Color Explosion: September Monthly Challenge Inspiration

'Color Explosion: September ABS Challenge Inspriation' by TesoriTrovati

Get inspired by color and pattern and whimsy this month with the Art Bead Scene! This month we are treated to a color explosion with the quilts of Gee's Bend.

Twinstar Lampwork Beads - Ra... TwinstarBeads $19.00	Hand dyed Cotton lace Tape ... thredfairy $4.00	The Bamboo Forest - An Yello... julen $25.00	Lampwork Spacer Beads Glass ... TheSpacerQueen $14.00
Handmade lampwork glass bead... MayaHoney $16.50	Handmade Round Ceramic Color... spiritfirecrea... $12.00	Rustic Handmade Big Terracot... RareEarthBeads $2.45	Evolve Mixed media pendant StudioEgallery $20.00
Ceramic Beads Porcelain Clay... MarshaNealStud... $12.00	Colorful Mixed Bead Sets fro... yolandasclay $6.00	mixed recycled silk sari rib... jmozart $13.50	Copper Domed Tribal Paisley ... DreamSome $12.00
Flower Charms - 2 Tiny Flowe... MenagerieStudi... $9.00	P i n o c e a n lampwork bea... pinocean $23.50	Enameled Button Pair 5 GardanneBeads $6.00	Fun Stripes III (Etsy Set 0... golemstudio $21.50

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

The Bead Biz- Opening a Gallery-Getting Customers

Once you have your store ready to open you'll need customers. By now you have spent most, if not all, of your budget getting the space ready. If you were smart and everything went as planned(it never does) then you would have money set aside for advertising in the local papers, radio,etc.

But if you are like me and most others by now you have spent it all. Here are some ways to get started that don't cost much, if anything.

1. Get a blog. I blog here. I post pictures of the store often as well as new products. Nobody wants to read a blog that is all advertising so make sure you add personal stories, what you working, behind the scenes stuff and more. My blog is pretty much my open journal of my life, which also includes running a gallery.

2. Get a Facebook page. This is great for getting the local folks to know what's going on. I am planning classes for fall and my Facebook page is where I will keep a current schedule, announce open houses, sales, and events.

3. Send out a press release. Newspapers and magazines need stories to write about. Send out a disc of photos and a letter stating that you are open and what you will be selling and providing.

4. Look for local charities, teams, or clubs to support through your business. Being kind goes a long way.

5. Have classes, people love to learn new techniques. That was my number one request when I opened the doors. I now have classes scheduled to start in September.

6. Have a grand opening. This one, I unfortunately never did. I never could fit one in. I am planning a series of open houses with special events in the fall.


Good luck! I hope I have provided some insight to opening a gallery. A lot of this information can be used for starting any kind of business. Good luck in all of your business adventures.

Thanks for reading!

Jennifer Heynen a.k.a. Jennifer Jangles

September Monthly Challenge Sponsors and Prizes

Our wonderful sponsors for the September Monthly Challenge. 

We will have 3 lucky winners this month.

jangles

Jennifer Jangles or Jennifer Heynen is one of the editors here at Art Bead Scene.

She creates wonderful pendants, beads, buttons and other jewelry components using a white earth clay with bright underglazes. Jennifer is an author of several books and now has a studio and gallery you can visit! 

Jennifer is donating all the items pictured worth over $60 .

Visit Jennifer at her website, blog, Facebook and Etsy.

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My Elements

Yvonne Irvin is the creator behind the curtain at My Elements. She makes plexiglass components in fun shapes and colors. Also, in her etsy shop she sells many different components like rubber O rings, chain, acrylic components, plus many more.
Yvonne is donating all the products pictured above worth over $50.

Visit Yvonne at her Etsy Shop, Etsy Shop #2, Facebook and website.

: : :

Lori Anderson Designs

Lori of Lori Anderson Design is also one of the editors here at Art Bead Scene.
Lori creates jewelry that makes people say "Where did you get that!?"
She is also the creator of "Bead Soup Blog Party" which caught the attention of Kalmbach Publishing. Lori will have a new book coming out in October 2012! Way to go!
Lori is donating a Bead Soup mixed especially for the winner, worth over $50.

Visit the Lori on her website, Facebook, and blog.

: : :

Submit photos of your wonderful creations using one or more Art Beads.

