Freeform Friday: Girl's Bead night

Welcome to Girl's Bead Night! 

Razz is one of the girls; door greeter, carrot eater.

When Kim's email hits my inbox, I get that feeling of optimistic excitement.  "M has travel, lets have a Bead night..." What started out as convenience - to meet at Kim's when her husband was traveling for work,  has gone from habit to tradition. (We DO entertain the idea of meeting at each other's houses as well. But Kim is a fantastic hostess, and our tradition stands for now.)

Then the emails circulate as to time and food. Girl's Bead Night is on!

We are, in no particular order, a chemical engineer, an accountant, an entomologist/ceramicist, an artist/photographer, and an artist/educator. Between us we also garden, sew, scrapbook, tackle home renovations, travel the world, ride elephants....

Sangria. Stir fry. veggies. Life is good. 

We start with dinner, and a beverage and a chance to get caught up. Tales of travel, updates on family members - old and new! Anecdotes of crazy dog antics - there are 5 dogs between us all, and Razz in residence... and then we settle in - taking over the dining room as Kim's teen boys ignore us in favor of TV and sports. (an appropriate reaction.)

Kim - bracelets started AND finished. 

Bonnie - peyote with 11's & cubes, conquered the diagrams! 

Marsha - creating clasps, work time and leisure time. 

Me - seed beads with my focals, the new obsession. And they travel well! 

Lisa was working on her laptop, always has her eye on a cool composition. 

That face! 

I of course, ran this post by these women, and post with their approval. We discussed GBN as it was the first time all 5 of us had been together in months. It's a chance to share ideas and have fun, naturally. It's a respite from accounting, or teenager drama at home. A chance to talk to adults, not cats and small children. GBN provides a reason why you have to pack up that languishing project to work on and finish, or make time to bead, amidst the busy day-to-day! It can be a welcome "respite from reality" where all the stresses and concerns are left at home, and we can relax, unwind, and feel infinitely refreshed and restored the next day.

We swap, and trade, and share; to have a group of friends dear enough to share the bead hoard! You see my point... There is often good old fashioned "show & tell". We teach each other new techniques, and share resources. Problem solving, business advice, encouragement in many forms. Between us we bring so many interests to the table - from wire wrap to bead loom... there's never a dull moment!
I am grateful to have been welcomed into this group of women, now good friends. And I treasure GBN whenever, wherever it occurs. There is an environment, an atmosphere created when like minded creative people gather that is hard to put into words. It's welcoming, and invigorating. It's safe, and comfortable, yet exciting. It's familiar, yet always new. I wish each and every one of you finds a creative community to be apart of...  To me, AJE is one such network, but there is a different magic created in person. So thank you Marsha, for inviting me. And thank you Kim, Lisa and Bonnie for making GBN what it is today! 

Until next time... 

Jenny

www.jdaviesreazor.com

Links: 

Kim's Etsy

Lisa's Etsy

Marsha's website

Bead Cruise Recap

 On Saturday morning my ship docked back in Bayonne, NJ.  I had just spent the last 8 days on the fabulous bead cruise hosted and organized by Heather Powers.  If you can go next year, DO IT.  I had the best time ever.  Here, let me show you...

The night we left port there was a meet and great and a pendant swap.  I created the layered stoneware pendant on the left.  I wire-wrapped the sea glass with bronze wire and finished it with silk ribbon.  I wanted it to have a "lost city of Atlantis" feel to it.  The amazing seed bead pendant on the right was what I received!  It was made by Wendy Zollars.  Thanks Wendy!

Our first full two days out at sea were spent in workshops.  I took a full-day cubic right angle weave workshop by Beverly Herman and Heather's cast away necklace for my half-day class.  I found CRAW to be horribly frustrating but Beverly had me doing it!  Bead weaving really isn't for me though and I"ll probably stick to bead embroidery (less counting, lol).  We used a bead spinner in Heather's class and I made a mess.  There were a LOT of beads stuck to the bottom of my pants by the end of the morning.

Dinners on the ship were fun (and tasty).  We had a whole group of tables for our party so you could sit with whomever you liked each night.

