New this week: Tiny Seedbeaders Rejoice!

Tiny Seedbeaders, Rejoice.

Calling all tiny seedbeaders! Which is not to say seedbeaders of slight stature, but rather, all those who rejoice in the minuscule, tiny perfection of seedbeads so small - they resemble grains of sand. This week, we have, just for you, size 15/0 Toho Charlottes (that is, beads with a single facet cut into them) and, if you prefer the tube shape of the Miyuki Delica beads - we have them too, in size 15/0. Either way - with 80 new colours - you'll be in tiny bead heaven!

If seedbeads that small leave you squinting and flailing for your glasses, we have some mixes of sixes to make you happy!

And if you aren't crazy about that either, maybe you'll be crazy about this month's stone of the month! This month is Green Crazy Lace Agate. This is a coloured stone, with cheerful bands of colour that can remind you of malachite - although, overall - it's lighter and without the intense dark green to black of malachite.

On Monday - I blogged about Mother's day - coming up this Sunday. I suggested you might want to make up some bookmarks - especially if your mother is older (Mine is 90 this year) and gives you a hard time about getting any gifts that she has to store or dust.

If your Mom is younger, why not bring her down to the store and treat her to some beady shopping? Let her pick out the beads - then make them up into a necklace or earrings or whatever. Perhaps something like this week's stylish inspiration - which is long enough to drop over your head without fiddling with a clasp - which is good if your mom is a little arthritic. And if she's not, you might even get her hooked on your favourite pastime. Beading is your favourite pastime, right? ;-)

Failing that, you can get your family to take YOU on a beady shopping spree! For all the stuff you do for them, it's the least they can do for you!

So click on a link or a picture above, or start with the Main Page, if you are intrepid (there is a LOT of stuff there), or chunk it down into bite-size portions by checking out the categories: Click on a link and go crazy! Firepolish, Pressed Glass, Swarovski Crystal, Seedbeads, Stone and Pearls, Preciosa Crystal, Metal Beads, Other Cool Beads, Findings, Metal Clay & Supplies or Books, Kits, Tools. Look for the "new" tags!

Or maybe check out all our free, yes, free projects. A new one every week.

Offbeat Bride

Wedding season is coming up, and with it a bunch of stressed out brides trying to please everyone except themselves.  Before you plan too much - take a look at Offbead Bride. I'll admit, I got completely distracted with this site. It's fascinating - be sure to pour a cup of something before you sit down.  Dwyn sent me the link last week, but I just recently got a chance to poke around - there are a lot of really cool DIY projects on how to make a fairy veil, blinging your wedding numbers and such, but truly it's the stories! A couple headlines catching my interest are:

*Casey & Aarons cajun bollywood wedding
*Should I tell my Christian grandmother about my pagan wedding?
    "I have a very close relationship with my Grandmother, however, in all my years of being so close  with her, I, uh, 'forgot' to mention that I am not Christian, but in fact Pagan."   heh...oops

And lots more! We all know weddings are ridiculously stressful. My own wedding was relaxed, fun, and very casual.  The only stressful part was losing the boats in the fog, and almost not having our family watch...although the seals were keeping us company :-)

(hubby and I got married on a shoal off the coast of Lunenburg, NS, and  the guests were brought to the wedding by various friends with boats.  The fog rolled in, and we lost everyone. Fortunately, we had a piper - everyone just followed the music) 

Did you know that in Lunenburg you can get a 4 tiered wedding cake covered in sugar daisy's for $75!  Hair and makeup set me back $35 at the local salon.
I suppose it may have changed somewhat since then - it was over 10 years ago now...but still.  Our bill for the Inn (4 rooms included), incredible gourmet dinner, with drinks for everyone was less than $2000. If you're willing to be a little creative, and roll with it - you can have the best wedding in the world for a reasonable price, and fairly stress free. :-)

Lampwork Trunk Show & Classes

The Lampwork Trunk Show is next weekend (May 14 10 - 5pm) at beadFX. The Trunk Show is a show for lampwork artists to display their fabulous handmade beads with beadmaking demos throughout the day. Tasty refreshments too! Come by and you'll find one-of-a-kind glass beads and wonderful people.

