New Pearl Pieces

I added a few new pearl pieces to my shop today:

A pair of earrings, this time in a blue/grey shade:

A miniature purple pendant:

And a larger pearl pendant, this time in pink:

All of these pieces are done in my light clusters beaded bead design, which is also available as a tutorial.

Did I mention that all of these items are on sale?

SATeam Sale!

The SATeam on Etsy is having a sale this weekend! The SATeam Summer Sizzler Sale is Here! SSSH... Don't tell anyone ;). The sale will last from Thursday, July 30 through Sunday, August 2, and a list of participating shops and their deals can be found here.

I'll be offering 10% all the items in my shop, including both jewelry and tutorials! Just mention the SSSH code in the notes to seller section, and I'll refund the 10% discount through PayPal after the payment is made.

In the meantime, check out these treasuries to get a taste of the great deals available this weekend!

Treasury and Sale

JewlieBeads included me in this pretty treasury!

Did I mention my team is having a sale next weekend? SSSH... Don't tell anyone!

New Tutorial - Teardrop Bubbles Beaded Beads

This week I finished my third tutorial; my favorite pendant and the subject of my online avatar, the Teardrop Bubbles Beaded Bead

 It was difficult to write this tutorial for a number of reasons. For one, it's complicated to illustrate this design, which resulted in quite a long tutorial! It clocks in at 27 pages and over 80 photos and illustrations! While it may be a bit verbose, when I write my tutorials I try to err on the side of too much detail rather than too little. This tutorial is an advanced design and can be quite tricky to weave, but my hope is that others will be able to reproduce it from my instructions and troubleshooting tips. The other reason why it was so difficult to write this tutorial is that it's one of my favorite designs and it's hard to share something so special to me. But a big part of what I want to do with my work is write tutorials, and I've received plenty of requests for this particular design. Eventually I decided that I'd rather write it up than keep it entirely for myself. Anyway, I've experimented with color patterns for this design a number of times. In addition to the pieces available in my Etsy shop, I also made some additional pieces. I like how the finishes of the seed beads give this beaded bead a different texture:
I love working in this color scheme. I don't wear a lot of gold but I love how it complements the blue in this piece. The smaller beads are also beaded beads, of a yet-unpublished design:
I've shown this one before, but I just had to mention it again because of how the Teardrop Bubbles beaded bead complements the Double Bubble Jacks Beaded Beads
 You can see more images of these and other designs in the gallery of my website. As always, if you use this tutorial, I'd love to see what you create!

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Another Weekend, More Treasuries

Here are some treasuries for your Friday! Jojo was kind enough to include me in this refreshing Summer Blues treasury among a number of talented artists from the SATeam. Make sure to check out Jojo's shop; among other pretty pieces she has a complete collection of beaded Tetris pendants which I find incredibly cool.

I also managed to snag a treasury for the weekend. This treasury features some beautiful pendants of the beaded, lampworked, and wireworked varieties. Check it out!

Weekend Treasury

I'm in a treasury this weekend! Thanks so much to Heather of Studio DTQ Designs for including my earrings in this lovely pink treasury!

Treasuries and Inspirations

A pair of earrings featuring my Double Bubble Jacks beaded beads is in this treasury by Noahsarkcollection. She makes some great treasuries and frequently features members of the Starving Jewelry Artists community and our associated Etsy team, plus she has some very cute animal charms in her own shop, so make sure to check it out!

Speaking of the SJA, we have a number of very talented seed bead artists, one of whom is Cynthia Newcomer Daniel of Jewelry Tales. If you are not familiar with her work I highly recommend that you check out her website; her styles range from simple and elegant to complicated and breathtaking, and everything in between.

Anyway, she was the first person to take interest in my Double Bubble Jacks beaded bead tutorial, and in the space of a week she made a dozen variations on this design and, along with her own Lagoon design, wove them into a beautiful necklace entitled Rock Pool:

Needless to say, I'm blown away by this piece and fascinated by her variations on my design. While it's been a few years since I started developing my own beaded designs, I only recently managed to get over the emotional hurdle of not only sharing images of my work, but tutorials of my designs as well (and I wouldn't say that I'm really over this emotional hurdle, nor do I think I will ever be. Putting your work out there to be judged and critiqued is always an emotional challenge). To see someone take one of my patterns and just run with it is an extremely cool experience. I'd love to see what other people come up with too!