Last Vintage Lace Book Page

This Round Robin journal is now going home to Elena, and it was my privilege to be the last one to work in it.

Her theme was vintage Paris.

I made the design on the back pages on my new embroidery machine. Gotta love it. I also added a crown and the letter “E” for Elena, because she’s our queen friend, who organizes lots of wonderful Round Robins.

Her book cover was mainly black and white, so I followed the theme.

On the left page, I printed images of Paris on fabric, and decorated them with a beautiful white flower from Beads and Buttons in Portland, and a sweet little white bird inside of a black rose. For the background, I used this wonderful black and white Paris map fabric that I had. It all got covered with tons of lace, of course.

For the right page, I had this wonderful furry and feathery black nest with precious stones in it. It guided the design for the rest of the page. I used a large piece of lace that covers both pages. It has these large white flowers on it, which seemed to continue the theme.

 

Here is a view of both pages together. I trimmed the top of the page with black and white gingham, very French. The bottoms silver and black trim comes from the collar of a jacket a girlfriend just gave me. It comes from Italy, and has tons of silver beads. Not easy to wear outside of Italy, even if you live in Palm Springs! It was perfect to finish the pages.

A new website

After thinking long and hard about it, I’ve decided to pull my jewelry from Etsy and post it on a dedicated website.

Why?

Etsy is a great site for artists and to post our work for sale, but it has a big disadvantage: it doesn’t allow the artist to set up categories, so your work gets all mixed together, if you, like me, happen to have various fields of work.

I will be holding a huge sale on my jewelry before it goes from Etsy. 20% all the jewelry. That’s a pretty good deal.

So if my dear followers have noticed I’ve been MIA (at least one did, yeah, thank you Liz), it’s because I’ve been nose down designing my own website. It’s almost live. Waiting for the server to access the new name, and I will release it all: the new name, the sale on Etsy, everything.

Here is a preview of what it MAY look like.

The software is a big learning curve, but the biggest time consumer is to get very clear and detailed photos, which of course is one would want when looking at jewelry.

Thank you for the feedback that you like the pictures better on a black background. I agree. So I’m converting all my pics to black. Another item on the list.

Oh, and I will give away one of my bracelets when I launch the website to someone who leaves a comment. That’s something you really don’t want to miss. Stay tuned.

I’ve seen the light!

No, I havent’ found religion. Bu I have taken a class to learn how to photograph my jewelry properly. And oh, what a difference. And most of it has to do with the light! Duh!

I haven’t even bought a fancy light set up, I’m using the wonderful natural light in my house here in Palm Springs! Yeah, another bonus of living here, this wonderful light makes for wonderful photos.

Nest, I need to unearth  my tripod, for which I haven’t had much use in the recent months. But it’s here somewhere, and it will help getting even more crisp photos.

In the meantime,  you be the judge. My jewelry has never looked so good on the screen! With a bit of light adjustment in Photoshop and voila. I’m posting Before and After photos, those are always fun!

Wow, what a difference! Here’s the next one. I really love the colors on this bracelet, and I just couldn’t capture them before.

 

I do like the black background.

But look at these colors. It’s a beaded embroidery cuff, with a gorgeous blue agate in the middle, seed beads, lochrosen, silver beads and pearls.

Now doesn’t this make your mouth water? Yes, it takes thousands of beads to make one bracelet. It takes me about 3 full days to complete one.

And the latest bead free form peyote. In this type of design, there is no support for the beading, one just weaves and adds at the fancy decides.

I was in the mood for another chromatic design, in the view of Goth or Steampunk. This necklace is beaded with Toho Treasures. They’re called Treasures because of how much they cost, I think. They are the flatter square looking beads. I used a simple black velvet button for the closure. There are black pearls, black Swaroski crystals, some bugles beads of various sizes. It is quite spectacular on.

It would have been so difficult to photograph properly, you can imagine, black on black, without this new instruction. Yeah, Jim Lawson. Great course.

 

Peyote beaded bracelet

In this new bracelet, I’m exploring a new stitch, called flat peyote. I’ve added metal copper beads on the edge to give it a ruffled look, which I like a lot. This is not bead embroidery for a change, but rather bead weaving.
To make it more steampunk, I put a clock face in the middle but I feel it really needs more. I’m thinking of adding pearls inside the clock face, or maybe around it.

Here is a close up of the watch face, and the ruffled edge with the metal beads.
I made another cuff in woven beads and peyote stitch, in green and shimmering glass beads. The edges are ruffled too, because I used beads that were slightly larger than the base one. They are so fun to make. Because of its colors, I call this one Sea foam”
I’m also working on a large neck piece, back to bead embroidery. I think that remains my main love. I’m combining a lot of my favorite colors, as well as new beads I bought at the Tucson bead show. And of course, watch faces here too. Can you notice a theme? Steampunk!!!!


 
I used a large black agate for the cabochon, which I captured with a peyote stitch. I did the same with the large clock face and the steampunk metal button. For the rest, I'm using 15/0 seed beads, and small black bugles. It does take a long time to cover all this space with 15/0!!!