A Vacation from Bead Sculpting

Okay, that's it—I'm going on a vacation!

Are you excited?! Me too!!

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Okay, yeah… that was a bit of an exaggeration.

You didn't actually believe me, did you?

…now I've lost your trust forever…

Well, it wasn't a complete lie—I've been on a mini vacation of sorts—a vacation from bead sculpting. Due to poor planning and a head full of beads, I forgot I was nearly out of my critter-making polymer clay until as I finished up my latest pre-ordered batch and was prepping to start the new batch I suddenly realized I'd run out completely! That was a big change of plans!

Yes, it was a working vacation! Believe it or not I actually finished my recent studio cleanup and bead organizing—years of mixed up stuff has been sorted into little zip baggies and I'm going to be filling my new bead organizers tomorrow.

I wish I had a whole room lined with these organizers, but then I would need more beads to fill them. :-)

Sorting through wire trimmings and mixed up seed bead colors was more than slightly boring after several hours, so in between that (always multi-tasking!) I got busy clearing out my hoarded polymer clay beads. I had been keeping way too much for myself! Some of these are beads back from my early bead making days, some are new, and many were unfinished beads that for one reason or another had been laid aside. In the end, I was left with a only few favorite things for myself and the rest was ready for new homes.

Next I spent the better part of two days arranging them into sets (that was so much fun!), photographing, and finally listing them in my Etsy shop.

Right now all new sets are 20% off! Take a peek at what's up for grabs here.

Still no polymer had arrived in my mailbox, so painting was in order next…

And more painting! These guys are getting primed for color.

With all my jewelry making beads and polymer beads organized, I started to work on straightening up my bead making supplies…

You never know what you'll find during a studio cleanup! These are tiny baked bits of polymer from my carved and faceted beads.  Still not sure what I want to do with them, but they were just too pretty to throw out.

Lastly, I unearthed my carved molds and stamps. I'm definitely going to be using some of these again in the near future!


My new polymer order should be here later today or Monday and I'll be right back at sculpting beads again. It was so nice and invigorating to take this mini vacation—I always feel better when things are in their right place and now new ideas are starting to grow in my mind for my next creations.

I hope you've also had a creative last 2 weeks! What new creative things are happening for you? Do share!