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.
This week’s winner is Emma Todd! Congratulations, Emma! You’re the winner of Tari’s mystery bead! Please send your postal address to the ABS Suggestion Box and Tari will send your mystery bead!
Today’s Studio Tour is with Cindy Gimbrone, glass beadmaker. Let’s see what’s going on in her studio….
Good morning! If you’re a regular reader of Studio Saturdays, you’ll know lately I’m looking to textiles for inspiration. I often find inspirational textiles but then am frustrated by the glass color palate I have to work with – often, I don’t have the glass color available to me. So sometimes, I work backwards from the glass. Here’s a good example of a color I love – a deep raspberry sherbet color.
The raspberry glass is “well behaved” and isn’t too runny or fussy when I work it in the flame. It’s yummy to work with! I couldn’t wait to create a necklace with them but wanted more. So I went on the hunt for a textile. Wow, did I ever find it and then some!
Excited, I bought the pink and brown fat quarters – I KNEW the colors perfectly match the glass rods I have. Look how perfect they are! Cool! This is going to lead to another bead series and how to incorporate beads and textiles but you’ll have to read my blog to see what I’ll create as well ashere on Studio Saturday.
Here’s a close up of the raspberry glass links in a necklace I created for next week’sBeading on a Budget. I’m excited to get to work!
Today’s question is: What gets you excited about work?
It can be any work you do from creative work to simply doing the laundry. For me, it was finding a set of textiles that perfectly matched the glass colors I have. I’m excited to get to work now! What about you – what gets you excited about work?
Comment-ers will be entered to win a set of the Raspberry Links. I look forward to reading your comments!
Heather Powers
June 7, 2008 at 2:10 pmlove the color combinations Cindy! Bead Unique does this with earring designs based on fabrics. Fun stuff.
Lately, I’m excited about my work when I go bead shopping and there has been a lot of bead shopping recently. I picute some of my beads going perfectly with a chain or a little bead for earrings. I’ve been stealing away time to work on new jewelry and loving it!
abeadlady
June 7, 2008 at 4:01 pmLike Cindy, I get a lot of my inspiration from fabrics. I love batiks and eventho’ I’m not a quilter, I buy Quilt Arts magazine just for the color ideas.
Is that rasberry just yummy or what?
Arline
Brenda
June 7, 2008 at 6:18 pmMy excitement comes from playing with colors before I create anything. I put down a larger bead then I just start sprinkling beads around it. Kind of a mess to clean up but surprising combinations come up. So then I take a photo of the “display” for use then or later. When a new color combo clicks, I get electrified!
Gaela
June 7, 2008 at 6:45 pmI am a fabric junkie as well as a bead junkie and fat quarters are just plain fun. You hit paydirt with that brown/raspberry combo~Awesome! Coming home from a bead show with a great new stash of beads is very inspiring to me, as well as finding a great bead that you forgot you had. I love gemstones too and nothing beats a great strand of a new stone that you’ve never had or seen before.
AJ
June 7, 2008 at 7:20 pmI get excited by the idea of taking the image I have in my head and making it a reality with beads!
Carlene
June 7, 2008 at 7:31 pmGetting all my regular chores done (for the moment) and having 30 minutes that I can actually devote to beading gets me really excited! If I know I don’t have to stop just when it gets flowing is such a great feeling. And then it’s so nice to see the finished product that I get all excited all over again!!!
sewandso
June 7, 2008 at 10:42 pmI get excited when I sell a piece, or when I get a compliment on my collection or an individual piece. It inspires me to make more. That little seratonin boost makes the rest of my day.
rosepostcards
June 7, 2008 at 11:15 pmI get excited when I get out my big box of crayons!! I use them to help set the color scheme. When it comes together, then I get right to mixing polymer clay to make the proper blends.
Beth
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:25 pmHi Heather!
Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to stop by and comment! 🙂 Cool about Bead Unique, I’ll have to check it out.
Glad to see you’re making more jewelry – your designs are always lovely!
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:27 pmArline,
Don’t you just love batiks! Drool! The raspberry is just yummy and it works so well in the flame too.
Do you have a stash of fabric? I’m trying to force myself not to get a stash but use it up then buy more – I’m already over-run with beads and yarn! LOL!
