Fall is Organic Bead Time

Good morning, good afternoon, happy Monday bead peeps! Fall is my favorite time of year for beadmaking. Not only is the studio cooler, but I get to bring out all my favorite brown, tan, and dirt colors and mix them all together into earth toned glassy goodness!

For starters, I have this bead set made with Effetre Dark Fossil and Double Helix reducing glass, available in my Etsy shop:A fellow beadmaker suggested I try Fossil with silver glass, so I bought a 1/4 pound to try out the color. WoW, I love it! I will need to go back and order at least a pound of this, it's going to be one of my favorite glasses for organics.

I've also been working on a series of organic big hole beads, which I've silver cored and capped with my own handmade sterling silver bead caps. A couple of them are shown in this recent blog post, and here are a few more:
This one has gold leaf in the mix and hammered bead caps:
This one also has gold leaf and a paisley or wave pattern:This one is my pièce de résistance - a bead with double caps! It started out as an experiment, I wasn't really sure I could do a double cap on this size bead, and it took a lot of time to get the bead caps to line up just right... but I had a blast making it and I'll probably do some more in the future. I recently bought some design stamps for my new line of charm necklaces, so I used one of the stamps to decorate the outer caps. The inner caps have a hammered texture:I think it's going to be a good week!
Many thanks to all the folks who've started following me on Twitter. I'm still trying to figure out how the whole thing works! I'm looking forward to the new Twitter layout they're rolling out over the next few weeks. Lately I've been tweeting every day, maybe a couple times a day. Click the link in the right side bar to see my Twitter profile and follow me! Thanks!

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Two New Scroll Sets

I have two new scroll design bead sets in my Etsy shop. This first set has Triton scrolls melted into an Ivory base. The reaction between these two glasses makes a great organic webbed effect:The second set is made with a Nyx base and raised Aurae scrolls. I love this glass combo:Here's another Nyx and Aurae set I made a few months ago:
TGIF!!!
:-)

Prehistoric Fish!

These really cool, unique "Prehistoric Fish" were made by Mary Van Hoy of Van Olive Lampwork. I love her style, and love the colors... I see some metallic glass! Check out these fish in her Etsy shop:

The Fruits of My Summer

Happy Monday bead peeps! I'm back with a blog post after a long summer hiatus. I spent July and August hunkered down in the studio like an obsessed mad scientist, having a great time learning how to make silver charm necklaces. I'm now carrying this new line of custom charm necklaces in my Etsy shop! Here's one example:I have a variety of styles, or you can design your own. The charms can include crystals, pearls, and hand-stamped initials or designs of your choice. They are so much fun to make!
I've also been hammering out sterling bead caps and adding them to my silver cored beads:Here's a recent bead set, made with CiM Halong Bay and Aurae, a beautiful combination:More photos of my new work coming soon. Have a great week!