Here are the classes coming up next week:

Let's Wrap Them Up with Rae Huggins, May 10 6-8pm

Learn to Make Glass Beads (4 hr class) with Dwyn Tomlinson, May 10 5 - 9pm

Dangle Drop Earrings with Nadine Foskin, May 12 6 - 7:30pm

Adios Amigas!

A Little Something for Mother's Day

Mother's Day this coming weekend - second Sunday in May - and while some of you - most of you probably - still have your mom active and mobile and living "in the world" - some of us have mothers that have downsized just about everything, have moved into a retirement home, and have declared a ban on gifts that take up any space at all. All well and good, but it really limits the gift options!

You find you need to stick to consumables like food (ha - with her restricted diet - no choices there) or soaps, or perishables - like flowers. Flowers are good - and I've learned that you can specify a bouquet without a vase when ordering for delivery - and you get a way bigger bouquet. (I got a lot of flack about the vases collecting in the house - she started having to give them away to the cleaning lady.)

She still can see and likes to read, so books are acceptable (I've convinced her it's okay to give them away after reading them) and this year, I'll be sending her a couple of book marks, for something a little more personal.

They are an easy and quick project - customize them with a crystal in her favourite colour, (headpin and a wrapped loop and a jumpring) or make it a family project - have each of the kids make one and use their birthstone colour. They are inexpensive enough to give several! You could also find a charm or a found object that has a special significance.

Oh, and I can recommend the book pictured above too - "Jewels," by Victoria Finlay. It's a history of the various gemstones - where they come from, the circumstances around their discovery and use. Actually - I recommend anything by her - her stuff is great!

Happy Mother's Day!

The Joy of Metal Clay - Bronze Dragonfly

Here is the fired dragonfly that I discussed making last week. I am disappointed with it for many reasons. For one I think that the chaos in my life recently had made it difficult to focus on any one thing. When this happens it is a good reminder to slow down and take a moment to focus. I think this little guy is a beginning but not what I had hoped. Anyway, I don' t mind sharing my disappointments along with the victories.

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Of note, I noticed the cz's turned out a little hazy. This is the second time I have fired gemstones in metal clay. I think that the reason they became hazy is that although I allowed the piece to cool in the kiln overnight, carbon was still hot when I removed to piece and when I dunked the piece in cold water it probably caused the cz to cloud over (I didn't think the piece was hot enough to cause this to happen...lesson learned).

The Business Chat - It's a holiday!

At my last show (the One of a Kind spring show April 2011) several people came in looking for “teacher gifts” for June. This is a phenomena that I’m not that familiar with as I don’t have little kids and my school days are way behind me. It was one of those “Aha!” moments for me. Marketing is easy when it’s Christmas, or Valentines Day or Mother's Day.

It’s all those in-between times that can lead to a sales drought. Now I’m going to find something interesting, I’m going to give my customers a reason to shop, I’m going to make every month a holiday somehow. More importantly I’m going to let my customers know about this.

You should too. First find something to celebrate and shop for. There’s St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, all sorts of holidays. A big seller for many is wedding season. Just because you don’t make anything white or pearl-based doesn’t exclude you from this. You’d be amazed what you can call bridal, so long as you can make a set of something it can be used in a wedding. If it’s appropriate, stock up on products that fit the holiday.

Can you offer products that are appropriate for men and women? Father's Day is a tough one for jewelry designers - how about key chains or money clips? You may not have to make new items, just put signs on your existing ones, like “makes a great Dad gift.”

Next, let your customers know about your upcoming holiday event. Facebook, Twitter, and of course, your newsletter, work well. If you have a craft show, make a sign. You can bet I’ll have signs about “Great Teacher Gifts” this June.

People love convenience, if you can remind them that they’ll need to shop for a gift soon and then present an option, you’re doing the work for them. Remember that in addition to seasonal gift giving, people have to get gifts for birthdays, bar mitzvahs, new babies, housewarmings, thank-yous, get-well-soon, congratulations, and just because they want to say "I love you" to some one in their lives. Maintaining a product line that serves all of these different occasions and using signs that help shoppers is essential to making your shop the go-to place all year long.

