Fun with Beadalon

Making new videos for the Beadalon web site brought out
a variety of my facets, er, faces. :-)

Look for the videos now on Beadalon's You Tube page. My latest videos include how-to-do, why-to use, and what-to-use for: loom bead weaving, Elasticity stretchy cord designs, WildFire beading thread, all sorts of beading needles, bead organization and storage, arranging a beading work area, and Hybraid (Is it a wire? A beading thread? It's both!)

Here's one showing some basics for a well equipped beading work area.


Even though I was feeling a bit wired and threadbare myself after a long week just back from doing two back to back Jewelry Television shows, I know the videos now showing on Beadalon's You Tube page will educate and inspire you.

Stick around, because you never know when some of my actual design tutorials will appear, too!

BEAD CAPS: Before, During, After

BEFORE

First I chose these Lucite beads from my stash

  DURING

Then I made a glorious mess playing around with Beadalon bead caps, Swarovski crystals, Swarovski crystal pearls, more beads, lots of wire, headpins, and stuff. You know, STUFF.

AFTER

Here are the finished bead components I made.

Want to see more? 
Tune in to Jewel School on Jewelry Television
March 18 and 19th 
10 AM to Noon EST.
See everything I made with 
Beadalon bead caps!

Getting Twisted with Beadalon at Wire Fest 2011

Bead Fest Wire was more fun than I imagined. I did demos for two straight days for Beadalon.

The biggest attraction? The twisted tool! Can you tell that I was enjoying myself? You can see the blur as my hands whirled the handle around and around making a twisted cable. Talk about having the right tool for the right job.

So here's how it works:

Attach up to 5 wires (I used about a yard each of various gauges of Artistic wire, between 26 and 20 gauge) to a disk with holes in it, just twist them onto the disk so they wouldn't come off, nothing fancy. Then  attach the loose ends to a clamp or a chair rung--anything which you can use to pull against for some tension. Then just turn the handle as I'm doing in my photo. The end result is a cable of surprising hardness--perfect for making jump rings or wrapping stones, making bails, etc. Even using two wires made a hard enough cable for rings.

Lots of people (of all ages as you can see!) stopped to admire my seed bead work, too. I showed them the three colors of WildFire I use, and though I did not demo any stitches I did point out how the WildFire thread held up to different stitches and different beads, including Swarovski crystals.

Thanks to Meredith and Madeline of Beadalon who were so fabulous in teaching me how to best use the tools and make me feel really a part of the design team. Somehow that floor in the convention center doesn't feel quite as hard when you work with great people!

Meredith and I collaborated at the demo station on some new designs with the Katydid components, too. Meredith has such style in her designs--I hope they'll post those pix on the Beadalon blog site soon.

Transform ready-made elements into hand-crafted style

I have these great, ready-made silver-plated quick link rings from Beadalon, shown at the top of this photo. They're about the diameter of a quarter. They're really cool, but for my style they're just a tad too shiny, too perfectly formed. Others love these attributes, but I like more of a hand-crafted look in my work.

First I hammered them with a small rivet hammer, flipping them on my steel block to hammer both sides. Those rings are shown in the middle of this photo. They looked way better to me, but I still wanted more.

I decided to oxidize them. Using bowls designated for crafts only (with  NOT FOR FOOD written on them in marker) I first mixed a neutralizing solution of baking soda and plain water in one bowl--about 2 tablespoons of soda to maybe a pint of water. Next I heated water in a glass bowl, and put in two drops of Patina Gel Liver of Sulfur. It's really stinky so open a window. I used tweezers to dunk the rings, watching them darken and removing them quickly right into the baking soda water to stop the reaction from getting too black. Then I rinsed them in plain water and dried them off. My oxidized quick links are the bottom rings in this photo. They totally look like fused silver rings that I made myself!

 Cool, huh! Plus, the liver of sulfur solution degrades in a couple days and makes a great fertilizer. Just store it in a jar until it turns clear, then water your tomatoes!