Bead and Button Show 2011

Stuff I Had to Share From 

the Bead & Button Show 2011

Talk about an exciting portal! 

I am there before it opened to the public, 

which is why there's no public there yet.

Doing my demos for John Bead 

on Hat/Tiara/Hair Fascinator Day. 

I showed folks all about Miyuki tila beads.

Everyone is crazy about those 

cool two-holed beads. 

(And thanks for the vintage hat, Mom!)

Ezel Findings had the most fabulous magnetic clasps including this style with Swarovski crystals on gunmetal. YUMMY! 

Sun does exquisite beadwork to show off her findings, don't you agree?

 Lea Zinke's enamel rings

as modeled by Denise Peck.

Lea's lampwork was truly stunning, too.

(Denise is the editor in chief of 

Step by Step Wire Jewelry!)

Geri Warhaftig lampwork beads 

in the Bead Dreams showcases. LOVE!

AMAZING polymer from John Rose, 

a polymer bead winner in Bead Dreams. 

Black and neolithic, no wonder I like it!

A class in copper electroplating revealed alchemy magic as nature became immortalized in metal.

Suzanne Golden's HUGE spiral bangle.

Ginormous talent in a little lady!

 As a CREATE YOUR STYLE with Swarovski Elements Ambassador, I like to feature my sparkles in modern designs, such as my latest Dragon Cuff. Thanks to everyone who admired it at the show!

At the Vintaj booth, Jess and Betsy invited me and Denise Peck to play with a rolling mill style press to imprint metal blanks. 

Check out this little video of her demo. 

A must have, I must say!

I had time to soak my barking puppies in the hotel hot tub before heading back to the airport. AHHHHHH. And now--I can't wait until the Bead and Button Show 2012!

PS: Special thanks to John Bead who brought me to the show!

If you're a wholesale designer or store owner--go register at their site at www.johnbead.com.

Meet me at the Bead & Button Show 2011

Come see me at the
Bead & Button Show June 10 & 11th, 2011
JOHN BEAD booth #1028-1030
(c) 2011 Leslie Rogalski All Rights Reserved to designs and content on this site 
   

Friday June 10, 10:30am-12:30pm
Easy Bow Farfalle Bead Bangle Demo

Friday June 10, 3:00pm-5:00pm 

Miyuki Tila Bead RAW (Right Angle Weave) Cuff Demo 

Saturday June 11, 10:30am-12:30pm
Miyuki Tila Bead RAW (Right Angle Weave) Cuff Demo

Saturday June 11, 3:00pm-5:00pm
Miyuki Tila Bead Square Stitch with Herringbone Cuff Demo

See you there!

Upcycled jewelry: PASTA

I recently won a cool book from Bead Unique
  for my submission to their upcycled jewelry contest.
I had a bunch of stuff I'd created for
a previous April Fool's Day Beading Daily post.
  I called it FAUXLYMER jewelry.

Here's a group of pasta noodle beads. I used Sharpie marker to add color and stripes, wooden accents (Also striped with a marker) and annealed steel wire. 

Detail: This bead has a slim ziti inside another ziti. 

Ridges are colored with Sharpie marker, 

and the ends wired with annealed steel.

 My fauxlymer cuff was the piece which won me the book.

More ziti, waxed linen and wooden accent beads.

Thanks Bead Unique!

Totally tubular beaded beads

On my beading mat April 18th, 2011:
I'm making really super fast and easy peyote beaded beads by stitching small flat strips and zipping them together into tubes. I'm making a ton of them in about every shade of green Delica I have–and if you know me, you know I have a lot of green beads! I made tubes using some shiny hexes too.I am just tubing away, because I need to have as many components as I can in order to play when I make whatever it is I will make. Yesterday Mike and I drove to Baltimore (met friends, had Bertha's mussels) and I beaded in the car all the way there and all the way back!

Tip for car beading--work in larger sizes, it's easier to get your needle through larger bead holes if your needle is bumping around! I worked in size 8 hexes and size 10 Delicas. Hardly any finger stabbing at all. ;-)

I'll be combining the tubes with the Swarovski Dorado 2X crystal bicones #5328 into... something! Stay tuned!

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.

How to end and add thread to bead work

Don't worry about ending and adding thread to a piece of bead work. See if my Doodlebeads video helps simplify this task.
Check it out here on You Tube: Click the arrow to watch!
Leslie's video on ending and adding thread

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!