New Web Site Logo

One of the many things on my list of changes to make this year was a face lift to my web site. Earlier this year my current web site got panned on an "it's stuck in the dark ages" web site and while they weren't too horrible about it (they liked the jewelry, just hated the site design), I had to sit back and take stock and ultimately agree.

I started out by making my own web site with Microsoft FrontPage in 2001. Back then, I was wholesaling handmade greeting cards that I made with vintage papers, fabrics, and buttons. Then in 2004, jewelry took over my life and I reworked the web site (still in FrontPage).

Advance a year and I traded several hundred dollars of beads to a fellow beader to design my current web site. I picked the colors and the idea of stripes and you have what you see now.

I don't know if it was the rude web site or the stripes starting to give me a headache or my loss of love for the Harrington font, but this year, I decided for a total and complete face lift. We're talking a TOTAL face lift, a face lift that both excites me and scares me. It is SO different from what I have now that I can't even decide if I like it. It's completely, totally unlike ANYTHING I've ever seen - unique to be sure. But will it work? Will it translate? Is it too much change?

The web site is due to launch later this summer, but I do have a brand new logo. I kept the colors, but toned them down. Here it is:

The one person I've shown the entire web site to loved it. I'm living with it for a while and trying to get used to the new font, the Chinese lanterns (which I may translate to my trade show booth) and just the newness of it. Is it ok to be scared of change?


Lori Anderson designs jewelry at her web site, www.lorianderson.net. She also writes the blog Pretty Things.

My Etsy Bead Store is Now Open!

I finally uploaded a few small sets of my own handmade lampwork spacers. They're my humble beginnings, but maybe you'll like some of them! The shop is www.lori2.com, and as I learn more and more, the beads will become more intricate and varied.


Thanks for looking!

I'm in my first Etsy Treasury

I just got notified today that I'm in my first every Etsy Treasury, with the beads that I JUST posted last night in my new store, Lori2....

So someone must like these humble little beads!

Just a little something new

It's been raining, I've been under the weather, taking some REAL time off to read and knit and be a mommy, but I do have a little to show.


This one uses some new (new to me) wire techniques. I'm inspired quite a lot by Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio and she's been very encouraging.


I learned chain maille back when I first started beading but this is a new style for me. It's very delicate, with cultured pearls. Not the best photo, but it's eluding me and the camera.



So those are a couple of new things, using my old styles and mixing it just a bit with new styles.


I've been giving a lot of thought to how my customers would take a huge departure from my current style to a totally different style, the style I see in my head when I imagine jewelry, and I've decided that too big a leap, too soon, would be too jarring. I'd certainly lose a huge portion of my customer base, alienate them, as they are used to seeing a certain thing. Adding bits and pieces, such as in these two bracelets, is more apt to garner interest, and I can add bit by bit a few "wow" pieces, because you never know who will see them and fall in love. But if I want to stay in business, I can't just jump ship and change boats and start sailing for a totally different port of call.


That doesn't mean I'm not going to continue experimenting. It means I'm going to hone my current skills, and pick and choose skills that work well with my existing style. It means I may back-burner some of the elaborate things I've been imagining. I keep thinking I have to do it ALL this year, and that thought has just been completely overwhelming me.


What do you think?

Book Review -- Living the Creative Life

I just finished reading the book "Living the Creative Life" by Rice Freeman-Zachery.



When I first opened the book, I felt immediately intimidated by the artists featured. THESE are ARTISTS, I thought. What the heck am I?


First, their art is fantabulous. Exquisite, unique, and ground-breaking. Second, their studios are divine. Beautiful fabulous places that are portals to creative energy.


Then I started reading. In addition to information about the specific artists and what make them tick, the book offers little vignettes of wisdom that can actually be used -- things like immersing yourself in color by picking up paint samples of every color at the hardware store, or making a list for a day of all the things you saw, smelled, or heard.

(An abandoned bee hive I found... what will it trigger?)

This is the sort of book that you can pick up and put down as needed just as easily as you can read it cover to cover. It's a great book for any artist to have on hand to refer back to when they're having a stagnant time (that would be me right now!), and the visuals are just excellent.


Highly recommended! Click here to buy it on Amazon.com.

Bead Soup Blog Party!

Interested in swapping beads and having fun? Then visit my blog Pretty Things to join the Bead Soup Blog Party!

More Spacers

Photo thanks to Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio -- I gifted her these humble beginnings. Wondering if/when I could sell spacers? All the above were made with CiM glass (my current favorite) -- Sepia, Chalcedony, and Lipstick Red that for some reason I couldn't strike to RED well enough.

