UFO's Reveal

Four weeks ago I issued you all with a challenge to finish off some of your unfinished projects! Guess what, today is reveal day!

My UFO box

In my quest to be UFO free I have been utterly ruthless! I have finished some projects, I have ripped some apart and put the beads back on display (yes, I display my little art beads in a printer tray mounted on the wall, like the little works of art that they are) and I have even thrown some away all together, the ones that I really struggled with and wasted way too much time overthinking about (do not worry, no art beads were binned). Here are a couple that I have finished....

Unfinished Beaded Coin

This one I started as part of the A Time To Stitch blog hop but as I am not used to seed beading I did not know what to do with it, so it just lay in my UFO box, but now it is finally done....

Beaded coin

I decided that the ceramic drop did not go as well as I was hoping and instead paired it up with this beautiful enamelled feather by EB Bead and Metal Works and finished it off with a simple copper beaded chain.
The next piece again was a challenge piece from the Bead Peeps blog hop....

Coin Capped Wooden Bead

My wonderful partner Melissa Trudinger sent me some beautiful wooden beads and some fab little 3d coins from Australia, I had got as far as putting it together but wanted to burn a design on to the wooden bead so it was not as plain, upon researching Australian art I came across some aboriginal cave art and decided to give it a try.
This last piece has been half done for months!

Stamped copper bangle

This one is so close to being finished but I just run out of time at the end! I had stamped the bangle with "Confidence is the key to success, be confident" and riveted a beautiful bronze heart lock by the talented Cynthia Thornton to the front and then, nothing my mind went blank!

Be Confident

I have added a cute tiny key and a sweet lampwork heart Earth Shine Beads to one side and a copper heart to the other. It's not quite done tho, I intend to add a silver rivet to the top of the copper heart and a tiny 4mm garnet, I just run out of time!

I was not the only one here at AJE with unfinished projects, here were some Linda's....

Linda Landig's UFO's

And I utterly love how they turned out....

Linda's Kyanite Bracelet

"Here's my 1st revision. - This was the kyanite and garnet bracelet in the original picture. It was an old bracelet and I used to use a thinner stringing wire than I do now, so it had broken. But it was also just a boring bracelet. There wasn't enough contrast between the kyanite and the garnet, so neither was really shown off to its best potential. I removed the garnet and the silver clasp. The new enameled toggle clasp is by Bead Swede. The beads between the kyanite are sparkly glass. The reflective quality of the glass beads, bring out the shimmery aspect of the kyanite."

Linda's Necklace

"Here's the 2nd revision. -
I liked parts of this necklace, but it had "issues". One problem was that the lampwork sand dollar dangle kept flipping around backward. I fixed that by wiring it, instead of hanging it from waxed linen. I ran a wire vertically along the back of the sand dollar, which holds it in a forward facing position. (lampwork by Beads and Botanicals, ceramic pendant by me) The 2nd issue was that the larger lampwork pieces on the neck piece all slid forward and clumped unattractively at the center. My first thought was to wire them, but they were too large and overshadowed the pendant. I tried stringing some small blue beads with some mother of pearl. It was a pretty combo, but it just didn't seem to work with the pendant. Finally I just went for simplicity and strung it on blue leather, with an adjustable chain in the back."

Personally I am hoping that I can finish off the last few UFO's and then stick to not letting them build up and zapping my creative energy! We would love to see what our wonderful blog readers have created, so please link up using the link tool.

An InLinkz Link-up

Open Studio Friday: Jen Cameron

Welcome! We are going to be spending most of our time outside today so I can show you my photography set-up during nice the weather months.

The back of our house faces a southwest direction, which is perfect for later afternoon/early evening photo shoots.

When I first walk out the back door, I step onto this small deck. It's not really a deck in the traditional sense...mostly just a method for getting from the kitchen to the back yard.

Example of photo taken on the deck: 

We built this house almost 6 years ago and the wood of the deck is a beautiful weathered gray...perfect for taking bead photos. However, hubs threatens he's going to stain it every single year. So far I've prevented it. We'll see how much longer that lasts...

The railing of the deck is also a great spot to take bead pics. Not only do you get the look of the weathered wood, but also back lighting from the sun. 

Example: 

The deck is a really handy because I will also sometimes use this post to take photos (thank goodness I always have a "helper" close by...)

An example of the post in use:

 

Once I make my way off the deck, I still have several options. We have had lots of stone retaining walls built over the years that serve various purposes...mostly so I have someplace to take bead and jewelry pics!

We had this fire pit area added onto our patio last summer. (Ignore the stripe of dead grass. We are getting ready to make that area into a landscaped bed.) This area is perfect when I've waited a bit too late to take photos or if it's overcast (like it was when I took this picture because we actually got RAIN yesterday!) Otherwise, this area gets too much sun and is too bright. 

Here I've piled up beads ready to have their portrait taken.

Again, I have a helper. My favorite rock on the fire pit wall is the one to the far right where one key is by itself. The reason I like that rock is that it has less red and brown than most of the other rocks. 

On the other side of the patio, we have a retaining wall with a bed filled with burning bushes. This spot is usually perfect late afternoon when it's too bright for the fire pit rocks but still later in the day so the sun is being blocked out a bit by the bushes.

My favorite rock is the big one where that red planter thingy is. I've been using that one the most lately. Example of it in use: 

I've even used this giant hosta plant to hold bracelets while taking pics (can't find an example at this moment). 

But what about when the weather is bad? Taking photos in the cold or snow does not appeal to me at all. Sometimes I break down and use the photo cube. Especially because in the winter days are so much shorter, I don't have time to take photos when it's actually daylight. 

However, when the light is good and the problem is it's too cold or too snowy for my outdoor photo studio, I have big southwest facing windows and the perfect bead backdrop ceramic tile in the kitchen. 

My other option is our kitchen table. It makes a great backdrop, but the wood has a lot of red in it, which doesn't always work.

 

Even though I spent money on a photo cube set-up and the mega daylight fluorescent bulbs, I prefer using natural light whenever possible. It's not that the photos are bad in a photo cube, quite the opposite. There are a couple reasons I prefer natural light.

#1- I personally cannot photograph the "hot" colors like red, orange and pink accurately with the photo lights. Natural light is much better for my current skill set.

#2- The lights are so bright and so nicely diffused, that it sometimes makes the bead look even better in the photo than it does in real life. I do NOT ever want to mislead my customers.

Thanks for visiting! Just so you don't feel cheated by not seeing where the magic happens, I will share a picture of my torch area right after I cleaned it up last January (it's not this clean any more).

I also want to invite you to my virtual beady pajama party on my blog tonight. There will be lots of door prizes, new beads, and other fun stuff. However, you do have to be present sometime during the party to win. Visit my blog for more details.