BEAD AND BUTTON PART 3

My bronze Ammonite, cold-joined pendant from Susan Kazmer's class.

My friend Karen Elmquist, won first place for lampwork in the Bead Dreams competition.

Paul looking happy with Gigi and Karen.

Gail's wardrobe malfunction involved her Optivisor.

The troupe of finger puppets that Karen bought for all of us (mine was actually a present for my sister's sweet new kitten, Sassy). These puppets provided us with hours of fun (let's just say that it's a good thing that it'll be a year before we go back to the swanky Capital Grille!).

My third class at Bead and Button was another Susan Lenart Kazmer class. It turned out to be kind of a continuation of the metal techniques that we learned in the glass casting class. That was cool though, because I really enjoyed practicing the new prong setting that we learned. I used a bronze Ammonite that I had made at home before the show. I sawed out a backing plate from sheet bronze, complete with prongs. I set the bronze piece onto the plate and then riveted the whole piece to another piece of bronze sheet. I like it, it was sort of an exercise in cold joining. It was a fun class and a good chance to further refine what I'd already learned.

My last class was supposed to be a reticulation class. I woke that morning with a horrendous headache, so I didn't make it to class. Paul went to see the teacher for me, Robyn Cornelius, who made she got the class kit complete with handout. I think I'll be able to learn the technique with the help of her excellent handout. I've never missed a class before and I felt pretty rotten about it. I felt better later in the day and was able to shop the show a bit early with the help of a friend! So the day wasn't a complete loss. More pictures tonight!

BEAD AND BUTTON PART 2

My bezel set Chrysocolla ring.

Karen's lampwork cab, bezel set into a ring.

Me and friends Karen Elmquist and Gail Lannum at the King and I Thai restaurant enjoying girly drinks with umbrellas in them.

Poor Karen's wardrobe malfunction. She was leaving bits of her shoe all over Milwaukee. Gail and I actually found a large piece of her shoe on the street. Too funny.

My friend Anne Mitchell and Paul also at the King and I. They could be siblings couldn't they?

On the Tuesday of Bead and Button I took a class with metal smith Joe Silvera and his wife Anat. It was a class in traditional bezel setting of stones. I've done this before, but I've never been great at getting the bezel to fit the stones just right. Joe was such a great teacher and both he and Anat are so nice and so much fun. He spent a good amount of time discussing how to choose stones that will be good for bezeling. I found this to be invaluable. It turns out that I was making one little mistake when fitting my cabs that Joe helped me correct very quickly. My friend Karen and I were both in the class. We were supposed to make pendants, but rebels that we are, we made rings instead. My stone was a Chrysocolla and Karen used one of her own lampwork cabs. I was so jazzed by the class that when the show started, I bought many beautiful stones from the amazing lapidary, Gary Wilson. I was able to get into the show early and his was the first booth I went to because it's always jammed with customers.

On Wednesday, Gail and I both had a day off and headed to Chicago to Urban Remains, a architectural salvage company. We picked through old house hardware for bits and pieces that we can use as inspiration and to incorporate into jewelry pieces. There was a great old doctors' cabinet that Gail really wanted until she saw the price, nearly $1100! I need to get her out her to Iowa, as I've seen similar cabinets in antique stores for less than $200. There was also a cool little coffin (not a real one) that I thought would look cool on the wall of my studio. I don't know what it was for, it looked kind of like the kind of thing you'd see in an old Dracula movie. Weird, I know, but I liked it. Also priced out of my league at $350.

More on classes later and photos of all the great stuff that I bought.

NO ONE WAS (PERMANENTLY) DAMAGED IN THE MAKING OF THIS YEAR'S BEAD AND BUTTON SHOW.

My giant, decoder ring made in sisters Cheri Lenart and Susan Kazmer's class.

Gail's pretty blue/violet/lavender pendant changes in different light.

Gail wearing a giant bead ring of Karen's and both my and Karen's ring from class.

Gail and I volunteered (ok, I volunteered us) to mix the silica/plaster goo.

My sea glass, pronged pendant.

Wow, that was a long unintentional break from the blog. Sorry about that. I got back from the show and it seemed like I've been going non-stop since. Not that I've gotten too much accomplished. The show was wonderful as always. I learn so much while I'm there. I learn new techniques that I can integrate into my own work, for sure, but I always come away with new ways of seeing the things that I already know how to do.

Paul came with me this year for the whole week. We had a lot of fun seeing so many of our wonderful friends (and meeting new ones) all in one place. I needed another week of rest when I came back from Milwaukee.

The first couple of days I took a class from Susan Lenart Kazmer and Cheri Lenart. Both of my friends Gail and Karen were also in the class with me, making it even more fun. The class was in glass casting. The first day we mixed up a silica and plaster mixture and made molds with it. This mixture was poured into small containers and when they were set up we carved into them. I carved a textured, oval shape that I hoped would make a good cabochon once filled with glass. The molds were filled with chunks of glass that we broke off of Bullseye Glass billets which is available in many beautiful colors. The pieces fired overnight and the next day we moved on to fabricating metal pieces to hold our glass pieces. We made a prong setting for the cast glass piece and a sort of tab/prong setting for a piece of sea glass that we altered with a Dremel and oil pastels. I made a crazy, giant ring with my piece of glass. It's so different from what I usually make, but I love it and it's really comfortable to wear. That's what Susan's classes do to you. They stretch your imagination and you end up making wild things. It was so rewarding. I can see that I'll be doing more casting. A few years ago I thought I wanted to get into glass fusing. I bought a ton of Bullseye glass. Soon, my enthusiasm for fusing petered out, leaving me with lots of pretty glass. I'm happy to have a use for all of the glass I have stored in my basement. More on the show and classes tomorrow.

ps. Thanks to my friends, some from whom I shamelessly ripped off photos from their blogs.

