New Tutorial - Double Bubble Jacks Beaded Beads

After what feels like forever I've finally finished my second beaded bead tutorial.

This design is a younger sibling of the Teardrop Bubbles beaded bead, and it reminds me of a little toy jack with bubbles sticking out of it. While it uses the same technique as the Teardrop Bubbles bead, it's much easier to weave together (and to write up as a tutorial!). This tutorial is currently available at my Etsy shop.

I made a number of pieces using this beaded bead design and I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. They make a very cute pair of earrings:

And I also made this bracelet:

Finally, I paired two of these beaded beads with a Teardrop Bubbles beaded bead for this garden-themed necklace. I didn't originally plan on stringing it with Russian amazonite and green aventurine, but after using beads of these gemstones in a test-string of this necklace, I just fell in love with how they complement the beaded beads.

You can see more detailed images of these and other designs in the gallery of my website. If you decide to use this tutorial in your designs, I'd love to see pictures of what you come up with!

Splendid Vintage

Thanks to everyone who downloaded my first tutorial from Jewelrylessons.com! I've been very happy with the positive response and encouraging comments. It's now on Etsy as well and last Sunday it was also my very first Etsy sale! I'm working on my next beaded bead tutorial, but like my first one it's also taking forever...

In the meantime, I updated my website with some pictures of a necklace I made a while ago. It's loosely based on a bracelet design Beki Haley published in Bead Unique back in 2006. This is my go-to necklace for all things wine, from visits to the wine country to volunteering at the annual Zinfandel festival.

News Update and First Tutorial

It's been a busy few weeks and I haven't had much time to post some of my newest beadwork. I haven't had the time because I'm traveling across the country to attend a huge national meeting. No, not that one, although I hope to go there some day. This meeting is related to my doctoral work.

A few weeks ago I posted some images of my light clusters earrings to the Jewelrylessons.com project gallery, and then I received multiple requests for a written tutorial for this project. I had thought about writing tutorials for my work for while, but this time I finally made the plunge and wrote one up. I think it was because I have made this beaded bead hundreds of times since I frequently use the basic octahedron in my beadwork. After lots of research online, tons of pictures, and hours upon hours of tinkering with Illustrator, I submitted my tutorial to Jewelrylessons.com last week. Writing a tutorial for a 3-D beaded object is really tough! It felt like it took forever.

I'm happy to report that this tutorial was accepted and is available at Jewelrylessons.com at this link. I'm very excited, not only because this is my first tutorial, but because it was accepted quickly and without any revisions! So I must be doing something right :)

Now I'm imagining up tutorials for my other beaded beads; I had better get to work!