Can I Get a Do-Over?

Remember when we were kids, playing a game, and we messed something up, and we’d ask for a “do-over”? Most of the time, the do-over was granted, because who amongst us hasn’t goofed up at some point or other, and would need to ask for the same at a later date?

I apply the Do-Over Principle to making jewelry. It’s a pretty cool principle — if something hasn’t sold for a while, instead of relegating it to the bottom of the jewelry pile, it gets a Do-Over.

Take this necklace, for instance:

I really liked it. The dichroic glass has no stringing hole — only the center hole — so making a lark’s head knot with silk ribbon seemed a natural choice. Instead of knotting it to hold it in place, I used a large-hole silver bead, and then wonder of wonders, I found an orphan lampwork bead that complimented the dichroic glass beautifully. I finished the ends long, with two sliders, so the wearer could choose what length the necklace should be, put it over their head, pull the ribbon ends, and there you go.

It didn’t sell. Nope, nope, didn’t sell.

There were a couple of things nagging me about the necklace. One, the picture looks great as it lies there. But when you pick it up, the ribbon wanted to slide to the left, to the narrower end of the triangle, and nothing I did would stop that. It wouldn’t slide a LOT, but just enough. Second, the ivory ribbon, even though clean as a whistle, kept making me think, “that needs a wash”. Maybe because of the edge stitching? And maybe people didn’t understand, how the adjustability worked and just thought it was a complicated mass of string. At any rate, pretty glass, but it wasn’t finding a home.

Here it is after a Do-Over:

I changed the orientation of the triangle by gluing a bail on the back of the glass. I decided to pick up the pink in the glass by using a richer-color ribbon. The ends are finished, with a chain extender. I slid two sterling bead caps onto the ribbon to hug the bail to make it look less empty, and then added the lampwork bead back onto the ribbon. The hole in the bead is small enough that it will stay still unless you move it, and I like the Fidget Factor.

I have to admit, I still like the design of the first necklace better, with the lark’s head knot and all. But I’ve learned something important in jewelry design — sometimes the things you aren’t as excited about sell the fastest, and it’s important to make yourself experiment with things, even if they occasionally lead you into spaces you normally don’t occupy. You just never know what will happen — you may hit the ball out of the park with your next Do-Over.

Lemonade Stand for Art

There is a challenge I am issuing myself and I think I can relate it to a lemonade stand if I try. See if you can follow me with this…

What is a lemonade stand about? I usually had them when I was little. My Mom or Dad would take me and my sister to our grandparents’ house. They lived on a golf course, so it was easy to set up a little stand by the 3rd green that was in there backyard. I think we charged a quarter a cup. Most golfers would buy a glass and give us a big smile. Others were nasty grumps that would fill their cup at the water cooler on the next tee.

But then, why lemonade? I know for one, it is because it is tradition/cliche. But then again, it is/was because it was what was on hand. Personally, I can’t stand lemonade and in fact, it was the only thing that my Mom ever got sick on while she was pregnant with me. I have to choke it down. So my thinking is there was always lemonade around because I had drank up all the other flavors. It was the leftovers, lol.

I think lemonade stands are about making do with what you have to get something you want. I wanted to sell lemonade to earn money for things. I can’t remember anything I wanted to get off the top of my head, but I am guessing it was candy. We weren’t well off people, my parents couldn’t afford to give us allowance, so if we wanted something we had to do things to earn it. In hine site, it was probably very good we had to earn things rather then having them handed to us all the time. I think it is a lesson my kids need to learn (but we’ll save that discussion for another day).

