Meet Danielle

I have discovered that not only is it nice to have a kitty companion around the house to talk to while I create, but I take for granted how wonderful she is about tip-toeing around my piles of creativity.  She never, spills, eats, poops, or moves my beads.  Yarn and shoes may be moved around at night but really she's just into laying next to me while I bead and being cute.  It's hard to stay angry around this very tall, snuggly, vocal kitty.  Especially when you hear her loping to the back door when you're turning the key to come and greet you.  Yes, my cat greets people.  Please give Danielle scrubs.

These beads? I'm keeping them warm.

I'm not so sure about your color choice.

I should put up her past Halloween costumes at some point, any ideas for her 2010 costume??  Meow.

Findings in Ann Arbor

I love to hit up bead and yarn stores.  Normally I do this when we travel so I have an assortment of fun supplies at hand.  I also try not to stress myself out about running out of a certain bead or yarn.  There's always more beads and yarn to replace that hole in my stash once it's gone.

Recently we had some down time in Ann Arbor and my friend Linda had suggested to me that I go to Findings and check out their seed bead selection.  If you love working with seed beads, then you have got to check out this store!  I thought I was in heaven, tubes and tubes of neatly organized beads by color, size, type of bead and a huge delica selection.  I'm so happy to have found a place that I can find the proper delica color in a pinch. 

Findings has been around for a while actually.  I remember it being over in the area where the Trader Joe's is now.  They had a smallish shop, and being a student I rarely made the drive out there, and there was the Bead Gallery right downtown near where I worked. Findings is now over off of Jackson Road, parking is abundant and the shop is not only huge, but well organized.

These two bead stores in Ann Arbor will give you a fantastic range of what you may be searching for to start or finish your next bead project.  I highly recommend Findings for you seed bead selection and threads.  They also teach classes in the back room so make sure to check out their website.  The Bead Gallery is great for it's location, right in downtown Ann Arbor and also has tons of fun beads.  I personally go there for their array of gemstones.  As always happy beading and happy bead shopping!

I keep seeing all of this wonderful yellow/tan/white mixes!  We'll see what comes of those colors!

Fresh Earrings

2010 has been a major shift for me in the style of my beadwork.  Somewhere between my workshop with Huib Petersen and our Europe trip I got the itch to really make a change.  I have fallen in love with dyed freshwater pearls and am jut having a great time playing with them in these little earring samples. 

This design though is definitely inspired from a very talented artist who I was close with in college.  Ellen has just gotten her first Etsy Shop up and I encourage you to check her work out: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ephadesign

University of Michigan Art School Alumni Show Piece

The theme is "INTERSTICES: The Space Between" 

I took this theme as an opportunity to develop an idea I had sketched out a while back.  I have become known for my certain style of beaded bangle, the shape of which holds its own through delica beads peyote stitched together very tightly.  I wanted to take that known-shape and give it less of a graphed-out look.

I have been playing a lot with the Russian Leaf design and angular peyote after my workshop with Huib Petersen who encouraged me to get into some sculptural beadwork and had been wanting to intergrate these into my bangles.  My first one I finished after our Europe Trip, I thought I would show off my new pride-and-joy at the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild "Fashion Feast."  Anne Flora bought it. (flattering!)  So then I created a second, similair one to have at the "Taste of Art and Life" with the Greater Lansing Arts Council, then it was at the grove Gallery Co-op for the East Lansing Art Fair and Co-op member Deb Cholewicki purchased that one. (Also flattering!)

This new one has a totally different color scheme since I fell in love with these blue delica seed beads and large smooth stones that I picked up in Rome (see bottom photo).  It looks like a jungle to me with greens and vibrant colors blues with some neutral tones. This one will go up for sale at the Alumni Show, so I just get to wear this little lovely for the next two weeks before it gets dropped off.  Enjoy!

