, and how high up an ear I could go to keep them practical. To stay on the safe side, I made a shorter test pair out of whatever was laying on the surface which happened to be composite mother of pearl shell and various glass. The test happened to be very short because the same day a nice lady approached me with questions about those earrings and what else I make and eventually bought them.
So I made myself the second pair of climbers (they are also adorably called ear crawlers!) with reconstructed turquoise and some other glass, and that pair is still with me, and I got to wear it for a few days.
To my surprise, ear climbers are so comfortable that I can’t feel them, and my ears are quite sensitive. I don’t know why I never ever heard about them and now think that more should be made because they are awesome and so different from what I normally make.
Oregon Rock & Gem Festival in Corvallis
From today’s visit to the Oregon Rock & Gem Festival in Corvallis: apatite and cotton candy stone slab that is a creature. Do you see how much of a creature that slab is?! Also got some very nice shell and sodalite beads and a wonderful drilled agate focal, but I’m mostly stupid happy about finally catching a piece of raw apatite with exact colors I love the most.
The show itself was pretty awesome. I would love to take home much more than I did. Except for lapis lazuli. I don’t want any of its expensive but obnoxious blues. In other news, finding any information on the cotton candy stone proves to be difficult. Some sources say it’s a type of quartz. I am not convinced.
Elegance in blue goldstone and gun metal
Custom earrings with oval goldstones, black faceted vintage glass beads, and gun metal. Made them for my daughter whose Birthday is right around the corner, in October, and apparently they match her hair pretty well!
Goldstone is a doubly misleading name for a sparkling glass that is neither a stone, nor have anything to do with gold. It is often used as a substitute for more expensive sunstone, and its blue variation can also resemble dark lapis lazuli.
Jewelry repair that became a custom design
Either a few pearls got lost when the original necklace broke, or the neck measurement was not right, but now this jewelry repair has turned into a custom design. Once the problem of too few beads became apparent, it only took a few messages with photos of various bead combinations to finalize a new design. It still highlights these gorgeous white pearls but also has pale mat amazonite and pseudo-vintage metal niceties. Thank goodness for agreeable customers. Now, would not it be nice if amazonite beads were easier to pair by color!
My first design idea was quite different though. I went for a classical combination of pearls and rondelle beads with Swarovski crystals, but it turned out I had none and bead places close to me had none either. Now I think it’s for the better. A less predictable look is more interesting.
Updated June 7th, 2019
Aaand the customer loved the result when we met. Phew! Why is it always nerve-wracking to show your creation to the person who is paying for it, no matter how many times you did it before and with good outcome?
Custom set of bridesmaid earrings, with a special meaning
Vintage glass pearls for this set came from the Mother of the bride’s 3-strand necklace. The bride will wear two strands, and pearls from the third one went into earrings for her bridesmaids. They are all close friends of the family and no doubt will appreciate these thoughtful gifts.
The faceted glass rondelle beads are Vintage from my own bead hunting, but by now I forgot where I found them.
The maid of honor gets special earrings and necklace with chains created from remaining glass pearls, and this still requires some planning, but the above earrings have been approved and started their journey to the East Coast.
Updated February 21, 2019
And the set for the maid of honor is done too. I’ve added mixed glass seed beads and some mother of pearl shells to help it stand out a little more. Also, I have lots of respect for brides who make so many decisions about an upcoming wedding and still keep their sanity.