Rings & Things

Rings are the thing this weekend. Of course, the black and silver one is mine, the one I wear that catches people's eye and they either love or hate my finger armor.
The middle one reminds me of harlequins and so will probably be called "Harlequin", it's actuallyy quite sparkly too...the richest looking so far. The stone is jasper, with topaz Swarovskis in 4mm and 3mm sizes.
The one on the left is black and olive green with some tarnished silver, light green Swarovski pearls and Swarovski olive bicones...I think the stone is serpentine.
The small ring in front....though I'm not sure it will stay small....I just put it down at 2am to get some sleep, is a Siam rivoli with Siam 3mm bicones. I made this one with a totally different technique, just building on the bezel. I don't think I'm finished with it...even if all I add are ring supports.....but I'd like to see it as finger armor. I wanted to make something similar to mine but different enough for it to be unique.

This afternoon will see me back to working on the rings and I have to say it's good for me....I just needed to step away from writing patterns, doing illustrations and all the other stuff that surrounds a beading business. It's easy to get bogged down in all that stuff and wonder what the heck you're doing because the actual beading gets pushed to the back burner. I'm also toying with a ring design with ruffles, I love ruffles and Miss Rachel's new piece is probably the catalyst on this one.

I got an e-mail from our newest bead society member, Val, yesterday after she had gone shopping at Bead Haven in Vegas. She was showing the usual excitement that people do when going to Gail's store for the first time....because the store is amazing...so many unusual beads. Great news that they are going to give us a discount...I never got a solid on that because I spoke to Gail, the store owner and not her sister who runs the store. With fifteen card carrying members now our little society is growing and that makes me happy, it's good to see your hard work pay off. With the introduction of the monthly FMG order I'm sure we'll gain more members.

The craft store where I teach finally got their Toho beads in (they asked me a year ago what I would like to see in the store), it's not a huge selection but we'll take what we can get! Sometimes I feel like a one woman army bringing beading to this sleepy little desert community....but I have some great support from my students.