Inspiration!

Yesterday the two "Cs" and I (my buddies Claudia and Carolyn) went to a local bead show...not huge but lovely and definitely worth the trip. While disappointed not to find a vendor with good findings for current projects, we DID find lots of other things to spend our pennies on, including a new invention for tying knots between components (I haven't actually had time to try it yet...will report when I do). One vendor, Beads Bagan, from Delaware, was especially inspiring with her fabulous shell pearl bead designs. All of a sudden, I'm completely smitten by pearls. I bought both shell pearls and glass pearls yesterday, and look forward to sharing the designs I create with them.

Speaking of sharing, my bro-in-law has become interested in photography and he built a light box and photographed some of my pieces. I'm thrilled that someone with more knowledge of photography than I have has taken some pics that I'm now able to share with you. Please scroll down past all of the blog posts and see the new visuals!!

RAW

I have tried doing some right angle weave (RAW) from book and magazine patterns in the last year or so but usually gave up when it seemed a bit too confusing. However, I recently took a class at Pflora Beads in Canton, MA and Phyllis, the shop owner par excellence, taught a lovely bracelet of her own design featuring RAW. You can see it on her website at http://pflorabeads.com/pflora_beads_jan_2011_004.htm, although I don't think the photo quite does it justice.

I thoroughly enjoyed the class (she's a terrific teacher) and the technique and rushed right home to pull out my book by Marcia DeCoster, Beaded Opulence. All of the designs in the book are based upon RAW and now I'm excited to try to tackle some of them.

Oh, so many lovely designs and beads and so VERY little time!!

TBH