Won't be hitting the studio for a little while -- had some minor sinus surgery that the doctors are hoping will dial down the migraine pain a bit. But I plan on expanding a bit and starting to play with stringer next time out, which will be a HUGE learning curve.

As always, thanks for reading!


Lori Anderson designs jewelry for www.lorianderson.net and also writes for the blog www.PrettyThingsBlog.com.

New Article on Art Bead Scene

Thanks to the kindness of your comments on my "I'm In a Funk" post, I had time to think and wrote an article for Art Bead Scene. You can read it by clicking here.


And thank you again for your caring and kindness!

The Spacer Queen

First, thank you to everyone who posted in my mopey thread yesterday. It's nice to know I'm not alone in my thinking!


Now, head on over to Watch Me Create to read about my adventures in lampworking! I've got some spacer adventures from the past weeks to read about.

I'm in a funk.

This one is a little long, and mopey, so if you're not up for that, skip it and come back next post -- I'll understand.

*****

I kind of figured this would happen at some point this year. Usually it hits me after the Christmas rush, when I'm so exhausted and burned out I can't stand it. But right now, I'm just in such a blue funk that I wonder if I'll be able to muster my enthusiasm for jewelry design ever again.


Or let me put it this way. I can keep going with the status quo, making what I've been making for the past five or six years. But making new things, expanding my horizons? I wonder if I have it in me.


I know a lot of my problem is living in constant pain. When my eyes and head and neck are always hurting, I can't think, let alone follow tutorial directions or dream up new ideas. I see the creative world passing me by and it bothers me -- but I feel powerless to stop it.


I buy new beads, bring them home -- and stare at them blankly. My head hurts. My heart is sad. Something has to give.


Home life is just fine -- my husband is supportive and says it doesn't matter if I sell another thing, that this year is for rest, and to play, and to not worry. But for me, this year was to play, yes, and to rest, yes, but to LEARN, and to EXPLORE. And many days all I can explore is the back of my eyelids as I squench them shut in pain.


Crap. This is such a lousy post. I'm sorry.


There have to be others out there that feel this way, or have felt this way at times, who can share with me their stories. I feel alone, like I'm being left behind and will never find my voice again. I feel I have it in me -- it just isn't stronger than the pain.


What do I do? I fear losing customers, losing momentum, losing ... it. Whatever "it" happens to be on any given day.


If you've read this far, thank you. If you stick with my blog, I promise this won't be the mood or content of future posts. But I felt I owed it to myself to just this post explore my soul as well as my art and try to figure out just where I'm going in all of this.


Comments are gratefully accepted.

Riveting with Tracy Stanley at WireFest/BeadFest

Finally, I got to go to WireFest/BeadFest!  For the past five years, I've always had to either prepare for or exhibit at a craft show, but this year, of course, I took the time out to go to classes.


I first want to say that going to this event wasn't just about taking classes, but about meeting up with friends (Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio, Jeanette Blix of Fundametals, and Kerry Bogert of Kabs Creative Concepts), meeting a bunch of people I met through the Bead Soup Blog Party, and finally getting to meet the editors of the magazines I've contributed to over the years.  Oh, and bead shopping.  OH yes.  The shopping.  :-)

(Photo by Cindy Wimmer)

 But on to my classes!


I opted to take two classes with Tracy Stanley so I could immerse myself in riveting, metal texturing, dapping, and basically all things metal.  I was nervous, a complete wreck going into that classroom, let me tell you!  Here I am, a jewelry designer that works in color and glass, and I'm getting ready to work with anything but!


The first class dealt with metal stamping and riveting with metal wire.  Unfortunately, I'm not finished with that project yet, so you can expect to see it in a future post.  But the second class was an intensive all-day extravaganza of hammers and dapping blocks and learning to both rivet with tubing and eyelets.


Instead of a bracelet, I decided to make some pendants.  So far, I finished this one:

Each dapped circle is textured, patinaed, and riveted.  The bottom one has a lampwork bead riveted to it, and I used a combination of brass, sterling, and copper.  (You can click on it to see a larger photo).


The next pendant started out as a ring.  I cut my band, looked at it, and decided I didn't really WANT a ring.  So again, another pendant came about.

This one has a dapped disk, a tiny river rock, and a Bali spacer, all on copper.  The width of the pendant is only half and inch.  This one will end up on my web site for sale.


I'll have more to show soon -- three more await embellishment!


I'd be interested to know what you think!






Lori Anderson designs jewelry for www.lorianderson.net and also writes for the blog www.PrettyThingsBlog.com.

