My First Collar

So towards the end of may I finished my very first bead embroidered full collar. I was so relieved to finish it and I love the way it turned out. I named it the Celtic Bride Necklace. My husband took all the lovely photographs down by the creek near our apartment which turned out to be a stunning backdrop.

I had created this necklace for the Esty Beadweavers monthly competition. For June it was to create a bridal piece for the theme "June Bride". I figured the majority of people would probably be doing something in shades of white, so I wanted to do something a bit different. 

 

The centerpiece of this collar was based around a gorgeous vintage glass button from Czechoslovakia. I purchased this button at a bead show in Richmond from Karen Thomas who is the owner of The Queen's Beads which is based out of White Oak, PA. You can find her here on facebook. The two brass stampings I ordered from and etsy seller named BareNakedFindings and the 3 square swarovski slider beads I also got from etsy, from a seller named PeriwinkleBlueGap 

The collar features an art deco themed, double locking, box clasp in gold over sterling set with crystals. The inner circumference of the necklace is approximately 17 inches and the width of the necklace at its widest point measures 4 inches and at its thinnest point measures 1/2 inch. The whole collar is backed with a dark green Ultrasuede for a clean look and soft feel against the skin.

In my mind I kind of imagined a wedding scene like this would go along with this necklace.

Yes this is a scene from Braveheart...... but this was kind of what was going on in my mind while making the necklace. Anyways.... as I had said in the beginning of my post, I was entering it into a contest for the Etsy Beadweavers. So I entered my piece, and I didn't really expect anything to happen but low and behold, my piece won first place! I was blown away, I had never expected my first necklace to win anything.You can see the whole list of competitors and their pieces here. Also, the necklace sold to a lovely lady in North Carolina only four days after I listed it.  So all in all a happy ending to this fairytale wedding piece

Jewel Of Jaipur

I know I haven't posted in a while but I will try to catch up lol....

Last month I finished a necklace which I decided to name The Jewel Of Jaipur. Using glass seed beads in varying hues of pink, orange and gold, I surrounded the center piece of this necklace which is a vintage pressed glass button from Czechoslovakia. This piece is a one of a kind, hand embroidered by me. It is accented by beaded fringe with swarovski crystals and backed with orange Ultrasuede for a nice soft feel against the skin.

The removable beaded rope measures 18 inches and has a gold filled lobster clasp. The pendant with fringe included measures 4 inches long and 2 1/2 inches wide.

The bright pinks, golds and oranges reminded me of the colors of the buildings in Jaipur which is also known as "The pink city".

And the pattern on the Czech glass button reminded me of the patterns in textiles used in the beautiful sarees worn by the women of India.

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I truly love everything about the colorful culture of India and its people and I think it really showed through in this piece. This is my second piece using that beaded spiral rope which has turned out to be a very useful pattern. It is extremely easy, fast, strong and easy to customize. Here is a link to the tutorial I used to make it.

Valentine's Day Giveaway

Okay so, I have been a bit busy with the holidays but now I'm back! And to start off the new year right, I'm doing a free giveaway through my Jadebutterfly Designs Facebook page!

I will be giving away this beautiful blown glass heart necklace, hand made by me on Feb. 5th. 100% free including shipping. The are 3 Simple Steps To Enter...

1.) Like my Jadebutterfly Designs page on Facebook
2.) Share the contest post (along with any lovely comments you have ;) )
3.) COMMENT on the contest post to let me know you have completed all 3 steps. Make sure to do all 3

That's it! Enter and win!!!
I will assign a number to each person's entry and draw a number. The winner will be announced on Feb. 5th and notified by Facebook message. The necklace will be mailed within the next 2 business days. Perfect to keep for yourself or to give as a gift to your special someone!

Best of Luck to all my supporters :)

A learning Experience....

So recently I did my very first show! I rented a 15'x15' spot at field days of the past in Rockville, Va.  I was excited and terribly nervous for this new experience. I worked every day for 3 months to make up plenty of product to take to the show. I also collected things to decorate and design my booth. Here is the finished product at the day of the show....

