New Addition to my Fall/Winter line...

I've been a very productive beader lately and I thought I'd share my newest design. I'm partially focusing on a color theme and hope to edge into some "bigger is better" designs, but I like to keep up the smaller ones for affordability.

I'm calling this new one "Hive 1." I can already see the bee-hive hexagons becoming a trend in some of my upcoming doodles-turned-beadwork, and this will bee the beeginning. :)

The tan color in this piece was originally ordered for the wine glasses that I made for the Guild Exhibit this past August and I fell in love with it. I had to order more and had to make a design that I could utilize it in. It has a faint gold essence to it which made me wander to one of my traditional inspirations: honey bees and their hives. Long story short- my father has kept bee hives since I was little and I love them. I even used this subject matter as my final project/piece in my "Science Art and Spirituality" class in college. It's no surprise that the honeycomb applies so well to peyote stitch.

I hope you love this new one as much as I do, I'm even making earrings to match!

(I apologize for the lousy lighting in these, I'll get better ones...I was just so excited about getting this one out and showing it!)

Jenny Schu. on Etsy.com

I have finally decided to do it, I have been afraid of paypal, shopping carts and processing my work through the internet, but here I go!

Etsy.com is a place to find all sorts of handmade goods and vintage fun. I think I'm going to start doing some of my gift shopping here if I cannot find it at the Grove Gallery Co-op or someplace else local. I have been wandering through Etsy, amazed at the artists, the connections and community. It's a funky, fun, artist kind-of community, I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to browse through!

I have posted 5 pieces up on Etsy.com thus far. I am making a goal to put every brand new piece up for the first four months after I make it. This way it can get some wear-time by me, and exposure to the "critics" first hand. I plan on getting a new piece up at least once a week, so keep an eye out! In the meantime, here are some of the items you can buy right now!

And of course, I have to again thank Katherine for being my model and helping me learn how to photograph my work so that it looks good online!

Greater Lansing Weaver's Guild: Michigan League of Handweaver's Guild Exhibit!

The Michigan League of Handweavers Conference this year had their Guild Exhibits. I was excited to see ours come together in full! The theme was "Golden Reflections" as it is the League's 50th Anniversary.


Karen East came up with the idea of "setting the table" for a celebration! We had picked a handful of specific colors and each weaver involved was weaving something for the table setting. The only requirement is that the colors be broken down via the "Golden Rule" (5/8ths to 3/8ths), the larger portion of the low-lying table items to be in the neutral and golds. The pieces that rise up from the table are to be the opposite, where the larger portion of color is to be the jeweltone.

I worked on bringing pieces up off of the table. Beaded wine glass stems, napkin rings and a last-minute wine bottle lable as to not take away from the table setting but to let the viewer know what Guild's exhibit it was.

Unfortunatly, I did not get any pictures with the lighting pointing correctly on our work, but hopefully someone did!

A HUGE thanks to our weavers!

Marie – place mats & table runner

Sue - tea cozy

Leslie– table runner and placemats

Elaine – placemats

Rose – two towels

Kathy – napkins

Karen - placemats

"Bicycle Race"

I don't actually race when I bike, but I love Queen, so I thought it was only fitting that I name my bicycle bracelet "Bicycle Race" after their song. I finished this one on the way up to visit our friend in L'anse, Upper Peninsula, Michigan. My husband is wonderful and he drives while I bead or work on some fantastic project that fits in my lap.

This is one of the few pieces that really made me realize doing a sample is important. It changed so much from its original idea, but I have worn it a few times and am really enjoying it. I think the general consensus from people is that it's "cute." I'm okay with that. :)

Enjoy!

New Experiences: Learning how to shoot photos with a friend as a model.

I'm not really a photographer. I am thankful that the world of digital cameras hit me while I was in Art School, this way I could take a million pictures of one piece and decipher which looked the best on my computer before I had it made into a slide. There would otherwise be a million useless and very expensive slides in my posession to this day.

So when I started to take a look at etsy and other artist's online galleries I realized that I am lacking in pictures of people wearing my artwork! This is art-to-wear and functional for the everyday! Why are my poor bracelets sitting on stands? The answer: It is very very very hard to photograph yourself wearing your work. And I always end up doing my photos on a whim, or on a deadline the night before.

So out of my many fashion-forward friends I picked the one that is most camera-shy, but also dabbles in photography. It was a little awkward at first, but then we started to have a slo of fun! Here's and sample of what we came up with.

Thanks so much Katherine! I can't wait to get the next ones going!

Bike Bracelet Sample and a new finished Piece!

Following up from my last post, I finally finished the sample for my bicycle bracelet. I'm wavering on it. I think this is one of those designs that will grow on me once I wear the finished bracelet a few times. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Moving on.....

I did finish a new bracelet that I am in LOVE with. The colors are smooth and don't quite pop as drastically as normal, so I am having a hard time getting a good picture. It's called "Forefathers." I designed it on a flight home from D.C. almost two years ago and it then sat for a while. Although the design itself does not scream early American architecture, I began drawing it out with the idea of tabbaco leaves being a constant design element in the ornament of many of the buildings including the Capital. It's another larger cuff and has a different curl to it than some of my other ones. I will eventually get a better piture, but check it out:

Sometimes doing a sample works out for me.....

I rarely do samples, but I am rarely trying to make something look detailed and exact. I am the type of artist that make some weavers cringe because rather than doing a sample, I draw up my piece, warp my loom, and enjoy whatever my fingers produce.

Yesterday I began my bicycle bracelet design, and graphing a bike out into the style bracelet that I design became far more difficult than I would have expected.

I had this idea that I would make a black background and use only one color for the bicycle...and the little bikes trekking across this bracelet would be neon. This way I could represent the importance of wearing bright colors when you bike so that cars can see you.

This is what my creation was looking like on paper:

But alas, paper and beads look quite different. You loose all of the sketch lines that made it actually look like a bike frame. I decided that this was one of those pieces that I had to do a sample for. Otherwise I'd have about 1600 beads put together (not quite the whole bracelet), and realize that it looked terrible.

Thankfully, I did my sample and it turned out looking like this:

These blue hexagons are failing to convince me that they are bike wheels. Especially in the blue!

I love to have detail, but I also did not want to make this a humongous cuff bracelet that you could tell whether or not this bike was a sweet streamline single speed or a beat up 18 speed mountain bike. Believe me, I considered this. I don't think it would be cost-effective in the end.

So I conceded and admitted that I have to make this bike with black wheels, some shine in the spokes and keep just the frame brightly colored.

My next problem is: what is my background color to be? Black is my back-up, it always looks good behind things. White, well, I don't really like white, and I like my bracelets to be functional. White gets messy looking, even with glass seed beads.

Here's what I came up with, and I am now VERY excited!

Now I know this is only the bottom, but the wheels looks like wheels, and I promise I will finish this little sample before I head into the full-blown bracelet. Besides, the sample is only about 395 beads....