Adalea's Designs – The Blog

A common tip to beaders, especially those who want to sell their creations, is to wear the jewelry you make so others can see it. This works as a combination conversation starter and advertisement. The odd thing with me is that before I got really serious with beading, I wasn’t a big jewelry wearer. That’s changed now that I know what I can make. However, I still have a problem making pieces just for myself because I’d rather make unique pieces to sell in the hopes that they will some day find their home with someone else. Although I would occasionally take one my “for sell” pieces and wear it. But I don’t like doing that too often because I don’t want to fall in love with a piece that I’m supposed to sell. I’m working on this, though, and slowly creating pieces just for my personal collection.

I’ve got five pieces in my collection so far and I’d like to share them with you.

Crystal Embers Choker

This is the first piece I made for myself. I was going out with friends to Embers in Portland and decided that I needed a special piece of jewelry to wear. I love chokers and crystals and bugle beads so I mixed those and made this lovely black and orange piece. The crystals are a color called Fire Opal. That combined with the fact that this piece was made to be worn to Embers, created the title. This piece also inspired a collection of crystal chokers/necklaces based on the four elements.

Stop Sign Choker

I have these lovely little pendants in the shape of street signs. I decided to use one of the stop sign ones to make another choker for myself. I combined crystals in two shades of red and glass black rounds to accent the pendant.

(I’m a) Gay Fan Necklace

This is one of my favorite designs from my Gay Pride Line because I love the fan effect I’ve created. Plus, the name of this piece came from the fact that I am the world’s biggest gay fan. So, I made an extra one for myself. This is my most often worn piece and the one most often commented on.

Crystal Chaos Triple Strand Necklace

This design was created using my stash of crystal extras. Plus, I wear a lot of black so this piece is perfect to add a burst of color to my wardrobe. I loved the colorful, chaotic effect of this so much that I created a collection based on it.

Classic Love Beads Necklace

This is an extremely long necklace made of randomly strung large seed beads on elastic. It can be wrapped around my neck several times or just once so it’s very versatile. This piece was made from some bead extras that I didn’t want to sort. And it was strung during my first Craft Time in the Basement under the influence of Vodka. But it’s still beautiful.

This is the story of my entry for Rings and Things “Your Designs Rock!” 2010 contest. Judging won’t be complete until June so there’s still the possibility that this story will have a happy ending.

Like all contests hosted by bead stores, the Rings and Things contest required that the entry was made mostly of supplies from their store. When I heard about this contest, I didn’t have money to buy new beads to create something, so I had to rely on the beads I already had from them – Fiber Optic glass beads in various shapes, sizes and colors. I’d used most of the small rounds from that order to make my Calico Colors Collection¹ so I was mainly left with 6mm rounds and rondelles. Normally, I would make something single strand with those because they’re so large, but it’s really hard to make a single strand necklace spectacular enough to be a contest entry. Doing something multi-strand would just make it look bulky and heavy and chunky which I didn’t want. I spent a while playing with the beads and trying some different design ideas but nothing worked. I was about to give up when I was rummaging through my bead supplies and found some black rubber cording I’d bought a while back for a project that never materialized. I had a sudden inspiration to use the rubber cord, which is hollow, as a long bead in between sections of three 6mm Fiber Optic rondelles. The finished piece ended up being a 6 strand necklace of varying lengths and colors. I love it’s masculine yet delicate, organically funky look.

Calico Chaos Necklace

As soon as I know the contest results – which I hope comes in the form of a “Congratulations, You’re a Winner!” emal/letter – I’ll list this necklace for sale on ArtFire. Until then, cross your fingers and toes for me, will ya?

¹Which is currently for sale on Etsy and will be moved to Artfire soon. Just go to My Etsy Shop and search for Calico Colors Collection and you should find them.

When I found out about ABeadStore.com’s Winter 2010 contest, I came up with a concept and got creative.¹ I had been wanting to do a more elaborate design based on my (I’m a) Gay Fan Necklace that features my signature kick ass fan design created with enamel rectangles in the lovely colors of the rainbow. So that’s what I did for this contest. To better showcase the bright, rainbow colors of the enamel rectangles, I used only black beads for the rest of the piece. I have a lot of black beads because I heart the color black – it goes with any color, even more black. I strung together a rather stunning piece² consisting of five strands at various lengths using various shapes and sizes of black glass beads. Two of the strands feature multiple rainbow fans. I named the piece Little Bit of Rainbow.

