Tag: cane

November 19, 2012

Seagull Beads

One of the cool things about selling online has been the chance to try and make what other bead users would like. Someone asked me for seagull beads last week, based on bird cane beads I’d been making and this is what I came up with:

The starting cane turned out happy so I was excited to get reducing.

The cane reduced nicely, always something I worry about a bit with odd shapes.

The finished beads were pretty much just what I wanted. I love when projects come together how I pictured. The customer tells me they’re perfect, so that’s even better!

February 18, 2012

Leaf Beads

Along with more flowers than any sane person should ever make in their life I make a few other canes. A few faces. Some butterflies and bees. I’ve done a bunny, a chick, a cat, a puppy and a couple of frogs. All of those are complex canes. I don’t make a lot of leaf canes which I don’t really understand since they’re a much less complex design than even many of the flowers I do.

Here’s a ginkgo leaf cane slice bead. I’m happy with these – they turned out just like what I hoped for after I realized they were totally NOT going to be a good 4 leaf clover bead. I even listed the set of them on Etsy if you’d like to have your very own!

November 8, 2011

Batches Are My Friend

I volunteer at the local public art gallery. On Sunday afternoons with a ton of the first snow of the season out there… it was dead. I usually try to work on arts and crafts while there to promote my classes and general art love and this Sunday was no exception. I prepped and made 3 pounds of skinner blends in all sorts of colours.

I have all of these ambitious goals for production and sales but really the only way it will work is if I am efficient. This means, where possible, working in batches. Next up is making those blends into what the schedule says they need to be. Yes, I have a production schedule. Sometimes I even stick to it. So these are some of the “big” canes that will get backgrounds.

The backgroundless canes that turn into big and small slice beads are on another table waiting to get chopped up into beads. After I get that plate of canes finished you can be some of those canes are going on these vases in one of my studio windows.