Marvelous Monday

As I will be spending a lot of time in the studio this week to prepare for my open house, I'll leave you with the work of Allyson Bone. She takes piercing to a hole new level. Have a marvelous Monday - see you next week!

Feeling the Love Friday

This week, I had the pleasure of being in two treasuries. The first was titled "Sugarplum Treats" and was curated by simplyinvitingcards. My "plum crackled focal bead" was featured here.

I'm sending the love back to simplyinvitingcards and featuring her beautiful "Set of 4 Mini Textured EnveloCards - Espresso". Lovely!

The other treasury was called "Green Please" and it was curated by SarahRobinL My "Eggplant and Olive Green Necklace" was featured here.

I'm sending the love back to SarahRobinL and featuring her "earth colors Rosco pendant". It's o so nice!

Thanks to both of these Etsy sellers for making my week a bright one!

BAO Item of the Week

This week, the Bead Art Originals have 12 members participating in the Item of the Week. I am offering free shipping and a free bead with this purchase.


To see all the items and their specials, just click here.

Out of the Studio

A few weeks ago, I blogged about a new design that had evolved. It was my "evolution of an earring" post. That design has continued to morph into other shapes and sizes and now it comes in pendants as well. The leaves became a little more colorful. You know there had to be a purple leaf somewhere in the mix.

And then there were sets . . .

I brought this leaf into my studio and then these earrings transpired.

I've had a lot of things going on these past few weeks. Besides preparing for Thanksgiving, and adding more items to my Etsy shop, I've decided to have my first ever open house next weekend. I've been working diligently to build up inventory for this event. So for now, not everything that's made is in my Etsy shop. But it's helping me organize how things flow from start to finish. I now have everything grouped into its phase of production. Design phase, curing phase, etc. So I might do a photography session for about 30 - 45 minutes. Or I'll do an hour of making ear wires - or a buffing session. I kind of just go into a zone as I listen to my audiobooks.

If you're a follower or someone new. I thank you for stopping by. I enjoy reading your comments and feeling connected to this community. I wish you and your families a wonderful Thanksgiving. Cheers!

Marvelous Monday

It's so great when you stumble onto an artist and get that immediate wow kind of reaction to their work. That's how I felt when I came across the work of Danielle Embry. She is an artist, metalsmith, jewelry designer and educator living in Tucson, Arizona. Her materials range from copper, enamel and sterling to graphite and wood to name a few. I enjoy how she uses the visual language of nature to make such beautiful pieces. I hope her work inspires you - have a marvelous Monday!

BAO Item of the Week

It's Friday and time for another BAO Item of the Week. We have 12 members participating this week with another great selection. Click on the image for more information. Have a great weekend!

Feeling the Love Friday

This week I had the pleasure of being in two treasuries. The first was called "Hot Pink and Black" and it was curated by SmadarsTreasure. My silver, black, pink and white retro squares earrings were featured here.


I'm sending the love back to Smadar and featuring her sparkling Gold Necklace with Large Colorful Crystal Pendant.

The other treasury was made by monteazul. My plum crackled focal bead was featured here.

I'm sending the love back to monteazul and featuring his silver cocoon pendant. As the weather cools down here in New England, I feel hibernation mode wanting to kick in.

Thanks to both of these Etsy sellers for making my week a little brighter!

Free Bead of the Month

This month was the first drawing for the free bead of the month

from my new website. Sylvia Elam was the winner of this bead.

For those who've signed up to win the free bead of the month, please be sure to put my email address (naftali@comcast.net) in your address book! And for those who haven't signed up yet, the signup form is on my home page.

For a number of years, my husband has talked about deep-frying a turkey. We had always wanted to try it as we heard it was reallly good. I had found some great Thanksgiving turkey videos where I found a video of deep fried turkey. So, last night he did kind of a dry run. The temperature of the oil (peanut oil) got up to 350 degrees. It only took about 20 minutes or so to cook a 4 lb. chicken. Roasting in the oven would probably take around 1 hour and 40 minutes or so. Anyway, here's a photo of the frying in action. It did splatter quite a bit and he had to later hose off the concrete. The chicken wings were Lily's favorite. So when we decide to fry chicken wings, they probably just need a dip! Now that's fast food!

