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Written by Dara Spiotto
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Friday, 06 July 2007 |
 
Bead Tip-O-Rama
I was feeling a bit tipsy today and thought I’d jot these down. No, I haven’t been dipping into the wine-coolers. :-) Print these out and keep them in your bead box! This is good stuff…
My neighbor Lynda is the queen of mail catalogs. She gets dozens a day, and her mailbox is seriously jammed when she skips a day of getting her mail. I’m lucky that she shares the catalogs with me! I especially love the ones that have jewelry, of course. In fact, I’ve been cutting out the pictures of finished jewelry, and saving them. I’ve got binders with clear plastic sleeves in them. I take a piece of white paper, and make a jewelry collage with the pictures I cut out on both sides of the paper. The sides are visible through the clear plastic sleeve. I sort them by subject… earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and miscellaneous. Then when I need brainstorm ideas, I just flip through the pages and voilá… gets the old creative juices flowing!
Whenever I give a gift of a finished beaded piece, I like to give a ‘repair’ kit to go with it. I’m not talking about strung necklaces, but more complicated bead woven pieces. This way if anything happens to it and I have to repair it, I don’t have to worry about having matching beads. I just tell the receiver of the gift that it’s up to them to keep track of their kit, and if it needs repairs just to let me know. I almost never have to repair something I’ve made, but this has been a lifesaver a couple of times.
 When you’re using different pliers with your work, set them down in the same order and then when you need a pair, they’ll be in their predictable spot. You won’t even need to look at them after a while. Also, if you bring your tools to class, a friends house, etc. label them by gluing a rhinestone, sequin or flat back bead to the side with superglue. Then you’ll be sure to find them easily.
If you’re using a ceramic bead tray to keep your beads in, and you’re tired of scooping out the beads to put back into containers when its time to go, don’t bother. Just use Press ‘n Seal Wrap by Glad by laying it over your dish and then tracing the compartment edges with your finger. The seal is strong enough that your beads will stay in their place until you peel away the wrap to continue beading. A few beads may stick to the wrap, but they’ll come right off. Then you can feel free to toss the tray into your bag for beading away from home, less time taking out beads and then putting them away means more time for beading.
When starting flat peyote work, slip a straight piece of wire into every other bead so they’ll align perfectly. Keep the wire there for the first few rows, then remove. Your rows will be perfectly even.
 Some of my bead show customers used to come in with a pendant or specific focal bead and want to match it with some other beads to make something pretty. I mean match it EXACTLY. Impossible. And why would you want to? Nothing looks better next to orange than purple, I say! Go with something more contrasting. Blend in a few matching beads, if you must. But break the monotone. Do yourself a huge favor and buy a color wheel. Get a big one that shows all the secondary colors and beyond. Then you can match your bead to it and behold! All the colors that compliment your bead will pop up. Your jewelry will take on a whole new pallet.
Sometimes I do projects that have a lot of long fringe on them. For instance, when I do a round robin and I know I’ll be doing a certain fringe on an amulet bag, I like to do the fringe in advance. How? By doing each one separately. On, say, 16” of Fireline, I put a piece of tape at one end leaving a tail of about 3”. Then I string my fringe how I want it to be. I put on my anchor bead, and go back up the strand, just like you’d do for any fringe. When I exit out of the last seed bead at the top (next to the piece of tape) I add two more seed beads, and then an anchor seed bead. Then I go back down the two seed beads I just added and exit right in the spot where the tail end of the thread is. Now I tie those two ends together, seal it with a drop of clear polish, and then run the thread tails down through the fringe. I end up with lots of little single fringes. Then when the amulet arrives, I attach a thread to the bottom of the amulet at the side, and literally zip all the fringes on. Then I can do complicated fringes at my leisure, and when the bag comes they just fly on. Works great. Another benefit is if one fringe breaks, the don’t all unravel apart.
 How about this… when you’re frustrated because something keeps going awry in your beading, walk away for a while. Go clear your head. Someone suggested this to me, and it was like a gong going off. I had spend a lot of time trying to force things to work, determined to accomplish a specific thing that kept getting messed up. Little did I know that my daily aggravations were leaking into my attitude, only to have them turn up as knots in my beading. I thought beading would relax me, and it usually does. But sometimes you just need to walk away and take a break. Your beadwork will be happier and prettier. And so will you. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 06 July 2007 )
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