"Housetop"--twelve-block "Half-Logcabin" quilt by Lillie Mae Pettway a Gee Bend's Quilter is lovely illustration with many different elements that can be used for inspiration, rectilinear shapes, fabric, type, bold colors, bright colors and feeling of home or heritage.

We can't wait to see where your creativity takes you with the art for this months challenge! 

Please remember to put SEPABS in the title or tag of your submission(s).  

Provide us with the artist of the Art Beads used and we always love to know all the materials you used. 

Sundays with Cindy

 Happy Sunday to you!  Hope your enjoying a long weekend here in the states! To our international friends, hope you're enjoying your day!

Don't forget to check out this month's Art Bead Scene challenge! ABS editor Tari Sasser pulled out this vivid color palette from the challenge piece.

These are just some of the colors you could choose for your piece.  Good luck and we look forward to seeing your entries!

Now, sit down with a cup of your favorite beverage and catch up with the bead bloggers....


About.com Jewelrymaking
When was the last time you visiting the Jewelry Making Forum? That long ago? Well, here is some of what you have been missing.

Beading Arts
Cyndi shares the work of some amazing bead embroidery artists!

Beads and Books
Michelle shares a strategy for improving her Etsy shop photos.

Cindy Gimbrone Beads
Cindy shares some ideas to make your metal money stretch.

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Melanie unloads a kiln fill of new black and white deigns

Resin Crafts
This week Carmi is making Faux Gems with resin!

Carmi's faux opal gems. Aren't they fabulous?!?

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean thinks about what it is like to write for Australian Beading Magazine! Many of you have been in her column at this point!

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
Andrew announces the (SOLD OUT) Reader's Challenge Design Kit for September! Lots of luscious pale purples and lavenders!

Sundays with Cindy is written by Cindy Gimbrone a voracious blog reader and collector of beady links. 

Studio Saturday with Cindy Gimbrone: Free Tutorial

Welcome to Studio Saturday! 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.

The winner this week is Beth! - Congratulations, you have won one Lynn's Button Rings! Email Lynn with your address, and she will send the ring out to you.

Welcome to the studio of Cindy Gimbrone!

Back in May, I debuted my Word Beads on ABS Studio Saturday.  Here's a set of earrings I made for a good friend using my favorite Vintaj findings and the 12-13mm Word Beads in purple. I titled these earrings, Well-Loved. I share the tutorial with you today so you can make your own set of earrings for a friend, a family member or yourself.

Supplies:

Ally word beads
Two (2) Vintaj pearl headpins
Two (2) Vintaj kidney earring wires
Two (2) Vintaj 8mm foliage bead caps
Four (4) vintage 3.5mm orange firepolished Czech glass beads

Tools:
Dapping Block/punch set
hammer
roundnose pliers
wire flush cutters
file


1.  Open the Vintaj 8mm foliage bead caps to fit the 12-13mm Ally word beads.  Place in the dapping block and hammer with the punch to widen the 8mm bead cap. Start with a size just slightly larger than the 8mm bead cap. Go up to the next size and tap with the punch to widen the bead cap more. Keep gradually widening the cap until it is able to fit over the 12mm Ally word bead. Do this with all four beadcaps.

2. String in this order onto the Vintaj pearl headpin: vintage orange Czech bead, foliage bead cap, Ally word bead, foliage bead cap, vintage orange Czech bead.

3. Cut the headpin down to approximately 1/2 inch from the top of the orange Czech bead. If the end of the wire is sharp, file to make it smooth.

4. Use your round nose pliers to make a loop. Do steps 2-4 to make the matched pair.

5. String onto the kidney wires.


There you have it!  Your own set of "Well Loved!"

Have you made something using a tutorial recently? Share with us and you'll be entered to win one of Cindy's Word Beads.

Tutorial by Cindy Gimbrone first appeared on her blog, Lampwork Diva. She shares it with the Art Bead Scene Community by permission.

September Monthly Challenge

"Housetop"--twelve-block "Half-Logcabin" variation, ca. 1965

Cotton, Wool Corduroy, 77"x 65"

Lillie Mae Pettway, 1927-1990

Gee Bend's Quilter

About the Art

Rectilinear pattern with bold colors.

"A new exhibit brought to light the brilliant, bold and dynamic quilts created by a group of women who live in the isolated, African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Ala. Like many American quilters, the women transformed a necessity into a work of art — but their innovative and often minimalist approach to design is unique.