There was also a vendor night!  The teachers each set up a table with their wares (kits, tutorials, beads, etc...). Erin Siegel convinced me to go on the cruise and she was my roommate so I got to help set up her table for vending.  I LOVE merchandising!

After two days at sea, we stopped in the Bahamas.  I got to go snorkeling and then venture through the straw market.  Sadly, the straw market is mostly imported stuff and does not reflect the original purpose of supporting traditional handmade straw items on the island.

We got rained out the following day for CocoCay but we all ended up beading and creating fabulous jewelry.  On Wednesday, Barbara Bechtel came and picked us up at Port Canaveral. She took us over to Beads by Baker.  What...a...fantastic...store...  No, seriously.  This store was packed with czech glass, trade beads, seed beads, tools, gemstones, blah blah blah!

Yeah, for realz it was that awesome.  $$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!!!!!!  ::wallet explodes::

After my wallet exploded, we did some additional non-bead shopping in the area.  Then Barbara dropped us back off at the ship and we headed back out to sea.  There were more workshops, yummy dinners and all sorts of fun stuff.

Random fun stuff from the cruise!

One evening there was a PJ beading party.  My awesome peeps here at AJE donated a bag FULL of awesome art bead/components and Glynna Merritt White was the lucky winner!  Congrats, Glynna!  I should also mention there was a crystal clay Make N Take (see lower right-hand photo).  I haven't finished my piece but I should probably work on that...

Our final evening at sea, Heather hosted a farewell party.  Those of us that created entries for the jewelry contest presented them that evening.  I made the three piece set on the left.

I had an amazing time on this trip.  I got to spend time with old friends, make new friends and finally meet friends I had only known via the internet.  Heather is going to release the details for the 2015 cruise later this spring.  I highly recommend going if you can.  I hope to be able to attend again next year.

Happy Beading!

Diana P.
Suburban Girl Studio LLC

There's an App for that

Computers revolutionized the way we do business, and now smart phones and tablets have made running a business in the digital age mobile. I thought I would share a few of my favorite apps that have made it possible to be on the road and still get things done without a computer, a day planner, a notebook, and a knuckle buster. 

For clarity, I'm working with an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4S. I don't know about Androids or any other types of smart phones or tablets, but I'm sure they can run many of the same apps or have a similar app. 

Square: 

I've been using square for a few years and it has made my life, and many other business owners lives easier. Even my hairdresser is using it now! 

The first year I used it, some customers were leery, others amazed. Now most of have seen one in action or at least seen the commercials for them. But it's so easy to use. Go to the Square website to sign up and get your FREE card reader. Go through the registration process, download the app to your phone and/or tablet, and you can take credit cards anytime anywhere. Without monthly fees for the privilege of a merchant account, without huge per transaction fees. And Square automatically initiates a transfer to your account on file the next business day. 

I cannot tell you how much Square has saved me compared to the inexpensive merchant account I used to have. The bank where my business accounts are kept actually tried to talk me into their version of Square. I read the informational sheet they handed me and laughed. I told the teller no thanks because they still want to charge a monthly merchant account fee plus the per transaction fee was much higher. She said they came up with this to compete with Square. I told her they need to keep trying. 

I know Paypal has their own card reader, and perhaps others do as well. I know nothing about them and recommend research before making a decision for which one you want to use. 

TurboScan:

I have one of those all-in-one copier/printer/scanner. But it's slow. And it's in the basement. And it's so darn inconvenient. And sometimes I am at the lake, which has an inexpensive laser printer, but no scanner. One day I needed to email or fax a document, but I was out of town and would have had to go to Kinko's to accomplish this. So I searched for a possible app and found TurboScan. And I have used it for all kinds of things. Yesterday I used it to email my contract for Bead Fest Philly in August. 

Here's the app in the app store. It also shows what the opening screen looks like. Get your document and click on camera.

Set your document on a dark background for best results. Then click the shutter button at the bottom. 

