Wednesday, June 9, 2010

What's New? Beads, Beads and more Beads!

~Designer Beads from the Heart of the Garden ~


I have re-opened my Bead Shop with a new name. We now go by Heart of Eden Beads. Since my inspiration comes mostly from the garden and some from the earth I thought that a fitting name.

I have been busy working on many bead projects as well as some commissions that I will share with you shortly, but also managed to get some new Spring beads in the shop for it's Grand RE-opening.

Here are a few of the new beads I've been making. I got outdoors early this year and started hunting for fresh inspiration as things were just starting to bud. I picked tiny twigs with itty bitty buds just starting to form, some lily of the valleys which I found a whole crop growing in my woods I never knew were there before! Also some Lovely lilacs which I painstakingly removed each flower and arranged them on a sheet of clay to make my mold from. Bits of grass and tiny leaves emerging that I used to make an assortment of spring beads.


I also branched out and used a color I mixed that has never been in my palette before. It is a combination of magenta and violet but makes a great undertone for my painting and glazes. So here are a few to look at and you can check others out in my shop (before they get all gone!)



Now, I have been working on my bead soup necklace, from Lori Anderson's second Bead Soup Swap. I received my beads from my partner Melissa and posted them for you to see last Wednesday. But realized this was really a challenging palette. Way out of my comfort range, and nothing I had could I see working with it. But as we are all blessed with a bit of serendipity a few times in our life, I happened to just find out that there was going to be a bead show in my very backyard this past weekend. Now I would have loved to go to Milwaukee where all the big happenings are, but with my bad back and problems with travel that wasn't doable but this sure was!

So I packaged up my 'ingredients' and off I went to the show to see what I could find. I set a budget for myself and spent twice as much and still hardly made a dent in taking home the offerings but I did manage to not only procure some really cool finds but also to pretty much add to my ingredients into what I think will make a fabulous recipe of success!

So I'd like to share with you some of my finds but I won't tell you what I chose to go in my soup! You'll have to wait until June 23 for my reveal (we are now being grouped into specific days of that week for our revealing because there are so many participants and Wednesday two weeks from now will be my reveal). So without further ado, let your eyes go bead shopping!

Some of the many strands of Pearls I got, I especially love the ones that look like green peas!


Some great copper and Brass metals and beads








Some great Silks and Ceramics (Porcelain pieces)









And something I got just for me, this beautiful Aqua Terra Jasper. I couldn't resist both the string of beads and a matching pendant.

Can't wait to get busy making some cool pieces with these!

622

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