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:28 pmBrenda,
What a cool technique! I love the creative messiness of it – sprinkling the beads out like that is very clever. What a great way to get excited about creating!
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:31 pmHi Gaela!
I DID hit pay dirt with the brown and raspberry – maybe I should say chocolate and raspberry? I’m hungry now! LOL! Fat quarters are terrific for buying just a little bit of fabric to serve as inspiration and then maybe make a little clutch with a flamework bead on it, huh? wink!
Re-discovering beads is very exciting – it makes you remember what you were inspired by in the first place.
Thanks for sharing!
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:33 pmThanks for the comment, AJ! The act of creating a beaded piece is thrilling all by itself – I agree!
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:34 pmHi Carlene,
I have so many half done projects – finishing them IS thrilling! Especially if it’s hard to get time to sit and do it 🙂
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:35 pmSewandso,
Amen, sister! Compliments and selling a piece are an incredible adrenalin rush! Makes you want to keep creating! YAY for creating! 🙂
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 8, 2008 at 2:37 pmRosepostcards,
WOW! What a simple and FABULOUS way to get inspired and excited to create! There is so much color and visual inspiration in a box of crayons – how cool is it that you use crayons to get excited about work! Maybe all office workers should use crayons to write memos – then there’d be some awesome work going on in those office buildings! LOL!
Cindy
windycindy
June 8, 2008 at 4:09 pmHi, I enjoy making cards for personal use! When I find beautiful new papers and embellishments, I really go crazy! That is what inspires me!
Thanks for a fun contest, Cindi
jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com
Valerie
June 8, 2008 at 4:23 pmLove that rasberry no dougt about it.
When I get home from a hard day at work (11 to 12 hour days) I love to just go home and lock myself in my studio, put some good music on and get going. It is very relaxing. Since I am a Manager for a very large Dry Cleaners. I get a lot of my inspiration from other peoples cloths. I also get a lot of beautiful gowns since I am in Las Vegas. That’s where I get a lot of my inspiration. Music is another area that I get inspiration from. I like all kinds of music (except Rapp and Hip Hop). It really depends on my mood and the music that I am lisening to at the time on what colors I use and what design I come up with. It’s a great way to relax after a hard day.
Thank’s
Val
Jean
June 9, 2008 at 11:57 amI LOVE!!! what you have done! Great work!
Here is one of the ways *I* get my inspiration, believe it or not! I take out the GARBAGE on Thursdays! I do this to help Jim because he does so much for all of us here. I hate this chore(we make a LOT of garbage)but I do want to help! To get me through this, I sort of go into a “trance”. This leads me to a meditative place connected to design and beads, as I am dragging garbage bags outside. I stop noticing the garbage at all, and I begin planning jewelry designs in my head. Sometimes I start to think of a design problem I have been having and I end up solving it. Sometomes I get a cool new idea I submit to a magazine!
I call this “garbage meditation”.
jean!
LampworkDiva
June 9, 2008 at 4:38 pmCindy,
The paper available now to scrappers is just yummy! It’s a great place to get inspiration and get excited about creating. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 9, 2008 at 4:40 pmValerie,
Wow – how clever of you! If you’re cleaning the clothes, then you really get to see alot of great fabrics. What a great source of inspiration! Music is fabulous too – it can feel very visual.
Thanks for commenting, Valerie!
Cindy
LampworkDiva
June 9, 2008 at 4:41 pmJean,
I’ve got a BIG smile on my face about the “garbage meditation!” You don’t need to waste the brain power on the garbage, you put it to good use and think of beads! Awesome!
Cindy
Lorelei
June 13, 2008 at 6:10 pmI get so excited when I sit down at the bead table to do one thing, but walk away from the bead table with something totally different, and fabulous!
This is what makes beading so fun. Half the time, I never know what I’m going to end up with! Sometimes it’s super and sometimes it needs more work in the end.
Marilynart
June 14, 2008 at 2:26 pmWOW! I am flipping a coin to help me decide whether to make the trip to JoAnn’s to hunt through the fat quarters…..or…..open one of the boxes of fabric that have been packed away since I moved a year ago. Thanks for the inspiration!
Marilyn
http://www.marilyn-art.com