It automatically cuts out the background for you, but you can tweak it if you want to. Then a screen comes up where you can change how dark the writing is. I've always stuck to the darkest setting. 

The next screen gives you the option to change properties and give the document a name (center bottom), email (left bottom), or add another page to the document (right bottom)

Here's the page that comes up if you click on the pen in the center:

And options for distributing your document: 

Evernote:

What I love most about Evernote is you can add something to it, and it updates it across all your devices where you've installed it: phone, computer, and tablet. I've barely begun to scratch the surface of what this app can do, but I love it. 

I'm not very good at carrying around pen and paper. I always have good intentions, but it never happens. Evernote is where I record my business mileage. I have another note where I collect quotes. You can take a photo of something and write notes about it so you aren't wondering later why you took that picture or what you wanted to remember about it. Write lists. Upload your beading patterns or any PDF to it. I love this thing. It's my pen and paper. 

Facebook Pages: 

If you're on Facebook, and you have a Facebook page for your business, you need Pages. It allows you to update your page as your business. You can upload photos you've taken with your phone to your page. Without Pages, you can't really interact with your community to your full potential. And if you have multiple pages, you can easily switch between each page. 

Instagram: 

Supposedly people (mainly the younger crowd) are leaving Facebook in droves for places like Instagram. My customers aren't teens, but who knows how long it will be before us older people follow in their footsteps (if at all?). But that's not the only reason I love Instagram. I love photos. And I love sharing photos. Instagram has fun effects AND it's so easy to share these photos to other platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. And I can take a photo of something right out of the kiln, take a photo, edit it, and share it with a few clicks. 

Camera:

I know, this one comes pre-installed on your phone. But I use it more than any other app and it has saved me SO MUCH TIME in uploading a kazillion photos to the computer, sorting, editing, then sharing the photos. 

In fact, my next blog post (in two weeks) will be some tips on using the camera on your phone to take better photos of your work. 

Until then,

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions

Lampwork Tutorial: Frit Twisties

Today I thought I'd show you how to make frit twisties!  I'm sure there are lots of videos on youtube to show you how to do it, but in case you don't know how, here goes!

First, you need a pile of frit on your marver, a clear glass rod (I'm making clear frit twisties, you can use other colors if you want!) and an old 3/32" mandrel.

Coat the end of your rod with the frit.  Get enough on there so you can really see the texture!

Melt it in, and make your rod all nice and smooth by running it over your torch mounted marver (or regular marver if you don't have a torch mounted one).

Attach the old 3/32" mandrel as a punty - get the end of the glass rod hot, and get the end of the mandrel hot, then push it slightly into the glass.  A trick I have learned is to move the mandrel up and down then side to side (NSEW), and it will attach nicely.

Soooooo here's the part you need to imagine, because this is not a youtube video and I was taking this photos myself.  Heat up the blob of glass in the flame - it's almost runny at this point, at the very edge of the flame, ever so slightly push the end of the glass rod and the mandrel punty together, to make a sort of a football shape with your glass.  Take it out of the flame, and for a few seconds, just let the glass be.  After a few seconds, start pulling the glass straight out and then start twisting from both ends, pulling as you go.

This is how the punty end looks when you are done pulling.

And this is how the rod end looks when you are done pulling.

I like to use my tweezers to break the glass off each end - dip your tweezers in your quench bowl (or glass of water like I have!) and then apply them to the mandrel end of the twistie.  It should pop off because it's still hot.  If it doesn't, just lightly wiggle the tweezers until it works.  Do the same on the glass rod end of the twistie.

Here's your twistie, next to the pile of frit! 

I was not feeling too creative the other day, so I just spent some time making frit twisties - pretty and colorful!

*** I used uroboros clear glass and Val Cox frit.  They have basically the same coe.  I will need to use uroboros or bullseye glass to make my beads, because the coe needs to be very close.  If you are using effetre glass or any other 104 coe glass, make sure you do not put too much frit on the rod, and make sure you use 104 coe glass to make your beads when you use your twisties!


Susan Kennedy

SueBeads Etsy
SueBeads Web Site
SueBeads Blog