Amuse the Muse - Autumnal Beads - with Rebecca of Songbead

Hello all! It's Monday again, I'm back with some beady inspiration. How's your September going? Sunny? Crunchy? A nip in the air? I've got to say that, other than today which is treating us to bucketing rain, we've had a rather lovely month so far. Lots of sunshine, yes, it's chillier (it's Edinburgh, it's the east coast and near to the sea - it's never going to be exactly tropical here!) but it's been dry and I for one have been enjoying being able to go out and about without having to wrap up for the arctic circle! 

My thoughts have definitely turned to Autumn beads, not just in preparation for this post, but also in my own jewellery. I do adore Autumnal colours, it's true, and I wanted to share what I have made this weekend with you - not least because it's a 3-ABS-team collaboration! 

Seeing as it's been such a generally lovely two weeks, I decided to reach for those 'in-between' colours - the faded, dusky, beginning of Autumn colours. I took inspiration from this post in fact, when digging out this very special Humblebeads bracelet bar and pairing it with a much-hoarded Something to do rose, and some darkly delicious Fallen Angel Brass that arrived with me last week. The butterfly connectors and longtime favourites of mine, but those pinecones! Honestly, they are just the perfect Autumnal charm for me. 

I also received a bunch of new pressed glass flower beads in a range of sizes for The Curious Bead Shop (and Songbead, of course!) that were just the *perfect* shade of dusky rose to go with Heather's bracelet bar, and so this piece happily fell together. (You can find it here in my shop.)

Have you been working on Autumn-inspired designs yet? Either way, here is a bunch of art beady inspiration to whet your appetite! 

Orange! One of my favourite, favourite colours - and this gloomy enamel clasp would add such a pop of sunshine to any design. From BeadSwedeDesigns

I think copper is such a perfect metal to work with at this time of year - look at the texture and rich patina Kristi Bowman Design has created here.

Claire says that Rejetta makes the perfect Autumn beads, and I've got to say, I kind of agree! Wonderful teeny tiny acorns from Jettabug Jewelry.

More orange! Aren't these delicious? And from a wonderful shop working in such a positive way, Earth Butter Studio. Am I the only one who desperately wants to reach out and touch these gorgeously velvety matte beads? 

Bo Hulley is currently taking a sabbatical from her clay work, but thankfully for all of us, she's left her bead shop nicely stocked. I love her leaf pieces - perfect for Autumn, and all created with real leaves from Bo's garden. 

Rebekah's beads are some of my favourites - she has such incredible skills with polymer! These Tree Wings Studio spotty, rustic discs are just the perfect Autumn shades, don't you agree? 

And now for the BeadBlogger links. Have a great week everyone!

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
Labradorite was the inspiration for the Warrior Stone Challenge. See what the participants made with this lovely kit!

Art Bead Scene
Do you like a beady challenge, asks Michelle!

Bead Crochet
The Crafty Princess reviews a new book about bead crochet. 

Beading Arts
What do you do when you're no longer thrilled with a pendant you've made? Remake it, of course!

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done! 
Jean continues to be interested in making 5 wrap bracelets and shares some thoughts and tips!

Silhouette Word Art Stencil 
Design a Silhouette word art stencil on cheap self-adhesive shelf liner. Links to free font downloads used and how to ungroup, weld and slice letters in Silhouette Studio.

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer; currently living in the capital city of Edinburgh. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.

Amuse the Muse - Autumnal Beads - with Rebecca of Songbead

Hello everyone! Me again, here with a super rundown of gorgeous handmade Autumnal beads for you. And this week's roundup is extra special! It's time for

Art Bead Scene does Autumnal Beads

Yep, I've got gorgeous beads from all of us in the team, ready to inspire your Autumnal designs. (And if you left a link/comment last week - thank you! I will be sharing them in next week's Muse post, never fear.)

Humblebeads. I adore feathers; I adore colour - what's not to love here? 

Julie Wong Sontag - Uglibeads - these have sold but Julie has more work coming up this week! Keep your eyes peeled - you've got to be super quick to snag an UgliBead!

Tari Sasser - I absolutely love the delicate texture of these leaf buttons. She's got them in a whole range of tones.

More gorgeous work from Heather Humblebeads. Don't you just adore the colours and the translucent quality of these leaves? 