Inspiration Friday

A few weeks ago, I had got it into my head that making a faux geode in resin/silver/polyclay would be a fun experiment. I don't think I'm quite there yet, as the glitter I used was a bit too fine (Martha Stewart brand). I did however just receive in the mail a few packets of vintage german glass glitter. The particles on the vintage stuff are much larger, and I think would work out better.

Obviously, I've kept my initial experiments to polymer clay. I'll move on to silver when I think I've got it right.
 What I find also works best is to keep the surface of the glitter quite rough, and if you can manage hills and valleys - even better. 

The initial experiment is a bit on the rough side - but I really do think these have potential. I'll keep playing :-)

We would love to have you show off your stuff! Were you inspired this past week by anything? Send us pics of your creation to info@beadfx.com with the subject line "Inspiration Friday" 

Call out for eye candy!

It's Inspiration Friday, and for the first time in two weeks, extenuating circumstances are not preventing me from having something to post. I know we have some talented readers out there. Show me what you've got. If you can send me a pic of your eye candy before say 7pm?
Please send to info@beadfx.com - subject line inspiration friday.

Happy Friday everyone!

Royal Wedding and the Engagement Ring

Well - it's the big day for William and Kate tomorrow, and everyone seem to using this as an excuse to have a jolly old party. And why not? Watch the wedding, marvel at the pomp and ceremony, raise a glass to their health, and be really grateful that the entire world doesn't watch every little thing that you do!

My email box has been filling up with offers for "genuine reproductions" of the royal engagement ring.

And they've been so popular - retailers can't keep them on the shelves. As you can see from the photos, any blue oval surrounded by white stones seems to qualify as a replica - and given that the original would be about $500,000 - based on the quality of the centre sapphire - replicas are a good idea!

That's the original below, btw. That is one honkin' big sapphire. The sapphire alone contributes about $300,000 to the aforementioned $500,000 figure.


I personally think that it's wonderful that this has inspired lots of folks to go for an engagement ring that is more creative and colourful than the plain diamond choice. Long live the coloured stones!

If' you've a mind to make your own Royal Engagement Tribute Ring - check out this pattern from Bead and Button! We have the supplies - click on the images to go directly there.


We have the 18 mm Rivoli in Light Sapphire













the 2 mm round crystals














silver lined crystal 11/0 Japanese tubes














Size 15/0 Japanese silver seedbeads - sterling silver plated, no less












And size 15/0 blue (we don't seem to have them in charlottes - amazing - there's a bead we don't have!)











Needles (the higher the number, the thinner the needle - just like wire gauges!)










and the Fireline.










There you are - you can make your own Tribute Ring (I like that much better than "replica"). Cheers!

New This Week!

Clasp me!

Come on now, everybody - clasp your hands together. Or, more to the point, clasp your strands! We have a boat load of those handsome, decorative clasps that are either the perfect finishing touch, or the jumping off point for a fabulous design.

Perhaps you are starting to plan some wedding jewelry (what with June barreling down on us like a loaded donkey) and are thinking about pearls? A pearl clasp would surely look most awesome. We have a traditional style, or you can go for baroque.

These clasps with molded glass cabochons are made with glass buttons in some truly amazing colours. They shift colours with the angle you view them from - and we have them in a variety of strand options, so you can really build something awesome.

If crystal bling is your thing - then we have Swarovski Rivolis, mounted in a clasp. Ah heck - just go check 'em all out!

Unless it's the look of gold you want - in which case, check for the new Vermeil clasps! ;-)

If you were thinking that our Pandora-compatible Swarovski Becharmed Bead page looked like it could use a few more items and choices, well, here there are!

And we added a few more really b.i.g. rhinestones. I meant BIG. And then I turned one into a ring. You know it's gotta be huge if I only needed one!

Other assorted goodies this week, cones and caps, those looping pliers that you have all being asking for and other goodies around the site - so click on a link or a picture above, or start with the Main Page, if you are intrepid (there is a LOT of stuff there), or chunk it down into bite-size portions by checking out the categories: Click on a link and go crazy! Firepolish, Pressed Glass, Swarovski Crystal, Seedbeads, Stone and Pearls, Preciosa Crystal, Metal Beads, Other Cool Beads, Findings, Metal Clay & Supplies or Books, Kits, Tools. Look for the "new" tags!

Or maybe check out all our free, yes, free projects. A new one every week.

