Art Washes Away from the Soul the Dust of Everyday Life

Art and being creative have always been a part of me.  It is what feeds my soul, gives me peace, an escape.  I cannot imagine not creating, something....beads, beautiful baked goods, sewing.  My hands and mind moving in harmony together or sitting idle waiting for inspiration or even being given an excuse to ponder to dream or to just wonder.  I am not alone when it comes to art as there are many of you who feel the same.  I made cuff beads with the quote from Picasso; Art Washes Away from the Soul the Dust of Everyday Life.   Cindy Cima Edwards made a fantastic piece using one of my beads and was kind enough to give me credit for my bead.  Cindy's design is featured in the November 2012 Bead Trends Magazine.  There are step by step directions in the magazine.  She really made a great bracelet with warm browns and golden tones. I love how she took a metal cone finding and flattened it for the detail on the side of the cuff bead.  This would make a perfect gift for yourself or a friend. Now go create :)

Cindy Cima Edwards design with my Art Washes Cuff Bead

The November 2012 Issue of Bead Trends

In Copper Brown

In a green tea glaze too

What’s in a name?

When I was first pregnant with my first child I can remember spending hours pouring over baby name books with my husband looking for the perfect name.  Why do you need to know this? Just to let you know it is not easy for me to come up with names.  When I first opened the shop and had to name beads it was the cuff bead, the disk bead, the rectangle bead.  Good, but what happens when you have multiple beads and you have to keep them separate and you can only have so many rectangle beads.  So I started naming the beads girls names.  A customer even asked me if my daughters name was Elli when I introduced the Elli bead, no… umm it is Elliptical so now it is the Elli bead. 

Meet the Elli bead

 The Carmine, well …umm there is a tiny town about an hour from my home and I saw something that inspired the shape and the town is named Carmine so I called the bead by the town I was in when inspiration hit.  

The Carmine Bead

Now I have a fabulous new bead I am working on I have made the test pieces but I am not ready to unveil the design and I am going to name it?  Umm again? I am still thinking.  The good news is it is only a bead and not a child I am naming now.