Bead Fest – Stash!

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Linda Landig

Impulsivity

About a dozen of my online my bead artist and designer friends were all planning on attending Bead Fest in Philadelphia last weekend. I yearned to meet these women in person because I had enjoyed and cherished our online communication so much. Once I got the idea of going to Bead Fest, I couldn’t get it out of my thoughts. Mind you, I live in the completely opposite corner of the United States. Flying to Pennsylvania for just a day and a half is totally expensive and frivolous. Etc.,etc.!

I wanted to go anyway! I’m retired, right? Time to have some fun. Well,I thought, I’ll just take a peek at online ticket prices…no harm in that. The first time I looked, tickets ranged from $565-$1500. Yikes! No way. But I kept monitoring the airline prices and by Friday night the prices had fallen to $507. I’m usually not given to impulsivity, but my desire to personally know my beady sisters, out-weighed any judgement or caution. I booked my tickets at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday night and in less than 24 hours, I was on my way to the Philly Bead Fest!!!

Bead Table Wednesday

So here’s what’s on my bead table today: my great new bead stash from Bead Fest. I know you’re jealous, but don’t drool on your keyboard, OK?

Hands of the Hill

Kazuri Beads

Dyed howlite & matte finish sodalite

Hand-painted porcelain

etched and matte agate beads

Rustic fire polished beads

Drop beads

Tribal beads and pendants

Delightful rustic glass beads

Lampwork glass flowers

Drilled river stones

Here’s Diana Ptaszynski demonstrating how we all felt after a day’s worth of bead shopping: exhausted! We revived ourselves with an excellent dinner at Legal Seafood—but more on that in a future blog post.

Bead exhaustion!!!

✿✿✿

Visit the BTW Flickr group and see what others have on their bead tables.

Earrings For You and Me

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Linda Landig

New Earrings For You & Me!

For You:

I’ve recently added 3 new pairs of earrings to the Linda Landig Jewelry Studio. The “Pink Rose Earrings” are sweet and sassy, with bright cheery colors and pink roses on a red background. These earrings have pretty glass beads with Peridot accents (a transparent, green semi-precious stone).

Pink Rose Earrings

I named the next pair of earrings “New Growth” because the oval stone, serpentine, is the color of new growth on plants in the springtime. I topped the serpentine with a midnight blue Swarovski crystal and placed a matching colored faceted pearl on the bottom.

New Growth Earrings

The next pair of earrings is perfect for date night or a festive occasion where you really want to go for the glam. Can’t you just see the “Radiant Rhinestone Earrings” with your little black dress? These earrings really sparkle!

Radiant Rhinestone Earrings

For Me

I entered a giveaway on Lorei Eurto’s blog and I won a cool pair of her tin earrings from her Harbinger Collection! She cuts the shapes from patterned tins, domes them and makes them into earrings. These are super fun to wear and go with so many colors. Thank you Lorelei!

Giveaway earrings from Lorelei Eurto

Fusion Bead Challenge

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Linda Landig

The Challenge

About 20 readers of Lorelei Eurto’s blog, Inside The Studio, are participating in a jewelry challenge. We all bought the same beads, green leather cord and a cool pewter owl clasp from Green Girl Studio. We could then add any other components that we wished. Today we are revealing what we created.

I was able to find all the items for the Challenge except the Lucite leaves. So I just substituted some glass leaves that I already had in my stash. I added some green tab-shaped glass beads which I found at Michaels when I was shopping for our last Challenge. The color is the same green as the lichen that hangs from the trees in the woods behind our house. The tabs also have pretty amber highlights and I liked the wavy surface texture. I echoed those amber highlights with ochre colored wood discs. The only other thing I added were two twisted wire gunmetal colored rings.

I used two strands of the teardrop shaped beads, to give a fuller texture. Then I merged the two strands as they go through the glass tab beads and the wood beads. I wired the leaves near the gunmetal rings.

The challenge, for me, came with using the leather cord. I had rarely used leather before and I wasn’t sure I could get the knots seated closely enough to the beads and looking neat. But I think I pulled it off OK. I’m quite pleased with how this turned out and I am anxious to visit all the other blogs to see everyone else’s designs. Come blog hop with me. Enjoy!

http://lorelei1141.blogspot.com/
http://erinsiegeljewelry.blogspot.com/

http://beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com/
http://beadhappytoday.blogspot.com/

http://www.earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com/

The Second Necklace Challenge Reveal!

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Linda Landig

Michaels Necklace Challenge #2

The Necklace Reveal makes me feel like a little kid on a playground. I want to go play here, no wait, over there, now that way! It’s a kind of giddy fun to hop from blog to blog and discover what everyone has created.

The rules of the game are explained in The Challenge. Briefly, we all bought (or tried to buy) the same beads. We had to use these beads, plus our own focal bead and clasp to create a necklace. We could use 2 additional types of beads of our choosing.

An Extra Challenge

I ran into an extra challenge because I couldn’t get all the beads we were supposed to work with. I went back to Michaels 3 times and they never had the clear beads with the silver edges (my favorite beads of the whole selection). They also didn’t have the faceted natural colored, oval mother of pearl beads. I couldn’t find any good substitute for the clear beads, so I just left them out. I substituted white (bleached) mother of pearl ovals for the unbleached ones.

My Design Process

The chunky black quartz was the biggest challenge to work with. I pulled out my drawer of Art Glass and when my eyes lit on this fabulous Black Sea Sand Dollar bead from Beads and Botanicals I knew it would be perfect with the black quartz. The rest of the design process flowed easily from that point on.

I strung a quartz bead on a gunmetal headpin and sat the Black Sea Sand Dollar bead above it. I attached the pendant to the gunmetal chain and wired some of the peacock colored pearls and some black Delica seed beads to a short length of the chain. I like the grayish-purple of the pearls with the black of the pendant.

I framed the mother of pearl ovals with black and clear organic seed beads from Beads and Botanicals and then strung an alternating pattern of pearls and black Delicas. I finished the necklace with a pretty vintage black German glass button and loop clasp.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I encourage you to check out the other fabulous artists whose links are listed below. You will marvel at how each person has come up with a totally individual creation, even though we’ve all been working with the same beads. Have fun!