From the web - 2 wire clasp tutorials

I've recently come across 2 wire clasp tutorials that I think you all might really like! Enjoy making these clasps, and be sure to have a look through the blogs - tons, and tons of inspiration to be found!

The first one, from Art Bead Scene is the Garden Gate Clasp.

Art Bead Scene - Garden Gate Clasp

The second comes from Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio

May EVENTS & CLASSES

If you're wondering what's in store for the month of May at beadFX, here's a recap. There are two bead shows, a few new classes, and even more classes.

The much anticipated Toronto Bead Society Fair is April 30th & May 1st. You can drop by at the store to pick up a $2 off the admission fee flyer. If you can't make it to the store, you can print the flyer online here.

Also, there is the Lampwork Trunk Show. The Lampwork Trunk Show is taking place at beadFX Sat May 14 10 - 5pm. There will be lots of handmade glass beads to purchase, demos, snacking, and socializing. If you're a beginner lampworker, this is the perfect event to meet other lampwokers and enjoy demos.

Here are just a few of the classes scheduled for May:

Let's Wrap Them Up with Rae Huggins, May 10 6 - 8pm

Kumihimo Basics with Angela Peace, May 15 11 - 2pm

How to Start & Run a Successful Microbusiness with Catherine Winter, May 26 6 - 9pm

Adios Amigas!

Silversilk Capture - Adding End Caps

Last week we rolled out the new SilverSilk(tm) Capture - which is a totally cool knitted wire chain with a bead chain "captured" inside.

I admit to being quite taken with the look of this chain - it has a dimensionality and sheen and suppleness to it that is more reminiscent of rattail - but is more complex on closer inspection. It is handsome in it's own right, and makes a fine partner for a single, flashy pendant.

And - when push comes to shove, the single, flashy pendant is what I am really, really good at. (Being the queen of the honkin' lampwork focal.)

I'm really impressed with the endcaps that go with it too - what a nice, finished end they make for it. Put together a chain with this and your friends are going to swear you bought the whole thing at some swanky boutique in the tony section of town.


To use, cut your chain to the length you want it. Mix up a little bit of glue - use the 2-part epoxy. (Actually - I tend accumulate things that need gluing, and do a bunch of things at once - but this often includes household repairs, such as gluing ears back onto beloved ceramic horses.)
Mix up the epoxy (use a disposable surface, like one of the zillions of tiny plastic bags that beads come in) with a toothpick - mixing until it is thoroughly blended (Count, 1-one thousand, 2-one thousand - up to 60). Start by mixing around the entire pool in a circle - ensuring the two parts are pulled and mixed together, then concentrate on the edge, making small circles, pulling the compound from the outside to the centre, then larger circles, making sure each quarter is thoroughly blended, then mixing the whole again.

Use a fresh toothpick to push a little blob inside the end cap, then push the chain inside, and using your parallel jaw pliers, squeeze it shut. (Parallel jaw pliers won't mark the surface, and you need quite a bit of oomph to shut these - they are not flimsy.)

If you got too much glue and it squeezes out the side, wipe it off (if it persists and makes a mess, wipe clean with vinegar - it cuts through the un-cured epoxy like a dream) - and then leave it to cure (24 hours.)





Attach your clasp - a lobster claw works very well - and the ring on the end cap is large enough to accommodate most of them without an additional jumpring, if you so desire.

Et voila! A gorgeous and sophisticated chain that enhances the pendant without overshadowing it.

The Joy of Metal Clay - Big Beautiful and Bronze Dragonfly

Over the past couple of weeks I have mentioned my plans to make a bronze brooch using the inexpensive brooch findings and also my plans to make a dragonfly. This weekend I "killed a bird with one stone" and made a bronze dragonfly brooch. Unfortunately, it is not dry enough to fire, but I will post pictures of it once fired soon.

Here it is in process:

1.I rolled out a body making one end thicker than the other.

2. Then I slit the top of the thicker end to help make the "buldgy" eye shape.

3. I cut out four wings (free hand). I used a piece of screening as texture.

4. I attached the body to the wings.

5. I added a rope of clay along the bottom wings, then three lavender CZ's at the bottom edge of a wing. (I hope they hold???)

I will post a photograph after it is fired.

Heather