I didn’t spend as much time plotting and planning this piece as I do with most contests. Might have been because I knew what I wanted to use as the focal point but it might also have been because sometimes my bead muses are nice to me and make my creating a little easier. When I do a contest piece, I want it to be unique and spectacular because I know the judges are probably going to get hundreds if not more entries and if my piece bores them, it’ll get tossed to the “not even close to what we were looking for” pile. Of course, as it turns out, my spectacular is not the same as other people’s spectacular. That’s the other thing that makes entering contests difficult, several voices with several opinions that are not necessarily the same as mine, judging my work. And in the bead world, I’m an oddball because I don’t bead weave or wire wrap. I just string beads on bead wire until it looks pretty. I love what I do and think I’m brilliant at it and I just have to constantly remind myself that that’s all that really matters.

I submitted pictures of this piece to the eclectic catagory cause that’s how I roll. Votes were taken and I didn’t win. I have no idea what my vote count was cause they didn’t give out the numbers, I just know that the people voting obviously don’t understand my artistic genius. But you guys do, right? That’s why I’m sure one of you lovely readers will rush right over to my virtual jewelry shop and buy this beauty, right? Right.

Little Bit of Rainbow Necklace

Length – from end to end is about 17″. Available for $57

¹I’m really good at stating the obvious, obviously.
²If I do say so myself, and I do.

Last September, hubby and I spent a few days visiting my mother and step father in Montana. While we were there, I got an email from Fire Mountain Gems that contained info about a Swarovski crystal contest. I adore Swarovski crystals, I’d marry them if it was legal to marry inanimate objects, so I knew I had to enter this contest. However, the deadline was only about two weeks after we got home and I would have to design it, order beads, create it and then mail a CD of photos to FMG all before the deadline. Hubby was on board with me entering this contest – I’ve been wanting to enter one of FMG’s contests for years but would either miss the deadline or not have the money to buy supplies. So, right there in our hotel room in Helena Montana with the horribly tacky comforter and curtains, I sketched out a design for an elaborate choker and I ordered my supplies before we even drove back to Oregon. That might have something to do with why one of the colors I picked was Montana blue.

I really wanted to do something spectacular for this contest, so I used an idea that had been floating around in my head for awhile: a choker with lots of beaded loops draped over each other as the center piece. I used these lovely spacer beads that let you go from three strands to one strand and vice versa so that the sides of the choker would be three strands and the center would be one strand of loops. I needed “wow” colors so I used fuchsia and Montana blue with silver delica seed beads to accent the entire piece. This was one of those pieces that turned out exactly how I pictured it in my head and that made me giggle with happiness and accomplishment.

About a month later, a letter from Fire Mountain Gems was waiting in my mailbox. Before I even unfolded it, I saw the words: “Congratulations, Sarah.” and did a inner happy dance – okay, I did one for real too as soon as I was back inside. Turns out, they wanted me to send in the actual necklace (the entry only contained photos) for the second round of judging. Which I did. And then worried about it arriving in one piece. And worried that I only got in the second round of judging because they had one last place to fill. And worried that someone would break into FMG and steal just my necklace before it got a chance to be judged. As time went on and I didn’t hear anything back, I worried that they forgot about me. It was three months before I got any notification which came in the form of my choker being sent back with a Certificate of Participation and a gift certificate for $10! No, that doesn’t mean I won, that was just their “Thanks for Entering” prize. The cool thing, however, is photos of my piece are now in their Gallery of Designs forever.

Oh, and I also learned that my Montana Fusion choker is actually a “Bib Style Necklace”. Whatever. It’s still gorgeous.

Montana Fusion Bib Style Necklace

Length – from end to end is 14 1/2″. Available for $138.

I found out about the Use the Muse contest via Twitter late last year. The concept was that you order a contest kit and you use as many or as few as you want for your entry. The kit also includes a “muse” that wasn’t to be reveled until after the contest deadline and that had to be used in the entry to inspire the piece in any way the artist sees fit.

When I received my kit and saw the muse – an etched shell donut from Lillypilly – I wanted to do something other then just use it as a pendant in the center of a necklace. I tried several elaborate designs but none of them worked out right – that’s what I get for experimenting on a contest piece! I should stick to techniques that I know work cause I never have enough time before a deadline to do all the trial and error a new technique/design usually takes. So, I ran out of time and my entry ended up being a choker with the muse as a pendant. The piece is still beautiful but it just wasn’t as unique as I wanted it to be. I’m not surprised that I didn’t win the contest after seeing all the winner’s elaborate finished pieces full of bead weaving techniques. But I am still proud of the finished piece. All the entries are showcased on the contest blog, mine is under the A-M gallery.

Using a combination of the kit’s beads and some from my own collection, I created a three strand choker that leads into a single strand with the shell pendant in the center and back into three strands. I attached the muse pendant to a silver loop and then attached another to it to create a lovely focal point. The piece is a lovely combination of blues, grays, opals, whites and golds using crystals, pearls and seed beads. The finished piece reminds me of a rainy Oregon day but the shell pendant gives it a lovely beach warmth.

Crystal Muse Choker

Length – from end to end is about 15 1/2″. Available for $67.