As the University of Michigan School of Art and Design Website states: "The exhibition — encompassing both Slusser Gallery in the Art and Architecture building and Work • Ann Arbor on State Street in downtown Ann Arbor — runs from July 16 - August 9, with an opening reception on July 23 during the Ann Arbor Art Fair."

The Beginings of it. Finished on June 2, 2010!

Finally, a Blog about our Wedding: DIY

We had a fantastic time at our wedding....but it's fantastic that we made it through and it's over! Now we're coming up on our 1 year anniversary and I'm finally packing up all of the leftover paper flowers, wedding info, etc..  I still need to get my dress cleaned, but I really enjoy the green grass stain on the back of the train that my lovely Maid of Honor left me in the shape of her shoe print. :)

I was one of those Do It Yourself (DIY) Brides.  Sometimes good, sometimes bad.  Everything turned out GREAT..that I had control of (as with any wedding, right?)
We did not want to spend an arm and a leg on our wedding festivities.  You can get suckered into thinking a lot of things are important from vendors and you have to keep in mind: what do you remember about weddings that you have been to and what did you like/dislike?

Location:  I was looking specifically for a barn, a spot to have the wedding and reception at.  I was already having my wedding dislocated from where anyone else lived, so I wanted to make the day-of easy.  Having to drive around from the wedding spot to the reception has never been my cup of tea. The Blue Dress Barn was the first place we looked at and I knew it was perfect.  Amy (the owner) was lovely to work with and definitely helped make sure we had everything we needed for the rehersal and the day of.  She is also easy to get hold of and responds quickly to e-mails once you have set up your wedding with The Blue Dress Barn. (Make sure to call her if you haven't signed on with her yet though).  They also have a new spot!  The Blue Dress Barn is very shabby-chique, Mill Creek Barn is more country-looking but also very cute!

Food: I remember food at two weddings ever.  1) Shaina and Matt had an intimate beautiful wedding at a country club and the steak that I was served was amazing.  It's very seldom that I order a rare steak and get it done properly (still red).  That was a great steak.  2) Jen and Dan had a great Tappas Menu in Grand Rapids.  Yum!

I have been to a lot of weddings, and I only remembered food at two recent ones really.  So how much do you want to spend on food and does it taste good... for me this was not as important that it be pretty and have a formal place setting I wanted to feed my guests something edible that they could pick out.  Our caterer at Country Kitchen served this purpose, they also do formal and have great ideas for the Blue Dress Barn too (like using mason jars for drinking out of). Plus, the chicken was tender and delicious. 

DJ:  We got lucky.  Mary and Bob had this great DJ in Holland the August before our wedding.  He had everyone dancing all night and you didn't have to worry about what he was going to play.  Since I had a reference and we could pay cash up front he was exteremly affordable.  My father made a comment that he had not been to a wedding where the dance floor was pretty much constantly going.  Ok, most of our friends also do a ton of dancing.  But our DJ had everything, current music the kids were requesting, all of the songs I had sent him on the questionaire.  It was awesome.  I wish everyone the best of luck on finding as good a DJ as this guy. He even was set up enough to let Trevor play "Hey Ya!" for us! What a great impromptu performance :)

Photographer:  I really didn't think that my photographer was that important when we were looking.  I thought I would like pictures, but how often was I going to be looking at them?  This thought process was so wrong.  I have been using my wedding photos on tons of things, I even put together some great albums on Snapfish for the parents and grandparents.  I also wasn't that excited by the photographers that I had researched.  Then I took a look at Melissa's website.  Telltale Photography is just plain beautiful.  She was so professional, and was probably the biggest help as far as wedding planning ever.  She definitely makes you more excited for the big day.  All of the photos that I am posting on this blog are by Melissa of Telltale Photography.  Make sure to check out all of the beautiful pictures of other weddings on her blog!  If there's one thing not to skimp on for your wedding, it is definitly the photographer!!!!!!!!  (sidenote: I have heard a lot of horror stories of photographers holding your photos for months, Melissa got them to us FAST, I've noticed that she makes getting the photos to the couples a priority.)

