Botantical Gardens and Inpsiration

Hello,
Here are the photos of the botanical garden I promised. It was such a cool place! Fairchild Botanical Gardens is the official name if you are ever going to be in Miami, don't miss it. Look at these colors!

I really love visiting botanical gardens and aquariums. Actually I live just around the corner from the Georgia Botanical Gardens and I visit often. But I have to say I am a sucker for palm trees and other tropical plants. I guess it's the clean lines and fun colors that attract me.

Also, I don't want to be one of those bloggers that apologizes when it's been a long time since a post. But here goes my explanation on the lack of posting. It's spring. I get really busy in the spring and my top priority is getting my orders out. So if I am not posting as often, it's because I am in the studio making and glazing beads.

Gotta go make more beads now....
Jennifer

Beads From Class

I promised class bead photos. These beads are hot out of the kiln. I fired them yesterday because I know the students are very anxious to see what they made. I think they turned out great. Each plate of beads is a different persons. I had twelve students this weekend so as you can see it was a lot of beads to get through the kiln. I love to see every ones different style of ceramic beads.

There will be one more set of Miami photos to come. I need a day to edit them, but I want everyone to see my botanical garden photos. I had a day off in Miami and we went to the Fairchild Botanical Gardens. It was great. The colors were unbelievable. Stay tuned....

Back From Miami

Hi Everyone, I am back from Miami. What a fun trip it was! I am still unpacking, returning e-mails and getting organized from the trip and in the meantime here are some photos. I had twelve fabulous students in my two day workshop. The first day we were making ceramic beads. Day two of the workshop was painting and glazing. The last picture is of the great party that my friend Lynn hosted at her house. Doesn't that look like fun? It was.

I just want to thank everyone at JAG, the Jewelry Arts Guild of Southern Florida for hosting me and my workshop. The beads that all the students made are being fired this week. As soon as the kilns cool down, I will be sure to post the pictures. I think there are going to be some great beads.


We all had so much fun, there is already talk of me returning to teach another class in the future, so if your in the area stay tuned. I will post more tomorrow.....

Glazing

Just thought I would show you a picture of me at work. Some of the galleries that I carry my jewelry have requested working photos. So we took some the other day. Here I am in my studio working on some beads. When I paint the beads with underglaze they are all on skewers. This way I can turn them around and I don't have to touch anything that is wet. Once I have a bunch of them painted and in my wooden stands, I go back and put two coats of a shiny clear glaze on them. Then......I know so many steps., I gently take them off and clean out the inside of the hole. If I didn't and there was glaze inside the hole, it would stick in the kiln. That is a real bummer, it's happened too many times. For those of you who don't know glaze is basically crushed glass suspended in water. In the kiln the water burns out and the glass melts. So melted glass stuck to a wire isn't going to come off.

Another day, will show you my kiln loaded....
Gotta go glaze some more beads right now

Jennifer

Polka Dot Fun

Good Morning! I thought today I would give another peak of my book, Ceramic Bead Jewelry. This is one of the projects you can make. It is one of my favorite pictures in the book. I love the contrast of the black and white on the green. The polka dots are stamped into the clay and then an underglaze is rubbed into the crevices. I wiped the black off everywhere else. This bead has a matte underglaze on it so it's protected but not as shiny as some of my other beads. It's a nice look.

Actually since I came up with these projects for the book, I have been using some matte glazes and am really happy with the effects. In late summer, I will have some new beads ready to go with this look. I will talk more about those later, once I can get some pictures taken.

It's back to making beads for me!
Have a great day,
Jennifer

More Circles....

Here is a bracelet I made using my new circles bead.

Also, here are some great links of other beading bloggers. Check them out!



About.com Jewelry Making So, you finally have a jewelry web site up now. But why don't you have any sales?

Art Bead Scene Shakespeare inspires April's Challenge theme.

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles Melanie ponders acceptance, as well as rejection, as it applies to submitting beading articles to magazines.

Jennifer Jangles Blog Jennifer shows off a necklace made with her new ceramic beads.

Jewelry & Beading How do you learn about designing if you didn't go to art school? Check out all these online resources and see how you can learn about the principles of design and apply them to your jewelry making!

Katie's Beading Blog Katie wrote an article about vintage style for Craftrends magazine and it hits mailboxes this week. Are you a subscriber?

Make It Mine Magazine Even jewelry-making gals need to fix their britches once in a while. Check out the videos.

Naughty Secretary Club Wanna win a contest or host your own craft show? I thought so.

Savvy Crafter Candie’s been “wrappin’” with the high school kids this week to create wire and found object pendants.

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done! Whoa! What have we here? Jim's "lightshow garden" and a pair of chandeliers!

The Impatient Beader Margot received a lovely hand crafted gift from her good friend Jean Yates, come see and hear Jean talk about the gift and the materials she used to create it.

Circles, Circles, Circles

Here is a necklace that I just completed with my new circle beads. Enjoy!

Just like I promised, here are my bar stool beads. If you have no idea what I am talking about check out this post. I have just added them to my website. I have made charms, large beads, and pendants in these styles. Stayed tuned for some sample projects with these beads later in the week.

Have a great day!
Jennifer

Getting Ready

Good Morning!
Boy this is going to be a quick post today. I am swamped. My bead making class and trunk show in Miami is in two weeks. I am getting ready for it. It's my first bead event of the year, geez, I haven't done a bead show since July! It always takes a lot to get ready for the first one. All of my supplies are scattered and it takes awhile to find them and to remember what all I need. Throw in teaching a class on top of it and I am in panic mode.

I know you're probably thinking isn't two weeks before a show a little early to be panicking? For normal people, yes. I don't work well under pressure so I have to get things done early. In college, I would write my papers three weeks before they were due. Weird huh?

Here's a photo of one of the many new things I put in my Etsy shop last night.
Have a good one,
Jennifer