Featured Designer: Adribeads of Budapest

I've been AWOL for a few days now trying to gather my thoughts and get a new pattern ready. I found this at A Bead A Day and thought I'd share. I love recycled items!

Featured Designer: Adribeads of Budapest

via A Bead A Day by Lisa on 8/29/09

What a happy day! It's featured designer Friday!! :)

I've been waiting all week to share these pieces with you. I thought these were clever and extra cool because they are made using a bottlecap as a base.

When I visited the Adribeads etsy site I was intrigued by the color combinations, technique and materials used to turn used bottlecaps into earrings.

The designer of these cool pieces is Adrienn of Budapest.

Adrienn also has a blog where she shares her designs and thoughts behind them.

Make sure you check out her seed bead peace sign earrings too! Another clever design!

Thanks for sharing Adrienn! Have a great weekend!!

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Time to Recoup

I've been so busy lately attending to other writing duties that I've spent far too many hours at the computer to even call myself productive. Sometimes it's best to just stop and do something you consider non-productive.

Jean Campbell's blog is always a great inspiration to me. While it is mostly about beading she takes time to talk about daily life and share little tips like this one. "Summer, a Facebook friend, sent me this quote by John Lubbock--so fitting for a day like today!

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
I know this, most of us do, but we get so caught up and driven by a project that we work until we're just "working" and really achieving nothing.

I'm trying to rearrange my office so that it is an office/beading studio combined. It will be much easier making patterns as I bead a part of a design, then draw it out on the computer, bead the next part etc.

I was really impressed with the amount of supplies and finished beadwork Lorelei has in a small space by the simple principle of elevate, elevate, elevate. I'm quite challenged when it come to organization and have gotten "half-way there" with my new arrangement several times, then decided another way would be more efficient. If I don't stop changing my mind and just get all my supplies in here, I'm not going to be able to find anything.

Hopefully I'll have something new to tell you shortly.

Button Brooch

Button Brooch

via Jean Campbell by Jean Campbell on 8/19/09

I wrote a blog on Beading Daily today entitled 5 Ways to Wear a Brooch. The exercise got me truly jazzed up about making brooches again! Since I don't wear them that often (I'm not a very good wardrobe planner), I never think to wear them. But they work up so fast that they're fun to make. I think I'll need to pull them out of the drawer more often.

Here's a brooch I made last night that I'd like to share with you. Blogger is being naughty and turning all my photos upside down, though, so click here to see the photo-only instructions. Please let me know if you can follow along okay. Enjoy!

Materials and Tools
2' of brass 28-gauge wire
1 green/gold 17mm glass vintage button with shank
1 diamond trellis filigree (Vintaj #F280)
1"x3" piece of brown scrap leather
2 brass 6mm eyelets
1 1/2" pin back
Wire cutters
Heavy-duty scissors
Chain-nose pliers
Ballpoint pen
Eyelet setter
Dremel tool and 7/64" drill bit
Beading awl

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The Muse

Stretch your creativity. Use your imagination. Engage the "Muse". Scarlet Lanson, the nineteen year old contributor of Beadwork Magazine has competitions called Use the Muse. For each competition a component is chosen, a kit assembled and each contestant receives the same identical kit. It's up to the contestant to decide what to do with it. The component is kept secret from everyone but the participants until "The Big Reveal" Check out the last contest winners at her website and join the Use the Muse III contest.

Eye Candy

Yes, today's about the eye candy I've found on other beaders websites and blogs.
Morwyn at Another Country Beadworks does some beautiful bead embroidery. I loved her work in progress. Two very different shaped agates. She also has some beautiful beaded containers. She sells her work on Etsy and has some absolutely gorgeously intricate looking work.

Rowan Devoe at Le Fresne's Castle has a completely different take on beading with no less breathtaking results. I really like her interpretation of Perdita in her latest project.

I'm going to have to keep it short today. Having a little problem with my eye and it's not happy looking at a computer screen.

New Christmas Ornament

I seem to be breaking records everywhere this month. I've created another Beaded Ornament, the second one this year. I usually only manage to get one pattern a year done.