Zip it Up

Have you noticed how popular zippers are these days? I started thinking about this when I found an artist on Etsy, HouserWallis who uses zippers in her head bands.

Doing a quick search on Etsy, I was able to find numerous shops doing zipper art.

Here's what AmaliaVersaci is doing with them:

And here's a couple items from Bogate's shop.

And here's a woman who has a website "Zipper Mosaics". If you get a chance, you'll be amazed at what's being done with zippers there. Here's a couple of my favorites.

And finally, here's a design by Sebastian Errazuriz. It's called "The Zipper Dress". Who knew?

Color Inspiration

Yesterday, the BAO team did a color inspiration post on the Bead Art Originals blog. If you're a fan of eggplant and olive (one of my alltime favorite combinations), it's worth the visit!

Marvelous Monday

Undulating, colorful, collars and cuffs are the signature designs of Fie von Krogh, an artist living in Norway. Previously, she laminated the metal (silver) in plastic. But now, it's the plastic that is covered with 23 karat gold leaf and silver leaf and then heat-treated. She calls the material "a synergy of gilded plastic". If you go to her Flickr pages, you'll see more of her work. Some of her pieces have manipulated enlarged photographs of micro-organisms such as dinoflaggellate which add patterns to the form. I'd love to see her studio and get a glimpse of her process! Hope you have a marvelous Monday!

BAO Item of the Week

This week we have 13 members participating in our BAO Item of the Week. My item is one of my newer leaf earrings. My special is free shipping along with a free bead! I've been wearing a very similar pair of these around town and they have been bringing lots of comments. Every time I run to the post office with packages to mail out, I always get the "what are we sending today" comment from two women there. When they saw these earrings, two custom orders evolved.

To see the details, links and specials of the other members, click here.

Beginning this Sunday, November 15th, the BAO blog will begin doing bi-monthly posts (15th and 31st) featuring work that was done using a particular color scheme. We hope you come visit and share your thoughts!

Feeling the Love Friday

Every now and then I check my hearts on my Etsy shop and when I noticed it was getting close to 1500, it seemed to take forever to finally hit that number. Today, when I looked at it, I noticed it was right at 1500, so I thought I'd share. Yay! Feeling that love!

This past week, I found myself in two treasuries. The first was made by Riskodesign. It was titled "visions in red". I liked the way the red popped.

Today, I thought I'd direct you to Risko's flickr pages where I pulled this picture from. How cool is that? Packaging with his original artwork on the box! The perfect box for "ET". To see more of his work, go to his Etsy shop.


The next treasury was made by Donauluft. It was called Lucky Day. It sure was!

I'm sending the love back to Donauluft with a photo of a 22" beaded necklace, made with 19 beaded beads!

Evolution of an Earring

I wanted to start making some earrings for my shop. The process started with 1 1/4" discs, what else?

Then I varied them in size and domed them (ear wires to come)

then I tube riveted some



then I thinned them and played with the shape and liked what was evolving.



similar, yet smaller


I figured if it looked like a leaf, then I'd really make it look more like a leaf.


I played with the thickness




and the color.



And then 2-tone was born

And just like my lentil beads, I've been making colors, patterns and really getting caught up in the process. You'll see one particular pair in my Marvelous Monday post next week. And the pair on my bench at the moment have grown long and with an opening for lots to happen!

Also, from the studio, I've been enjoying a couple audiobooks this week. I'd really gone through a lot of James Patterson books, my last being "Cross Country" which I enjoyed. And now I'm onto the author David Baldacci. I just finished a thriller called "Split Second". It involves the Secret Service, a small Virginia town, the Witness Protection Program and an assassin. Good listening.