I really had no idea what to expect going into this. I didn't know if I would sell anything at all or sell out completely.  I ended up only making about $300 profit but it was better than nothing.  I also had no idea what the customers and environment would be like... this is where I learned the most.  I chose to do this event to start with because the entry fee was only $75.... I should have expected to get what I paid for. Before I go into the experience with the customers, let me explain something. Almost everyone here was wearing camouflage and there were tractor pulls all day for the 3 days of the festival. Most of the customers were nice enough, coming up to me saying hi and examining my wares. But then there were all the people who would see something on my table from afar, run up exclaiming how they love love love the item and then see the price and say "oh this is way to expensive" and walk off. One piece in particular to be exact. 

I was selling this piece for $50. Personally I didn't think it was that expensive.... I guess I was wrong. But the most disheartening experience for me was when a lady came up to me and asked to buy this necklace.

The price tag was clearly marked $20. So the lady rummages through her purse and hands me a quarter. I stand there patiently waiting, thinking she maybe has a lot of change and wants to use that. She sees the curious look on my face and asks "What's wrong?" I calmly and sweetly reply, "It is 20 dollars ma'am". She promptly takes the quarter back, exclaiming how that is much too expensive and she is saving for a computer as she walks off. I stood there dumbfounded.... she thought the piece was worth only .20 cents!!!! My husband immediately came over and consoled me, telling me she must have been an idiot. I just wanted to cry.... 

People mainly ended up buying my random blown glass beads that I had in a bowl for $5 a piece. Obviously if I choose to do one of these kind of events again, I need to only bring cheap items because these people can't tell the different between my best products and my not so good ones. In order to sell my more upscale pieces, I need to go where there are more upscale clientele.

The other problems with this show..... everything got covered in a fine clay dust from the tractor pulls, including my lungs. I was sick for a week afterwards because of it and ended up having to take oral steroids to remove the inflammation in my lungs. And last but not least, the terribly mannered children!!!!! Parents would just watch idly by as their kids came up to my table and grabbed a handful of my blown glass pendants, smashing them together. Then they would just walk off. What the hell! The worst was this "honey boo-boo" looking child came up with her mother and examined a necklace I had made from a single star similar to this...

The star was hollow, 3-D and constructed of seed beads. The child turned the pendant over in her fingers, looking at it carefully while her mom did something else at the other end of the table.  Then the child looks up at me (i was of course watching her like a hawk) and smashes the pendant in her hand. Smiling an evil grin afterwards and then runs off to her father who was at one of the other booths.... 

I didn't say anything... but I wanted to scream. Please if anyone out there does shows and has experienced some of these things, I could really use some advice on how to handle this kind of stuff.

Recent works... finished and in progress

Sooo.... recently I have finished two rather nice pieces. I had come across some amazing Lucite flowers at my local bead store a few weeks back and I had to make something with them. I bought them in orange and fuschia colors for summer. I created a pair of earrings first..

 

I loved how they turned out so I decided to make a matching necklace. I adapted and changed a necklace pattern that I found in Beadwork magazine by Julie Antonucci and this is what I came up with....

 

Both of these are now up for sale on my etsy site and hopefully I will sell them. I think they are pretty awesome and perfect for summer outfits...

I have also still been working on the green necklace that I had previously posted about. I decided that I would adapt a pattern I found called "Romantic Rendezvous" by Sandra Lamoureux to go along with the pendant that I created. I will be using the same components of the necklace, just arranging them differently around my bead embroidered pendant. this is what I have so far...

 So thats about it for now.... back to work!

Soutache Musings...

So lately I have seen a lot of examples of something called soutache in all the beading magazines and blogs. I must say I am very intrigued but am not totally sure if I will attempt it just yet. Let me give you some picture to explain what I mean by soutache.

This amazing bracelet was made by Anneta Valious.

 And these are by Amee McNamara. You can see her work here. She is also featured in the latest issue of bead and button magazine. And she also offers tutorials and kits for sale on her website.

As you can seen it is a combination of beads and some sort of silk trim. Luckily I found a pretty nice tutorial on how to do it. Unfortunately it's in French.... But that's okay, the photos are more than enough :D You can see the tutorial here.  Seems like this may be my next project venture.....

More progress

I have made some decent progress on this particular pendant.... It seems to be taking on a vintage type look with the olive and cream colors. Since I am going with the vintage look I think some nice cream colored pearls would be a good addition.... and maybe finish the necklace off with some olivine rivolis... not totally sure yet but I like where this is going