I think we get rain too often here in the UK to smile every time - but Heather Swoondimples' work never, ever fails to make me smile. Her shop is closed right now but will be opening again really soon!

I absolutely adore the contrasting glazes of Michele's leaf pendant! Very special. 

It's good to remember that Autumn isn't just about greens and browns but also vibrant, warm tones too. This glorious pendant is from Mary Harding. 

Look to the earth for Autumnal inspiration! Claire's toadstools are just pure fun. I love their glossy heads especially. 

I've plenty of colours to choose from in my beaded bead selection, but these Turquoise Moss Picasso rounds say 'Autumn' to me....

....and every starring art bead needs a good supporting cast! Some of my favourite new beads in The Curious Bead Shop. 

I think those large Glowing Ember Blooms above would be the perfect match for Erin's very special leaf pendant! Again, I'm going to bang on about the glowing colours here. 

Erin has a set of these - I honestly can't pick my favourite. I'd love to create a set from these! (And check out one of these lovelies in action featured on one of my favourite blogs too!)

Another very special pendant from Mary Harding. Again, colour - but look at the torn textural edges! Just incredible.

Another gorgeous Autumnal-toned piece from Heather Swoondimples. The perfect rusty, October-y orange! And isn't the light in this shot rather wonderful too?

I had to save this one til last. Wouldn't you love to create something with Tari's wee alpaca? Too cute! 

And now for the BeadBlogger Links. Have a great week everyone!

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
This just in! Pantone has announced the Fashion Color Report for Spring 2016! What's your favorite choice for Color of the Year?

Chalk Paint Plaque — Something Wonderful 
Recipes for chalk paint and how to use it to create an inspirational wall plaque. 

Art Bead Scene
Check out Claire's inspiring take on this month's challenge painting - and her art bead selections to whet your appetite!

Get Colorful
Coloring intricate designs is a new trend for adults and a great way to relieve stress. The Crafty Princess has a free downloadable image from a new coloring book available on her weblog.

Blue Mood
Connie's added a new chart to her Etsy shop that will be easily adapted to any holiday or season. Find links to all her pattern sources in the blog as well.

Beading Arts
Cyndi shares some strategies for combining bead embroidery with free form bead weaving.

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean reviews a fab book by Keiko Sakamoto on wrap bracelets: DIY Wrap Bracelets, 25 Designs using beads,thread, ribbon,cord and more. So fun!

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer; currently living in the capital city of Edinburgh. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.

Monday Musings - Autumnal Beads - with Rebecca of Songbead

Happy Monday everyone! It's that time again, can you believe it - the start of a brand new week. I hope it will be a good one for you! 

It's our last week of Autumnal beads, and I must say that I have loved sharing this month's theme with you - Autumn colours are really wonderful, I am sure you'll all agree. 

First up this week, a clasp from Bead Swede Supplies. (I hope you don't mind another one, Kristen says. We certainly don't mind more of your gorgeous work, that's for sure!)

My co-editor Claire put some new Autumnal bead sets in her shop - Something to do beads - just a couple of days ago, and already most of them have been snapped up! There's just one of these gorgeous sets left - do head over and snaffle them up quick sharp to make sure you don't miss out. I love the exposed clay here, and the subtle touch of celadon green (one of my own favourite colours). 

Editor-in-chief Heather of Humblebeads is a big fan of Autumn, or Fall! Look at these beautiful beads she's created, inspired by the season. One of my favourite shapes from Heather - her matchstick earring pairs. 

No art beads here, but wouldn't my new Czech glass, artisan copper and Irish waxed linen Curious Inspiration Kit be the perfect accompaniment to your favourite Autumnal art beads? 

A very special bead from Mary Harding, another member of the Art Bead Scene team. Mary has been creating a series of these unique metal beads, and has even had them featured in Jewelry Stringing magazine! You can read about these beads and see more of them over on Mary's own blog here. 

And now over to the BeadBlogger Links. Have a great week! 

A Bead A Day
Some shiny things really get attention! Lisa's sharing some shiny silvery connectors that look like chain.

Teddy's Scarf
The teddy bear scarf is done!

Artist Profile: Photographer Taerie Kelly 
Taerie is a good example of how people can find their way from being crafters to accomplished artists. She has her first solo show starting this Friday!

