Handmade Beads

I know, I know.... my posts lately have been kinda.... boring. I promise to step it up. From now on, I promise not to whine about how little time I have to be creative and how stressed I am. I will only post the good, positive stuff that comes out of the studio. And am I ever excited about what I created last night!

Every artist tries to find something to make them stand out - or what they are known for. In a world where there is so much inspiration, it is hard to come up with something totally original. I would love to be a lamp work bead maker, a polymer clay bead maker, a metal smith. But until I have the time and training to learn those processes I have been trying to come up with other ideas. True, I did take a beginners lamp work class years ago and the results were - okay. It truly is something that needs a lot of practice and some money invested.

So, I've had this wood burner tool kit for years. I've used it from time to time. I think I burned a snowman into a sled for my Mom and then colored him in. We've burnt designs on pumpkins. And I've even used the cutter tip to cut through foam board. But now, I am burning designs into wood beads! Wood beads are very popular right now and I am glad I found a way to "enhance" them with my own special touch. I will continue to experiment and will probably plan to sell them as well as use them in designs. So far, I have just used a few design tips and the writing tip to freehand words. I know they sell letter and word tips that I am going to check into but I fear they might be too big for an individual bead. I could also rub paint into the imprints and then clear coat them. Oh, I am so excited about the possibilities. So I guess what I want to know is - would you be interested in buying them? What designs or words would you like to see? At this point, I think I would be open to taking special orders.

In other handmade beads news, I also made some paper beads a few months ago - thanks to Girl Scout instruction from my youth. Since I am also a scrapbooker, I certainly have plenty of patterned paper on hand. You cut a long, narrow triangle and then roll it up starting at the large side. Once the end is glued, I also sprayed a matte clear coat on them. Also pictured is a shrinky dink from some other experiments, to use in jewelry. Once again as a scrapper I also have lots of rubber stamps and coloring tools. I don't have the link handy right now, but some may remember Andrew Thornton and his family playing with shrinky dinks a while ago too. It was so ironic that I had just bought some and then saw his post!