Eye Candy-Preparing for Holiday Art Shows

I am in full blown bead and jewelry making for shows and gift giving. People, there are only 50 days until Christmas!!! Let that sink in for a minute....

My Paypal account has been smoking as I restock depleted supplies, add some new goodies, and find really cool components in my online travels.

Here's some cool stuff I found in some of the AJE team members' shops that would be perfect for gift giving or designing for those upcoming shows. It only takes one art component to make a piece extra special and unique.

Enameled components by Melissa Meman

Little Sleepy Jackalope(!) Bead by Rebekah Payne

Snowflake charms by Lesley Watt

Talisman by Karen Totten

Labyrinth Pendant by Jenny Davies-Reazor

Miniature Christmas tree by Caroline Dewison

Earrings by Linda Landig (using gears by Karen Totten)

Scales large oval bracelet component by Kristi Bowman

Candy Striped Beads by Diana P. 

Are you stocking up for holiday shows and gifts? What kind of goodies have you been buying/making?

Have a fab week!

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions

Making Beads, an Update on the New Studio, and Other Stuff

I've been slowly getting ready for the holidays with various ideas for beads. Still haven't thought through what I want to do for ornaments. Not sure I will do any this year. Hmm...

Anyway, here's just a few photos of what I've been up to.... Making BEADS, lots of them. I'm making a series of "Holiday Birds". I'm pretty excited about them. 

I'm also working on a set of Chanukah beads, here is a dreidel bead, one of the beads in the set...

And... a new Owlie bead! Meet Owlie Chick... I think he is pretty cute, don't you?

I've also been watching over the building of the new studio. Still so much to do! 

We've had to make a LOT of revisions... and some of the costs have exceeded our budget a bit (doesn't it always go that way??? sigh). But we've been constantly reminding ourselves it is "just a studio", to try to keep our eye on the ball and keep it SIMPLE.

Here's the latest floor plans:

I noticed out back that several cobblestones had been dug up and were laying around. This area is full of cobblestones, smoothly worn stones from the glaciers that used to be here. Some are quite large. They look like dinosaur eggs!

Last week or so, I found an enormous mushroom near the cabin. It was about the size of a pie!

What incredible color and texture!

I decided to remove it so I flipped it over ("TIMBER!!!"). The underside is so amazing. 

That's it for news - other than the wind storm blowing through here the past couple of days. Sounds like waves crashing on a shore. Just amazing.

Go get Sidetracked!

Happy Saturday!  OMG, it is November already!  I can't believe a year has gone by since I first was honored to be a part of this amazing group of artists here at AJE!

Today was supposed to be Inspiration from my Closet, Part 2.  As those of you who "get" me know, I am a total procrastinator...it is my mantra: "why do something today, that you can put off until tomorrow?  or the next day?"  So, while I do have something simmering for that post, today, I wanted to talk to you about jumping on the opportunity to create when it presents itself.

A few weeks ago, I signed up to show my jewelry at my 12 year old son's middle school Fall Bazaar.  I knew I needed to create some things that would be at a different price point than I normally sell at, which meant I had to re-think some of my design strategies.

A little Czech glass earring collection!

I had some ideas, and wanted to get into production mode and was doing pretty good...had a bunch of my Czech glass out and was cranking out some of the earrings pictured. My mind and eye kept wandering to other things on my table, though.  While my hands were wiring together Czech glass beads into colorful, fun combinations, I kept looking at pretty beaded beads that our own Kristen Stevens sent me a while back.

Kristen's amazing beaded beads!

I had been wiring some of my Czech glass bead flowers for another project and saw a bracelet in my head with creamy ivory, butterscotch and deep chocolate brown.  But, Melissa, you are supposed to be working on things for the Bazaar, or your COM piece, or your unfinished Day of the Dead piece, or twenty other unfinished things!!

Yes, I was supposed to be doing that, but I decided I should strike while the proverbial iron was hot! Here is what I came up with...

I really love what happened when I gave myself permission to stop worrying about what I needed to do and let my heart do what it wanted to do.  As luck would have it, I had a few other AJE member artisan beads to add to the mix!  There is Kristen's beaded bead, right next to Sue Kennedy's raku frit lampwork bead, and across the way is a chocolate brown ceramic bead by Karen Totten.  Other beads in the mix are my Czech glass flower, a bronzeite rondelle, faceted agate of some sort, and some other stone beads that I can't identify, but love!  The lampwork leaf was from a set of headpins I got from Karen Leonardo at a beadshow a couple of years ago.