I LOVE TECHNOLOGY

Well, I'm back from the Bead and Button Show. I have so much to tell you all. I had intended to blog the whole time, as I enjoyed sharing it as it happened so much. I just got a new iPad and thought it would be perfect for blogging on the road, and it will be when I get the required camera to iPad cable that the nice folks at the Apple store neglected to tell me that I needed for loading photos directly from the camera or iPhone to the iPad. Isn't technology wonderful? Actually, it is, but sometimes I don't have a handle on all of the intricacies of all of the required cables and do dads that we need to make it all work. I promise to post all about the show, classes, photos and all of the peripheral insanity this week.

PREPPING FOR BEAD AND BUTTON

Bronze ammonites, waiting to be bezeled.

It's Bead and Button time again. It takes me a ridiculous amount of time to get ready to go to this thing. I'm not even a vendor this year, though I think I might try to do that next year. It's hard for me to decide about that because it's fun to just go and see my friends and soak in new techniques. I really do carry the inspiration that I gain there all through the year. I'm in 4 classes this year. I'm stepping out of my box a little, which I think is good. I'm taking a glass casting class with Susan Lenart Kazmer. The only glass work I've done ever done (outside of an extremely ill-fated lampworking class and a stained glass class) is fusing and enamel work. It should be fun. I think it's good to do things that are out of the realm of normal for you. Two of my very good friends, Gail and Karen are in that class too, so perhaps nothing will be accomplished except for laughter and burned carpet (you know who you are Gail!). And that would be ok too. I'm taking another class from Susan as well, Relics, Rivets and Staples. More up my alley for sure, but since it's Susan I know I'll leave with a lot of inspiration. I'm also taking a class on reticulation, texturing of silver with heat in a controlled manner. It looks a lot like a topographical map when done correctly. I've wanted to try this on my own for a long time, but I believe there's a fine line between a beautiful texture and a puddle of silver and with the price of silver these days, well, you get the picture. My last class is a traditional bezel setting class. I've done this before, but it's been a while and I'm looking forward to a refresher. I'm not as good at this as I wish I were, so this should be really helpful. That's what the ammonites are for. I decided that I'd like to try setting something other than a stone cabochon. Plus in an email the teacher told us that we should chose cabs that aren't too fragile. I'm pretty strong, but I don't think even I can crack a bronze cab!

I made a list yesterday of all of the tools I'm supposed to bring for these classes and it is a long and ponderous list. That's not even counting all the stuff I'll want to bring that's not on the list. How do people fly to this thing? Thank goodness my lovely Sherpa, Paul is coming along!

COPPER DISTRACTION

Micro-fold earrings (design by Jack Berry).

My first ever attempt of a star-folded form.

The back of my fold-formed piece.

Well, yesterday I was supposed to be cleaning the studio. Honestly, I think if I don't clean it soon, it may collapse under it's own weight and become a black hole. Cool....

Anyway, I was supposed to be cleaning when I became distracted by some 24 gauge copper sheet that I had lying around. A couple of years ago I took a class from Jack Berry on a technique that he created called micro-folding. Micro-folding is a variation on fold-forming, developed by Charles Lewton-Brain in 1985. In Jack Berry's class I made 2 pairs of these earrings and then never made another pair. Yesterday, I made a pair in silver and a pair in copper. After I rivet them together, I post pictures of the finished earrings. After I made those, I was putting books away and found my copy of Foldforming, by Charles Lewton-Brain. I've had this book for a while and had only tried to made one form, a leaf. I decided to try a star-fold. It was great fun! I can see a lot of potential copper projects in my future. I've always wanted to take a fold-forming class from Charles Lewton- Brain. I notice that Mr. Berry is teaching his micro-fold class at the Bead and Button Show again this year, as well as a couple of other classes. I love the technique and he's a very meticulous instructor. If you ever get a chance to take his class, I know you'd enjoy it.

SPRINGTIME IN IOWA

Bleeding Hearts, one of my 2 favorite flowers (the other is Fox Glove).

Crab Apple trees by my fountain.

Cats on the porch watching the bird feeder are a sure sign of spring.

The brightest double rainbow I had ever seen, in front of Starbucks (my 2nd home).

Baby Robins in a one of my sister's hanging baskets.

Mr. Toad who lives in the stone wall by Mom and Dad's patio.

Our moss covered fountain in the backyard.

Columbine in my front yard.

Irises, so impossibly pretty.

Lilac, one of the nicest smells on the planet.

Another columbine.

I love spring. It's a little sad this year without my Mom though. Even so, it's so beautiful this time of year. Spring in the Midwest usually starts a little slow and then suddenly bursts forth in color and warm breezes and noisy birds. We are in the height of spring now and I thought I'd share some photos of scenes from my and my Mom and Dad's yard.