Beaded Bead Reflection Photography

I've been playing with photographing some of my beaded beads on a reflective surface.

It's a fun but challenging photography technique and I think it works particularly well for silver beadwork. I used a piece of dark reflective plastic to generate the reflection, which does the job quite nicely however it also picks up every single speck of dust in the light tent. I had to spend a ton of time editing out the dust specks in post-processing to generate these shots.

Here's a shot of a Fairy Triangles beaded bead. I like how the reflection picks up the lower part of the beaded bead as well as the top.

Here's another shot of the silver Half Tila Technocluster beaded bead, which I previously tried to photograph in a previous post.

For reference, here's my previous attempt at photographing this beaded bead. The big difference is in the reflective surface; in the older shot I used a clear piece of plastic to generate the reflection (instead of a dark piece of plastic), but since both the top and bottom sides of the clear plastic show, it makes a double reflection rather than a single reflection.

I like the reflection in the new shot, but the beaded bead is a little overexposed. I prefer the way the beaded bead looks in the older photo.

Finally, I used this same technique to photograph the Diffractions Necklace, which is the project that I'll be teaching at the Beading by the Bay bead retreat in March of 2016.

This necklace features both cube- and dodecahedron-shaped beaded beads that use a unifying set of materials and embellishments, and I'm looking forward to teaching this project because it's a great example of beading with different geometries to make different types and sizes of beaded beads.

Thanks for looking!

Bitten by the Silver Bug

I've been bitten by the silver bug...

It started with a pear-shaped Swarovski silver patina crystal that had been sitting around my studio for the past several months. I incorporated it into a Prism Blossoms Pendant, and complemented it with silver half Tila, bugle, triangle, and seed beads.

I used a crystal clear rivoli for the center to keep the emphasis on the silver beads and the flowers. To keep the focus on the silver portions of this piece, I also used a relatively simple complementary color palette of oranges and blues for the Dragon Scale bead flowers.

For my next silver piece, I turned to the Annular O Necklace. This colorway features silver patina rivoli crystals, but these shiny crystals are paired with more muted pewter seed beads. A touch of purple adds color to the necklace.

Finally, I collected a bunch of Tila, half Tila, bugle, and seed beads as well as crystal AB crystals for a Half Tila Technocluster beaded bead. I left the half Tilas clear in an attempt to blend them in with the crystals, and I think I was successful on this point, however the resulting beaded bead does not show the sharp lines that some of the other colorways of this design.

I also experimented with reflective surfaces for this photo, but it didn't quite turn out the way that I would have liked. So the photography of this piece remains a work-in-progress.

Beading patterns for all three of these designs are available at beadorigami.com, and kits for these colorways and more are available as well.

Which do you prefer? Silver, gold, bronze, or another color entirely? Drop me a line in the comments :)

Thanks for looking!

Beaded Bead Webinar - Join me on June 24!

I'm giving a live webinar presentation on June 24! What's it about? What else? Beaded beads!

In this presentation, I'll talk about how I design and create many of my geometric beaded beads. If you sign up for this webinar, you'll learn the different geometries that can make up beaded beads, and how one geometric structure can lead to a wide variety of designs. 

This webinar is appropriate for all levels; if you're a beginning beader, you'll learn the basic instructions on how to create a cube or dodecahedron beaded bead, such as this one made out of pearls:

From there, I'll talk about several of my more advanced designs based on this structure, such as the hollow Fiberoptic Dodecahedron:

And the not-hollow Tila Garden Pendants:

Have you ever wondered why you would use a round core bead in the middle of one design, but not another? I'll talk about that too, and how you can use these principles in your own beading designs.

The webinar will take place on June 24 at 1 PM EDT (10 AM PDT), and you can register for it at the Interweave Store. Attendees will have the chance to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

Can't make it on June 24? You can watch it later! Anyone who registers for the webinar will receive a downloadable video of it about a week after the webinar airs!

Saving Leftover Beads, or Bead Cores

I've embarked on a bit of a bead science experiment, and I already have some preliminary results!

Neat vs Not Neat Beading

As you may or may not know, I'm a rather neat beader. When I'm working, I tend to keep all my bead shapes and colors in neat little piles on my bead mat. A typical example of my bead mat can be seen in the left portion of the photo below, which is what it looked like when I was weaving the third colorway of the Water Lily Windows bracelet. (For contrast, at the time, a rather famous beader was working from a bead soup on the tray to the right):

I have been known to bead messy on occasion though. The only photographic evidence of this is seen in the photo below. This is from when I wove a beaded version of an Arixtra molecule.