Mini Canvas Making
Cherie's working on some mini canvases to decorate her office.

Carmi's Art/Life World
The summer goal of hand sewing twelve crazy cuffs was met with this salute to the fleur de lis!

Beading Arts
The final chapter of "Bored by Back Stitch" is now ready and available for download! The topic is "Textured Surfaces", and features ways to include shibori silk ribbon, metal mesh ribbon, soutache braid, and candy bags in your bead embroidery work!

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer, based in her country's capital, Edinburgh. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.

Inside the Studio with Claire Lockwood

Welcome to Inside the Studio!

Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

Congratulations Nan Smith! 

You have won a pair of lampwork beads made by Ema of Ema K Designs.

Please email Ema with your contact information.

***************

But where did all the time go...? It seems no time at all since I last did an ITS post. Are you feeling the autumn yet? I've been in autumn mode for some time. Several weeks ago you could really feel it in the air over here, but then the tail-end of the summer rallied a bit in my part of the UK, so it's felt a little as if autumn got postponed. Nonetheless, I have been busy with autumnal designs, both beads and jewellery. I've been working on these autumnal bead sets for a little while. Today I finally got all the elements of them together and strung them up.

There are only the five but I'm quite pleased with them.  Those bell shaped things are actually kinda stylised seed pod things.

These are my first stoneware pieces.  That marvellous being that they call Petra Carpreau gifted me some of these beautiful stoneware glazes. It took me a second attempt to get them to work. They don't show up very clearly in the group shot above. You can see them better here.

Gooey, bubbly, jammy goodness.  I'm thinking I might do a mini autumn-y shop update in the next few days, just so these pieces can go out whilst people are making their autumn designs. Saying that, they don't have to go in autumnal designs... I have few more similar bits and bobs ready, which would to go with them nicely.

The tenmoku glaze on those earring pieces is so fabulous - really glittery (good glittery!)!  I also love the soft celadon green on the discs at the top. It's a glaze that my pottery instructor has and it's not a colour I'd generally be drawn to but now I've ended up ordering a similar one for myself.  

I have a heap more beads in the works. (Apologies for the blurry bits!)

Once they're finished they'll be joining these in one big update in early-ish October.

I was aiming for a bit of a faux-ostrich-egg-shell-bead effect with the crazed ones.  I guess I might call the others humbugs... primitive humbugs, mebbe... 

In other bead making news, look: 

I know, it's a shed.  But it's a shed that will be housing my kiln! Work to get it kiln-ready starts next week. I'm just a little bit excited, although I won't believe it's happening until I see the thing sat in there. 

I usually have a selection of new art beads to share with you, but beady post-days have been a bit few and far between lately, with one thing and another. 

Very modest compared to the glut in my last post.  These are from Grubbi.  I decided to have a bit of time away from the clay and made up a couple of bits using some of them. Here's a simple, subtly coloured bracelet also incorporating a Jubilee cube and a button clasp from Amanda Davie.

And some earrings that kinda match...

And, of course there's those autumnal designs I mentioned.  I keep making these leafy jobs with Jo Lucksted's woodland critters because they keep selling - and I rather like them. (Watch this one sit in my shop for forever now...)

Super simple but neat and sweet.  I decided to use one of my personal stash of my new beads in this next piece. The clasp was from Joanne Tinley. As you may know, she isn't making components anymore so I feel a bit of a wrench using the ones I have left.

Finally, here's a meeting of two of my recent preoccupations: autumn and asymmetrical earrings, with a beautiful C-Koop enamel leaf.

I haven't listed any of these yet - hopefully I'll be getting them in the shop in the next day or so.  And, just in case you're interested, I already have a number of autumnal jewellery pieces available on Etsy.

Which brings us to the giveaway. The prize this week is $20 of credit to spend in either my bead shop or my jewellery shop.  The question I need answering is: what word(s) would you use to describe the shape of these beads? I'm looking for a name for them, basically. I don't think I can get away with calling them 'autumnal whatnots' for much longer....

