Preparing for Boogie on the Bricks

Every year for the past three years, we have vended at the Uptown Athens event “Boogie on the Bricks".  It is held in conjunction with the annual "Brew Week” which is a celebration of small breweries, and is a fun family event during a long summer month.

This week I will be busy working on some jewelry to take, and here are a few pieces I made today:

This piece is made with porcelain, shell, and Czech glass.  I wanted to have something a little fun and funky.  I bought most of the beads at Hobby Lobby, and the rest came from my personal stash.

Detail of the pendants.

Side view of a cuff bracelet made with Moroccan tile beads and Czech glass “druks” (round beads).  Each set of tile beads are strung on a headpin which is then looped at either end and then slid onto two loops of bracelet wire.

Combo top/side view to give you an idea of how the bracelet looks from a different angle.  I used two magnetic clasps to keep the cuff securely on the wrist.

And finally, because I found the center beads while cleaning my art table and wanted to make something with them:

The round discs and the white bicone beads were what I found under my art table.  The rest was improvised from my stash that I still need to put away from working on the Lark “Beading With World Beads” queries last year.

Detail view of the ceramic discs and wood and glass beads along the side.  This piece is strung on “imitation sinew” which I believe is just a very heavily waxed polyester thread.  It splits into smaller sections and knots up beautifully for this kind of funky work.

Detail of the original beads which caused all the fuss.

And, finally, something I did for me, which is still in process as I need to make a hanging loop for her.

What stated out as a mermaid type figure and which morphed into a seahorse.  The funny thing is that I wanted to make a seahorse to go with the piece I was intending this for, but didn’t know how to go about it.  I started this by beading the face cabochon (from Earthenwood Studio) and then beading the bead to make a vase/body.  It needed something else, so I ran a line of peyote down one side and then chose to increase rapidly, creating the ruffle.  All she needed was a little flat spiral from the base of the vase and voila! Seahorse!  I’m going to peyote stitch a loop off the back of her head and run a chain through it.  Hopefully I will be wearing her if you come by our booth on Saturday.