"The compositions of these quilts contrast dramatically with the ordered regularity associated with many styles of Euro-American quiltmaking. There's a brilliant, improvisational range of approaches to composition that is more often associated with the inventiveness and power of the leading 20th-century abstract painters than it is with textile-making," says Alvia Wardlaw, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The 60 quilts in the exhibition, created by 42 women spanning four generations, provide a fascinating look at the work of 20th-century artists who lived and worked in solitude. Gee's Bend is located in southwest Alabama on a sliver of land five miles long and eight miles wide, a virtual island surrounded by a bend in the Alabama River. Without a ferry service for decades, the residents were confined by the river unless they made the hour-long drive to the county seat of Camden, directly across the river from Gee's Bend.

Gee's Bend was named after Joseph Gee, the first white man to stake a claim there in the early 1800s. The Gee family sold the plantation to Mark Pettway in 1845. Most of the approximately 750 people who live in Gee's Bend today are descendants of slaves on the former Pettway plantation. Their forebears continued to work the land as tenant farmers after emancipation, and many eventually bought the farms from the government in the 1940s. Isolated geographically, the women in the community created quilts from whatever materials were available, in patterns of their own imaginative design.

The exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The quilts in the exhibition are drawn from the collection of Tinwood Alliance, a nonprofit foundation for the support of African-American vernacular art. The Quilts of Gee's Bend were on display through March 9, 2003, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, after premiering in the fall of 2002 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston."-by Neal Conan, npr.org

About the Artist

Lillie Mae Petway was one of seventeen children. Her mother Aolor Mosely was one of the founding members and behind the scenes organizers of the Freedom Quilting Bee.
Lillie Mae and her sister Mary Lee Bendolph shared their mothers enthusiasm for rectangular patterns with bold colors. 

Color Palette

Blog Tour

The Blog Tour deadline is September 28th.
Links must be added to the monthly challenge post comments (this post).. 

The Blog Tour will be on the 30th.

Monthly Challenge Winners

Winners will be randomly chosen from all the qualifying entries on September 1st.

Our Sponsors

Our sponsors this month are: Jangles, My Elements and Lori Anderson Design.

Please visit us Monday to see the prizes!

Featured Designer of the Week:

From all the entries during the month, an editor is going to pick their favorite design to be featured every Monday here on the ABS. We want to give our participants more time in the spotlight! Our Featured Designer will be this Monday, so get those entries in soon.

How to enter the Monthly Challenge:

1. Create something using an art bead that fits within our monthly theme. We post the art to be used as your inspiration to create. This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork.

***Beads strung on a chain, by themselves and beads simply wire or cord will not be accepted.***

2. Upload your photo to our flickr group. Detailed instructions can be found here and click here for a tutorial for sending your picture to the group.

Please add the tag or title SEP ABS to your photos. Include a short description, who created the art beads and a link to your blog, if you have one.

Deadline is September 30th. Photos are approved by our moderators, if a photo hasn't followed the guidelines it will not be approved. You may upload 2 photos a day.

What is an Art Bead?

An art bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an independent artist. Art beads are the vision and handiwork of an individual artist. You can read more about art beads here.

***A bead that is handmade is not necessarily an art bead. Hill Tribe Silver, Kazuri ceramic beads or lampwork beads made in factories are examples of handmade beads that are not considered art beads.
Beaded beads, stamped metal pendants or wire-wrapped components are not considered art beads for our challenge.***

p.s. If you have a blog, post your entry and a link to the ABS challenge to spread the beady goodness.

August Monthly Challenge Prize Winners!

Congratulations to this Months winners! 

We have 3 winners chosen randomly from all the challenge entrants.

Bo Hulley is our first winner this month. 

She has won a $50 gift certificate from Jill McKay!

Our second lucky winner is TheBeadTherapist . 

She is the lucky winner of 4 Simple Truths Pendants from Tesori Trovati (shown below).

Durgajewelry/Heather Harris is our third winner.

She has won a Starfish Bead from Stephanie Ann.

Jill McKay and  Tesori Trovati

Stephanie Ann

Thank you Stephanie Ann,  Jill McKay and  Tesori Trovati for being our August Monthly Challenge sponsors!

Winners, please E-mail Tari with your information so your prizes can be sent to you.

A Big THANK YOU to everyone who entered this month using Illustration for American Cresent Cycles, 1899, Frederick Winthrop Ramsdell as your inspiration. 

We were so fortunate to have so many beautiful entries and experience such creativity from our wonderful readers.

Visit us tomorrow to see what September's challenge brings.