A few weekends ago, while I was cleaning the garage, I did a lot of organizing to my glass desk space. There was a bucket full of rods I had been lazy about putting away. There is an overflowing tub of shorts that I saw I had been adding some not-so-very-short shorts to, too. As I was trying to put away all those rods, and sort through all those not short shorts, something dawned on me. I have a ton… a ton… of glass. Okay, maybe not a ton, but certainly enough to last weeks, if not months. I have gotten in the habit of ordering glass every time I run out of a color. No more transparent teal (one of my favorites), well, let’s put in an order… oh and while I am at it, I am kinda low and turquoise… oh and isn’t that a pretty shade of copper… might as well get some ink too… my orders end up costing me $200-$300 at a time (sometimes even more). And I place 5-6 of those orders a year. The result is my fully stocked glass rack and too many colors to count that are not getting used.

I really started to think I am being too wasteful. And the more I organized, the more I realized that I really need to start making do with what I have. The thoughts organized further and I started to think what a great artistic challenge it could be. Inevitably, I am going to run out of my favorite colors, just like I would drink up all the packs of Strawberry flavored Kool-Aid first. But what a challenge it could be to find inspiration in colors I don’t usually use. Like yellow… hello… doesn’t this necklace rock? And I can’t remember the last time I ever used yellow!!

Waiting as long as possible to reorder and making do with what I have will be helpful in other ways too. Being that we are purchasing a new house, my husband and I have put each other on extremely tight spending leashes. Absolutely NO unnecessary spending!! Now, glass isn’t “unnecessary”, it is a very obvious business expense. But I know I could be more conscientious about what I am doing. I could certainly use my “lemonade” colors (this by no means applies to yellow only) and earn some pennies for new things I want for the new house (like a new sofa!).

Do you think you could do it? Could you go as long as possible without reordering supplies? Could you challenge yourself to be creative with alternate colors you wouldn’t normally use? Could you be resourceful, penny-wise, and artistically inventive? Could you have “A Lemonade Stand of Art”?

Kerry Bogert is blogging about her glass art beads and jewelry from her home studio in Ontario NY. Check her work at www.kabsconcepts.com

Color and Insomnia

Most people who know me know I suffer from chronic insomnia. I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t have trouble falling asleep. This would probably not be a problem if I was free to go to bed when I wished (3am) and wake when I wished (10-11am). I’ve never, ever been one to bounce out of bed, cheerful and ready to attack the day. Oh no. Not I. It’s more of a slow, staggering, where-the-heck-is-the-shower type of rising.

I have a husband and a son, so I therefore get to bed at 11pm (read for an hour to try to relax the mind) and then get up at 7am (staggering) to start the day with the kidlet. My first attempt at creativity doesn’t start until 1:30pm, after I’ve dropped Zack at preschool and hit the gym, and by that time, I’m eyeing the bed with longing and hoping that maybe, just this once, caffeine will actually WORK on me.

So, many times, I fall into a color rut. I can design a pretty bracelet while I’m tired, but often I can’t get my mind to think of new, exciting, or unusual color combinations, and I end up making something pretty, but (to me) “normal and boring”.

I get tired. I just can’t think. So I’ve come up with a solution called a Color Book. I cut out clipping from magazines — bits of clothing, photos of flowers, Pantone swatches, paint chips, anything that gives me an “a ha!” moment.

This helps get my mind out of “I desperately need a Starbucks” to “oh yeah, I do have other beads I can play with”. It’s amazing, like a walk outside, when I flip through this book. Ideas start clicking and I start grabbing beads out the cabinet and cool things start to happen…..

The color book helps me get out from under making an all pink, all blue, or all purple bracelet (easy for me to do!) and gives me a much needed injection of mental caffeine. It’s a great artist’s tool that I highly recommend!

Now, if I could only do something about the insomnia……

Lori Anderson designs and blogs from her studio in Easton, MD. You can buy her work at her website, Etsy, and craft shows, and read more about her at her blog.

Accident Prone Jewelry Design

I’m often asked by customers how I come up with my designs. For the most part, they come about by one of two ways — the beads speak to me, or completely by accident.

When I say “the beads speak to me”, I don’t mean in a spooky, “I see dead people” way. What I mean is, when I see a particular strand of beads, I almost immediately visualize what I can do with them. First come the beads, and the design follows.