Learning to Rivet, Learning to Stamp

I'm leaving tomorrow to head to the Philadelphia area to attend BeadFest, more commonly known as WireFest for this particular venue as the classes focus on wire and metal.  I've been looking forward to this for a while, having signed up for two classes with Tracy Stanley.  I'll be learning about cold connections, which is basically how to join metal without soldering, using rivets.  I'll also try my hand at metal stamping (very hot right now) and dapping (make little cups out of metal, like bead caps, always handy). 

Here's the example she posted of one of the class projects:

Very cool, isn't it?

I'm also stoked that I'll get to meet a lot of online and real life beading friends, both students and instructors, so it's going to be a mini-vacation as well as a learning experience and oh yes, a shopping trip!  What self-respecting BeadFest would be complete without a bead market to buy from?

So expect to see some humble offerings when I get back!  In the meantime, enjoy creating!

Lori's work can be seen at www.lorianderson.net.  She also writes www.PrettyThingsBlog.com.

Some of my glass beads

Let me say first -- lampworking is hard. At least, it is for me. It's not one of those things that you become perfect at right away. This is tough for me because I like to master things FAST and this, dear readers, is just not going to happen.

But I'm learning something really interesting -- I need to melt glass for more reasons than just to make beads. Melting glass takes me to a zen state, a calming state that I can't really find while doing anything else. There's not a thing I can think of except the glass when I'm sitting in front of a torch and beside a kiln.

It's very hard for me to share my early efforts, but this IS the year of exploration, so I'm gonna. So here goes.

This one was decent enough that I made it into a pendant with amethyst for myself, a modest reminder that I'm on my way. I used Val Cox frit to make the pretty blue designs.

Lousy photo, but this is more Val Cox frit over a cobalt blue (DEEP cobalt blue) base, all in Moretti glass. It turned out even enough that I felt comfortable making a pendant out of it. Will anyone like it? No idea.

This one is a big friendly lump, kind of like Hagrid of Hogwarts, but it sure is pretty. The back, however, is (for lack of better description) burned. So this is its good side. Everyone has a good side, right?

These are made out of BullsEye glass, a glass with awesome colors but a definitely different feel from Moretti.

And these are all the beads I've made thus far. I have a small batch waiting to be cleaned, and a small batch in the kiln, but as you can see, I've not made many yet. So even though I have mostly lumpy wonky beads going on, I don't have NEARLY the practice time in to say "I can't do this".

Today I worked with a glass called Creation is Messy, and I LOVE that glass - melts like butter and fantastic colors, so I can't wait to show you my wonkies from that batch.

Thanks for looking!

Lori Anderson designs jewelry for www.lorianderson.net and also writes for the blog www.prettythingsblog.com.

Polymer Clay

Today I went Over the Bridge to Barnes and Noble to take a gander at the new beading magazines and stumbled over "The Complete Book of Polymer Clay".

"Hmm," I thought.  "Why not?"


So I bought it and have added it to the stack of books that lie in wait of exploration.  I know what my polymer clay style would be like -- sanded, painted, maybe some transfer work -- it's just getting there, knowing the right kind of clay to use and how to cure it. Or bake it.  Or cook it.  See, I don't even know the proper terminology, I'm that much of a novice!


The lampworking is coming along.  Today I played with BullsEye and even tried working with BullsEye frit and encasing it all.  It looked good going in -- let's see what it looks like coming out.


Tonight, I'm reacquainting myself with yarn and crochet hook and taking it easy.  Who knows what I'll do tomorrow, since Zack is off school for a week of spring break.  But whatever it is, it'll be fun.




(PS - click here to take part in my 1000th blog post giveaway!  Deadline is April 5th!)


Lori's work can be seen at www.lorianderson.net and she also writes the blog www.prettythingsblog.com.

I Made Some Beads!

I've been spending the past few days in the studio, making beads and trying to get them to be even. I'm also trying to keep from switching from the left hand to the right hand (which is apparently a big bad no no). I've also been playing with frit, which is tiny crunched-up glass that can make pretty decorations. Ignore the bead release, and you can see:

I tried my hand at encasing these in light amethyst, too, and encasing is a skill all its own, I quickly discovered! I'll put that on the back burner for a while longer.

Today I went out and ooooh, Rick bought me some Moretti Alabaster. Let's try that.

BLAMMO! OK maybe not -- the stuff is either shocky or I was doing it wrong -- a huge chunk exploded off the bottom the minute I wafted it through the flame. That got bundled up and put back on the shelf for later.