The Details:
Flowers: I had this idea to make paper flowers.  I think I decided on it somewhere between looking at http://www.offbeatbride.com/ and going to the paper warehouse in Ann Arbor to pick out invite paper. You can order her paper online at http://handmade-paper.us/ but if you go there during hours you can ring the doorbell and wander through a warehouse of paper-wonders.
I didn't want to be folding a bunch of origami flowers though, so I did some research and found this fantastic paper flower pattern that you can really apply to any detailing and make your own on http://www.craftstylish.com/.    The wedding party even got their own personalized boquets, boutineers, and corsages with the paper flowers.  **Warning** Altough this is a great cost-saving technique and it looks really cool too, it is very time consuming. 

Bridesmaids/Groomsmen:  I think black, brown and navy are wonderful base colors and your wedding party can wear it again.  We just had the guys wear black suits and the girls wear a black dress.  We were already asking them to come out to a distance (either out of town or out of state) and I hated to ask them to spend more money on what they were going to wear.  A tux is usually a $200 + rental and bridemaids dresses are not only expensive, but rarely finished in the back or done properly to your size.  If you do want all exactly matching colors, please, go to J. Crew.  You can get a beautiful dress, finished in the back, fitting correctly when it's sent to you (no cost in alterations!), with quality fabric.  We gave the guys their matching ties and I hand wove the wraps for all of my ladies.  I don't think anyone noticed or cared that it wasn't all matching exactly.

The Cake:
Paula Zaragoza makes the most amazing cheescake ever.  Also I tend to think cheesecake is the best kind of cake ever.  I'm excited to bust into that top portion that we froze for the 1 year anniversary!  If she ever gets a website up, I'll post it for you.

 My hat was handmade by the awesome guys of Ignatuis Hats!

Thank you to everyone who helped and who made our day so special, we're having a great time being married (and we are just as busy as when we were wedding planning!)
-Jenny

Other places talking about our wedding/wedding pictures:

http://www.telltalephotography.com/

http://telltalephotography.com/blog/?p=312

http://www.pearlseventsblog.com/2009/07/spotlight-telltale-photography.html

http://www.howdelighted.com/2009/08/artist-interview-jenny-schu.html

Beadwork and Model Magic

(Midsummer's Fairy Dream Necklace with 1 Blue Beaded Blob, 2010)

I am falling in love with beading around Model Magic!  I did my show-and-tell for the first time with the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild and found much interest in the Model Magic that I have started using to create my own shapes to bead around.

My thought process was that beaded beads are really "in" right now, but I have no interest in beading around another bead, I did that a few times when I was young (like middle school) and got over it.  I did recently use this air-drying clay stuff recently for a larger piece ("Clambering")  I am finding that in that size it can be very fragile.  It's made by Crayola and called "Model Magic."  I plan on continuing to experiment with it but here are the earrings that I am having a great time wearing: 

And I am moving on to playing with more "twisty" shapes.  I have been fantasizing about getting into beaded sculpture for a while so I think this may be an oulet for me. 

More updates to come I'm sure!

My best excuse to go shopping: Inspiration

Over the years I have discovered that some of my designs come to me best when I buy a fun new piece of clothing.  The most recent 2 bangles that I created fall into this realm of getting inspired.  This piece is called simply "Squared."  The other bangle to compliment my new top is still in-process.

Grace Boutique in Old Town Lansing had their "Swing into Spring" shopping party (follow her on Facebook for Event info!).  An evening of open-later-than-usual-shop-in-a-cute-boutique-and-sip-champagne event where the new styles are all out and ready to try on.  I absolutely could not pass up this top!

Above is the second bangle I made in this design, with earrings.  Below is the original one that has already found a home!

I'm hoping this will be a fun-lasting design that I can swap the colors out for comission pieces.  The more simplistic design is making it easy to wear with about anything.