Welcome to Inside the Studio!
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.
Congratulations Karin G!
You have won a pair of raku beads from Mary Harding.
Please send Mary an email with your information.
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I’m not sure that I am prepared for this Inside the Studio post – if you’ve visited my own personal blog recently, you’ll see that I’ve been noticeably absent for over 3 months now. 3 months! Can you believe it? Life has been rather upside down for me recently – moving from Ireland to Scotland, a mega craft fair, a few more craft fairs, turning my teenage bedroom into a studio (that took a while!), taking care of my family whilst trying not to forget about myself at the same time, a family wedding in America which was wonderful of course, but came at a most inconvenient time…..well, you can imagine, I haven’t known my you-know-what from my elbow (is that a British saying?!) for some time!
However, I think I’m getting there. Despite my own blog being silent for some time, I have blogged twice in the past few days. I’ve updated my etsy shop. My lovely cousin Eleanor is working for me before she jets off on a super exciting trip to New Zealand; just a day or so a week but goodness me, it’s making all the difference. I can make jewellery. I haven’t had a day/night where I’ve been up to 1am working, since I returned from America (believe me, that is a fabulous feeling!).
So we’re getting there, slowly but surely. Three steps forward and two steps back – it might not be quick, but it’s moving in the right direction! I was hoping that today I would have some new earring designs to show you – new, beaded {song}bead studs. But alas, I have been waiting all week for stud settings and super strong glue to arrive with me, but they still haven’t. Hopefully tomorrow! So instead, I have a bunch of new Songbead pieces in the shop to share. I have five craft fairs between now and Christmas Day, and so having Eleanor here, taking a little of the pressure off me, has really allowed me to create without guilt. Have you done that recently? Pencil it into your diary – make a date with yourself and some beads. You’ll thank yourself for it!
You can find some of these in my etsy shop.
You will see from the pictures above that I am still well and truly in love with hand-weaving my beaded {song}beads. I am loving experimenting with colour, pattern and scale….putting a little bit more of myself in each little bead.
Do you make your own beads?
Do you know that feeling?
Creating handmade from handmade is always a wonderful feeling, whether you use your own handmade art beads or someone else’s.
I’m giving away two pairs of sweet handwoven {song}beads this week – colours, your choice. Here are some of the choices available to the lucky winner:
To be in with the chance of winning – let me know, what is your favourite thing about working with Art Beads. What makes you turn to handmade in your work? I want to know! Leave your answer in the comments below.
Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer; currently living in Edinburgh, capital of her native land. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.