(Picture from www.sundanceglass.com)

Bottom line -- I'm getting out in the studio and trying. I don't have huge chunks of time right now but will next month, and I signed up for a class in August at the Philadelphia BeadFest, so that will help. I'm trying to stay positive, and trying to remember that for every spectacular bead artist I see, there was once a newbie.

Thanks for reading!

Mine, Not Mine

In my curio cabinet.

Not in my curio cabinet.

In my closet.


Not in my closet.

How I feel this week.

NOT how I feel this week (but wish I did).

Sigh.
I need a nap.

Please Cross Your Fingers

It seems strange to ask you to cross your fingers for something I can't quite tell you about yet, but please do? It could be something big for me, and I'm crossing everything that can be crossed. It would also be a milestone in my art exploration, so is apt for this blog!

THANKS, and when I can, you'll be the first to know!

Painting With Fire with Barbara Lewis (and friends)

This past Saturday I had the utmost pleasure to start my exploration into classes by taking my first of many for the year -- "Painting With Fire" with Barbara Lewis, a metal enameling class that I'd been looking forward to for many reasons. One, the class is very cool. Two, I was going to get to meet some blogging buddies I'd yet to meet in person (always a fun thing).

Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio took some awesome pictures of the setup:

And Barbara Lewis who is the master of this technique ....


And of me when I wasn't looking. (Eek. I hate photos of me).


Notice that I have my finger in the water? Wondering why that is? I was the first burn victim. I very carefully avoided the hot flame and the hot mandrel but had no problem chasing the hot bead. Yup.

These are my beads:

I have a lot to learn -- I need to coat the beads more fully with the enamel, for one, but I actually quite like the more rustic look of the beads. You can see Barbara's professional lovelies at her web site, Painting With Fire, but hurry because her beads do go fast! You can also buy the tutorial and materials you need to get started on your own projects.

All I need now are enamel powders (I bought an arsenal of metal beads). I can see so many applications where this style of bead could be a beautiful addition in my work. I've got a birthday coming soon -- maybe I'll treat myself!

Thanks to Jeanette Blix and Cindy Wimmer for putting on this workshop, and to Barbara Lewis for sharing her talent!


Lori also writes for www.prettythingsblog.com

Modge Podge Experiments

I have a Yahoo group related to the Bead Soup Blog Party I recently ran. The group is an informal, chatty little group that does smaller swaps and is just a fun place to relax and talk about beads. If you'd like to join, just go to

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BeadSoupBlogParty/

and be sure to give me your blog in the comments as it's a closed group to keep out spammers but open to jewelry designers. And don't worry - any of the Bead Soup Blog Parties will be announced on my Pretty Things blog, so you won't miss a thing as long as you're a follower there!


ANYWAY! Our latest project was to buy a large matchbox, decorate it, fill it with beads from our stash, and swap it with a bead partner. I've never worked with Modge Podge before, so after one woopsie and a new match box, I made this:



I put raised dots under the butterfly to give it some height, and then filled it up with goodies:

So there you go! One small step to a new medium I've never tried before!


More on the enameling "painting with fire" class I took later!




Lori designs jewelry for www.lorianderson.net. She also writes at www.prettythingsblog.com.

Going Zen

This year, I made a promise to myself try new art forms. I’ve tried lampworking and fully intend to keep it up. I have some other classes scheduled for late spring, but in reading blogs, I ran across Got Art? and her post about something called Zentangles.

Just the name intrigued me. What was a Zentangle?

I emailed her and she directed me to their web site and I bought a kit.

I’ll let you go to their web site and get their story, but for me, this is what a Zentangle is — a way for a non-doodler, a non-artist, to get their doodle on. Seriously, this is some cool stuff. You can stay within the simple parameters of one “tangle” per space, or get funky with it and mix two or even three in a space. I found that as I made my first Zentangle, I could feel my brain uncrunch and smooth out, and I could see where, yes, that might indeed go there, or oh, I don’t want to do this that they tell me to do, but explore this, which my own imagination chose on its own.

Here’s my very first Zentangle.

Mine is very simple, but a huge step for me. You know why? I overcame a fear. I tried something new. I bought something and didn’t put it on a shelf to collect dust like so many things before it (PMC, anyone?).

I absolutely plan on doing these again. They’re small, and they’re fun. I plan on doing these with my seven-year old son on a grander scale, with larger paper and colored markers – he’s very enamored of the dice you roll to see what pattern you draw.

I hope you take some time out today to doodle!

Lori Anderson designs jewelry for www.lorianderson.net. She also writes at www.prettythingsblog.com. She now loves to doodle.