Saving Leftover Beads

Why am I talking about neat vs. not neat beading? Well, as a neat beader, it's relatively easy for me to sort out all of my leftover beads back into their little tubes and baggies. If I didn't naturally bead so neatly, I probably wouldn't take the time to sort them all out. I'd likely still save these beads though, perhaps as a "bead soup" for later reference into my colorway and bead choice habits.

I realized that, just because I'm a neat beader, that shouldn't stop me from saving a gram or two of leftover beads on my tray (unless the beads are too expensive, like crystals). I started doing this a few weeks ago, and I saved them in a narrow tube so that they would settle into thin, discrete layers for each project that I worked on, like an ice core. This way, I could return to this "bead core" later and see what kinds of beads and colors I was using at that time, the same way that scientists analyze ice cores from Antarctica to see what the climate looked like thousands of years ago.

Bead Core

This experiment has already yielded some preliminary results! In my current Bead Core, I can identify the beads that I used for that third colorway of the Water Lily Windows bracelet, two colorways of the Half Tila Technocluster beaded beads, and the beads I used for the basic dodecahedron beaded bead that accompanies the Half Tila Technocluster pattern. The latest beads that I added to the core are from a project that I just finished, and I hope to show pictures of it soon.

After I finish this bead core, I hope to start my next one in a longer tube such as a serological or titration pipette, as if my background in science wasn't clear enough already ;)

What kind of beader are you? Tidy? Messy? Write a comment in the comments section below!

New Pattern and Kits: Half Tila Technocluster Set

I'm pleased to release my latest beading pattern, the Half Tila Technocluster Beaded Bead Set!

A Faceted Dodecahedron Beaded Bead

This beaded bead combines Miyuki Tila beads, Miyuki Half Tila beads, bugle beads, and Japanese seed beads with Swarovski rivoli crystals for a very sparkly, tactile, angular beaded bead. This design is woven using the circular netting stitch and a variation on right angle weave, all in the geometry of the dodecahedron, for a total of 12 pentagon-shaped sides with one crystal in the middle of each side.

The crystals sit close to the middle of the design, and I really like how the Half Tila beads reflect and extend the facets of the crystals outward. The angular shapes of the beads used in the Half Tila Technocluster give it the look of an advanced technological device, hence its name.

A Stunning Solo Pendant

The Half Tila Technocluster is self-supporting with no inner core bead, and can be strung through any pair of the triangular-shaped holes formed by the bugle beads. This beaded bead measures about 33 mm diameter, and stands on its own very well as a pendant. I've strung this one on a Diamond O Beaded Chain that I usually use for an O Stars Pendant (though, I think a Diamond O Chain woven with bugle beads would complement this beaded bead quite nicely too):

Matching Earrings for a Complete Set

A pair of matching earrings completes the Half Tila Technocluster Set. Here's the beaded bead in matte metallic patina, bright green, and lavender hues:

And here's the pair of matching earrings for this colorway:

The earrings are light and comfortable, and well-balanced so that the beaded component does not bend forward. Do you see how the earring takes the shape of one of the 12 pentagons from the beaded bead?

A Trio of Beading Patterns in One!

This is perhaps the most technically-challenging beaded bead I've designed, so I was initially wary of writing it up as a beading pattern. If you've previously mastered the Tila Garden Pendant, you're in great shape for tackling this beaded bead. 

If you're new to dodecahedron beaded beads, I really tried to bring my "A Game" when I wrote the pattern for this design. So, I started with the instructions for the matching earrings, which teach you how to use the Tila and Half Tila beads in layered, dimensional beadwork. Then, I include instructions for a basic dodecahedron beaded bead, woven with bugle beads and size 11° seed beads, for an easier introduction to the geometry of this design. Finally, I conclude with the instructions for the full Half Tila Technocluster beaded bead, which combines both lessons together for this stunning statement beaded bead. This is one of my longer patterns, and clocks in at 28 pages and 90 full-color photos and illustrations.  

Four Kits!

Beading kits for this design are available in the four colorways shown above, and include all the beads and findings needed to make the main Half Tila Technocluster beaded bead, the matching earrings, and at least one basic dodecahedron beaded bead.

Thanks for looking!