Bye for now, Claire

www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com

www.somethingtodo.etsy.com

www.somethingtodobeads.etsy.com

Amuse Your Muse Monday with Rebecca of Songbead

My first Muse post in over a month....poor show Rebecca, poor show! In fairness to myself, I have had a CRAZY 6 weeks, as you'll know if you follow me on Facebook - moving from Northern Ireland to Scotland, where I'm originally from, at the end of July, moving in with my Mum as a temporary stop gap as we get settled which meant a whole week of solid sorting, charity shop donating, trips to the recycling centre/tip, painting, cleaning and reorganising.....and then a huge craft fair that lasted for the first 3.5 weeks of August (and you can read about that here too, if you're interested). It's also been (probably not unsurprisingly!) a bit of an emotional upheaval, leaving somewhere we loved for somewhere that we do also love, but is my hometown. Wonderful, but there's not that neutral feeling of potential and discovery that you get in a brand new city - and country, as we discovered last year! - and it will probably take some work to make this move a journey of rediscovery, which it needs to be.  SO, I'm sure you can understand, both time and mental space have been at a premium for me these past few weeks! And whilst they continue to be so, I know I will be sliding into a routine soon, and before I know it, it'll be November and the holiday craft fair season will be upon us. Phew! It really is non-stop in the handmade world. 

Anyway, I hope you are ready for some new beady finds. I certainly am. It's September and the beginning of the favourite season for many - although not for me though - sorry! Autumn is just too soggy for me over here in the UK. Having said that, I do love a good crisp Autumnal day, with the crunch of fallen leaves under my feet, the sun low in the sky and perhaps the smell of a log fire in the air.....nothing can beat it! So this month's theme is....Autumnal beads. Didn't see that coming, did you?!

I adore adding textural elements to my work, and I know I'm not the only one. Aren't these felt beads simply delicious? 

Not So Shabby Chic 

Sometimes a really stunning focal bead can really dictate the way a piece of jewellery goes. I have a feeling that this would be the case with this beautiful lampwork tree...

Anastasia Beads

I am so entranced by Bo Hulley's handmade leaf pendants and buttons. Each one is created using a real leaf from her garden - amazing or what?

Bo Hulley

I have a strange aversion to square and rectangular beads....but not when it comes to Sue's gorgeous chiclets! I have a set of these in beautiful summery shades, but I may well be tempted into these warm Autumnal colours....delicious! 

Sue Beads

Another ceramicist who uses real leaves from her garden is Kylie Parry. Seriously, if I ever win the lottery (sadly unlikely as I don't often play!), I will employ her to be my personal bead artist. Really. She doesn't know this, but Kylie, if you're reading this, I will pay you well - I promise! 

Kylie Parry

My co-editor Claire has returned to her ceramic roots recently, and turned her very talented hands to making clay beads. Wow! I have a bunch on the way. CANNOT WAIT for them to arrive! There are still some left in her shop so do hop over and have a peek!

Something to do beads

How magical are these beads? Donna Millard always astounds me with her incredibly beautiful lampwork designs and this Autumnal set is no exception. 

Donna Millard

Another lampwork set to die for....just look at the textures! The petals! The silver decor! Yum....

Debbie Sanders

Lastly, this 'moon glow' pair of tree beads....I can just imagine the beautiful moon-lit setting that these beads capture. Perfect for the season. 

Verada Craft

So, please leave your Autumnal bead links in the comments! I can't wait to see what you will share for next week. 

And now for the BeadBlogger Links. Have a great week!

Carmi's Art
I have a sweet resin project on Scrapbooking.com's blog this week. Paper Embellishments with Jewelry Resin featuring vintage postcards.http://scrapbooking.com/article/82235

Mini Canvases
Cherie makes some mini canvases for her office.

A Bead A Day
Ready for a crafty weekend? Lisa just discovered a crafty necklace project that inspires creativity!

Resin Crafts Blog
A good experiment in resin layering results in some one-of-a-kind "cubes of resin."

Where to Find Cheap Unique Craft Supplies 
I bet you have your own sources for inexpensive craft supplies. Here are some of my faves. Do you have any others?

Beading Arts
Cyndi has a review of a fabulous new book by Lark Crafts, called "Beading All-Stars". All your favorite designers in one gorgeous package!

Guitar String Jewelry
Video podcast episode 4 including some "rockin" jewelry and a little fiber too. 

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer, based in her country's capital, Edinburgh. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.