This one is a six pointed star made with Czech seed beads, 3mm bugles and 4mm Swarovski Crystal bicones. The sparkle provided by the bicones is fantastic in real life but it's hard to capture in a picture without getting a glare.

I used Miyuki bugle beads because they are nice and smooth and you don't have to worry about sharp edges cutting the thread. You may not be able to get them at your local bead shop, but do a search on line. Many online stores carry them.

Of course the pattern is listed at The Bead Coop. Just select The Bead Doodler in the drop down designer window in the search box. It's pattern #19684

So, speaking of patterns, how much do you know about copyright laws as they pertain to beadwork? Go to Jeanette Shanigan's website and take her Copyright Quiz.

What is The Bead Coop?

The Bead Coop is a co-op run website where designers can sell their patterns. Customers get the benefit of instant down-load when they buy any e pattern. One of the original founders of The Coop posted this to our Designer's Group e mail list and I thought you'd enjoy reading the brief history of how the Bead Coop started.

LOL--OMG--you want the good, bad and ugly of the birthpains of the Coop? Let's see, it started with Dawn and I emailing back and forth that there had to be a better way for artists to sell their work and keep more profit for themselves than the "other" option at the time. Jeesh--how long ago now?? We knew what we wanted, just not the how to of how to get the programming done. We found this guy, "fondly" remembered as the Village Idiot to do the programming. (NOT Cujo, this was before him) He built a site that worked, but all the money went through him, he was located kinda near us here in Dallas. We were getting sales, but never saw the money from it. It was hosted on his server, in his house--and amazingly, it would go down at pretty regular times each day. We finally fired him, drove to his house to pick up the money, and the "coop" on files, my dad and son went along. We got it, and found out the down time was him hosting WOW parties there for his friends that ate up all the bandwidth. We tried to figure out how to sort out the mess of files, and in stepped--CUJO!! The real man behind the coop, he took a mess and turned it into the site you all enjoy today--I think we drove him half nuts with our suggestions, ideas, requests, but he always came through with something fantastic for us.

The coop was designed to give artists a place to grow and bloom, and hopefully make a little money as well. It was written right into the bylaws that the members would control the fees charged and policies of the group. I know we always hoped that prospective artists would be judged more for their potential than what they had already done. I'm so excited to look through the pages and pages of designs and see the wealth of artistry and talent represented in so many different stitches and media! A few years back real life just kicked me good, and stomped me down into the ground, and I turned the coop over to the members. Since then, it's been operating on it's own without being "owned" by anyone other than the members. Which is the way it was always intended to be.

I've got about 12 books I think now--several with Design Originals, one with the "Putz Brothers" (Dawn and my code word for these two brothers from CA that we collaborated on a book for that they sold in Target stores I think) several self published books as well. Unfortunately, I'm like you--my vision sucks now, and even simple bead projects are almost impossible to do. Jelcy here in Rowlett gave me a head thing with a magnifying glass on it which helps, but I fondly recall those days I could bead up anything and have no problem seeing even the smallest beads. So its very hard for me to do any beading at all right now. I get people asking me about making up things for them all the time, and I have to tell them I'm sorry, but cant do it. Anywho, my daughter Sarah has been busy being artsy, which got me in the mood to work on some again, and like anything, the more you do the more you want to do!

There were a lot of people involved in getting the coop off the ground, I'm just so bad with names, but it was definitely a group project with a lot of ups and downs. We've just had a lot of really great people pulling to get this going and keep it going, and without all of them, it never would have happened.

That was the beginning. The site has just been revamped to load faster improving your shopping experience, and if you're a designer, it enhances your sales.

We're constantly accepting new designers, so if you have patterns you'd like to put up for sale, go to The BeadCoop, scroll down to Support in the left hand menu, click on Contact Us and let us know. You'll be contacted with details and requirements. Don't worry, you don't have to be "somebody", you just have to have viable, readable patterns. :) Who knows where you can go from there?

If you're not a designer come on by and see what all we have to offer. With so many designers, we have a huge variety of bead design types. You can pay for your pattern through paypal and receive an instant download.

What are you waiting for? Come on in and see what's at The Bead Coop for you.