My favorite way of creating, though, is accidental designing. I love being accident prone. The best way to be accident prone is to have a messy work space. The more beads you have occupying your space, the more chances you have of a collision happening.

Here’s an example.

I bought a stellar set of lampwork beads in my favorite colors, pink and purple. I thought I had it in my mind what I was going to do — a lush, full, cha-cha charm bracelet that was strung, full of sterling silver and crystal.

The same day the beads arrived in the mail, a packet of copper orchid charms arrived. They ended up carelessly heaped next to each other on the table. I glanced over, and oh wow. They HAD to go together, and RIGHT NOW!

This happened from that crash-bang-boom accident:

It’s not strung, it’s certainly not silver, but I couldn’t be more pleased. So even though I had a wonderful idea in my head, being accident prone can work out to be the path to the best designs.

Lori Anderson designs and blogs from her studio in Easton, MD. You can buy her work at her website, Etsy, and craft shows, and read more about her at her blog.

Baby it’s COLD outside!

One of the biggest issues I have with beadmaking is temperature. The last couple of summers it’s been up into the high 90’s and low 100’s, at times for several weeks straight. That means no torching. You see, by the time I fire up both oxy concentrators, turn on the kiln and light the torch, it’s become over 100 in the studio. Hard on the concentrators and definitely hard on ME.

And then comes Winter with its icy breath. It’s usually not too bad unless the jet stream heads South and then drags Arctic air down over Wyoming. Which is where we are now. First it snowed a little and blew a LOT which buried my little propane bottle completely. I couldn’t even get the slider open to get out and dig it out.

Ok, then for one day the sun was shining and things were melting a little so I managed to dig it out thinking hot-diggety-dog I can torch tomorrow! Unhuh. We had a high temp today of I think 1°F or maybe it was 0°F. brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

So what’s the problem? Besides the propane having about zip pressure because of the cold? Weeeell. My little primitive venting system requires that I crack the slider open about 4 inches so I can aim the vent pipe at the fresh air. And honestly, I can’t find ANY way to seal up that opening enough that I don’t have frigid air creeping across the floor and climbing my backside.

So what’s a girl to do? Besides sit around and get cranky because her creativity is being plugged up. And honestly I’m getting sick of playing computer games, surfing the net and reading email. Sometimes retirement is a drag or maybe it’s just a case of cabin fever. Whatever.

To ease that jones I have I’ve been digging through my bead making books, gazing longingly at all my beading magazines and watching the latest dvd from Sharilyn Miller — Bohemian Bangles.

Now mind you I have been building up to this for a long time. When I was “doing” stained glass some 15-18 years ago I got into making seed bead earrings. Taught myself how to do it and got pretty good at it. Since I started making beads I’ve been leaning towards making jewelry out of them so have been collecting all the necessary accoutrements. Seriously, in actual fact I am what is known as a “tool whore.” Never met a tool I didn’t like

Be that as it may, frigid though the studio is I’m trying to making myself work. See:

So what’s the real problem here? I could whine about lack of space for working (nah, seen smaller setups that that where people produce aMAzing work). The temperature (well, turn up the heat or go into the house!). I certainly have lots of free time right now.

No, the problem is the same old one I find myself constantly fighting. Fear of trying something new because (gasp!) I might not be any good at it. Even though a couple of years ago I made several bracelets and sold them all. Here’s one of them:

It’s a constant struggle for me, fighting the voices that tell me I’m not any good and trying to expand my creative horizons. And sometimes, like now, I lose the battle. The trick is to remind myself to keep on. One foot in front of the other. Eventually (unless the weather warms up) I’ll find a rhythm that lets me move out of the doldrums and back into my creative mode which is where I’m happiest.

Darleen Michael-Baker is a glass beadmaker who blogs out of her home studio in Sheridan, WY.