The cool thing?  After finishing this, I had some of Karen's leaves left and thought...hmmm, these would be cute as a charm-type pendant.  I also loved the wire-wrapped circles I made, so I made a couple more of those and they sort of morphed into sweet, simple necklaces that I know I will make more of!

I still had time to crank out some copper swirl rings (which were a big hit!).

So, the moral of this story is, don't be afraid to get sidetracked...sometimes doing what you want to do, instead of what you need to do is a positive thing!

Have fun getting sidetracked!!

Melissa Meman

Melismatic Art Jewelry

Art. Life. Love.

Freeform Friday - Victorian hair jewelry

Happy Halloween. Happy All Soul's Day & All Saint's Day...
It the time of year when "the veil is thin" and the deceased are brought to mind. With festivals and remembrances, with pictures and mementos... and with hair? 

Last week I shared with you the variety of Victorian mourning jewelry, designed and worn to commemorate and immortalize the lost loved one. But the tradition of hairwork encompassed more than mourning the dead. Hair was used as a token of remembrance among the living as well. 

The small town of Vamhus Sweden had a reputation for their hair plaiting cottage industry. As a town only needs so many hair weavers... they spread out over Europe in the early 1800's and the traditions took hold. ( I couldn't make this up). In the 1850's Queen Victoria gave Empress Eugenie a bracelet plaited of her own hair. And as we know from the rise in popularity of Whitby jet from last week - once Queen Victoria endorsed a product, it became all the rage. 

 Godey's ladies magazine - the Vogue of the 1800's says this: 

"Hair is at once the most delicate and last of our materials and survives us like

love. It is so light, so gentle, so escaping from the idea of death, that, with a

lock of hair belonging to a child or friend we may almost look up to heaven 

and compare notes with angelic nature, may almost say, I have a piece of thee 

here, not unworthy of thy being now."

Mourning Brooch
USA c. 1848 Gold, enamel, hair, glass
Inscription:
Brooch: “H. G. Otis, / Died Octr. 28th 1848 / G. H. Otis, Died Octr. 24th 1848.”
Locket: “George H. Otis Died 1848”

Brooch
USA, 1864. Hair, gold
H. 2, W. 2 11/16, D. 3/8 in.
Inscription: Front: “Julia” Back: “Died Apl 22. 1864”

 Intricate three dimensional pieces crafted from the hair of an entire family - framed in a shadow box.
Hair worked on a table with bobbins, as classic lace makers and tatters would do...  and a drawing room social activity? Fix a pot of tea, or a glass of sherry... we are working on hair tonight after dinner. Wow.

"Beginning in the 1850's through the 1900's, hairwork became a drawing room 

pastime. Godey's Lady's Book and Peterson's Magazine gave instructions and 

patterns for making brooches, cuff links, and bracelets at home. 

The work was done on a round table. Depending on the height of the table, it 

could be done sitting or standing... The hair must be boiled in soda water for 15 minutes. It was then sorted into lengths and divided into strands of 20-30 hairs. Most pieces of jewelry required long 

hair. For example, a full size bracelet called for hair 20 to 24" long...

Almost all hairwork was made around a mold or firm material. Snake bracelets 

and brooches, spiral earrings and other fancy hair forms required special 

molds which were made by local wood turners. The mold was attached to the 

center hole in the work table. The hair was wound on a series of bobbins, and 

weights were attached to the braid work to maintain the correct level and to 

keep the hair straight. When the work was finished and while still around the 

mold, it was taken off, boiled for 15 minutes, dried and removed from the 

mold. It was then ready to go to a jewelers for mounting. (hairwork.com)"

Photo credits Morning Glory jewelry

Photo credits Morning Glory jewelry

I find it a little bit creepy, and quite a bit fascinating. Not uncommon to this day to save a lock of a baby's hair. And I am reminded of the O. Henry story "The Gift of the Magi" where the newlywed wife sells her hair to but her husband a watch fob. ( He of course has pawned the watch to buy her gold hair combs...) 

I hope this was interesting to you! I found it more and more interesting in a quirky way the more I read... Have a hair raising weekend! 

Jenny

www.jdaviesreazor.com

Resources - 

Morning Glory jewelry

Hairwork.com