I received my very lovely and delicious ingredients from my bead soup partner, Jelveh.

The beads were beautifully packaged in a golden-colored box topped with a lid of decorative spiral patterns (hand-drawn by Jelveh). To open the box with ease, a lovely bead was attached as a pull.

Inside my package I found amazing lampwork beads..

sterling silver beads and toggle clasp…

more lampwork, charms, green jade beads & blue nugget-shaped beads…

Thank you, Jelveh, for the most lovely package of bead soup.  I look forward to bringing all these amazing ingredients together and create a piece of jewelry that will showcase your stunning lampwork and all the other goodies you included-but it must wait until after…

Enjoy your Sunday!

Jeanette

I am participating in the 5th Bead Soup Blog Party. This will be my third time. My amazingly talented partner is Jelveh with Jelveh Designs. When Lori paired me with Jelveh, she was no stranger to me because I adore working with lampwork beads, and Jelveh’s work had caught my eye many years ago!

Choosing bead soup for my partner and partners in the past is and has always been such a struggle for me. All one has to do is choose some beads, an attractive clasp (handcrafted or store bought), and a focal. I managed at the very last minute to make a decision about all the ingredients to my bead soup, and here it is!

Oops, I just remembered I shouldn’t show an actual photograph of the bead soup before Jelveh has a chance to see it first! The big reveal of everyone’s bead soup transformation into beautiful jewelry is March 3rd. So please check back and I promise to have a list of links for you to follow which will make the blog hopping seamless!

Regarding the puppy update, he pretty much takes up all of my time these days. Oh my gosh, I just looked down this very minute and found that my daughter and puppy just fell asleep next to each other. My husband took them both on a long walk to release some pent up energy, and I guess it worked…on both of them!

And lastly, for those who live in the DC area, Cindy and I are hosting a workshop with Richard Salley. Three very cool new classes. Definitely will take your skills to the next level! I am pretty certain the ring class is sold out but we still have a few more seats in the Bits & Pieces and Balance Beam Bracelet. Please visit ArtBLISS for details or email me directly if you have any questions!

Jeanette

Wishing everyone a Very Happy New Year!

My new year started off by receiving a phone call Monday morning from my breeder in Tennessee telling me that my puppy was on it’s way to Charlotte, NC and hoped this meeting point would be a better alternative than driving to Tennessee. It was, but I had to leave within the next hour to meet the couple who was returning home to Charlotte, NC from Tennessee with their puppy and mine! I hung up the phone, told my mom who is visiting for the holidays, we are going on a road trip..NOW.

We threw essentials in a suitcase, I kissed the husband and kids goodbye, and we were off! What should have been a 7 hour drive turned into a 10 hour drive due to weather conditions, but finally arrived at 10:30pm to collect my sweet pup..

This sweet puppy is a soft-coated wheaten terrier and as he matures, his coat will turn a wheat/white color. We adopted our first Wheaten, Cabot, 11 years ago who unexpectedly passed away on Mother’s Day. I can’t even tell you how devastated I was, but those who are pet owners know the gut wrenching pain of loosing a pet. I still miss him dearly…

Our family looks forward to opening our hearts to our new addition with open arms. Though this is a jewelry blog, I am certain you will occasionally see more photos of this sweet puppy, who does not have a name at the moment…

This weekend I will be teaching my first class for 2012 at the Reston Community Center outside of Washington, DC. If you live in the area and would like to take the class, we still have some seats available:) Have a great weekend!

MY BLOG IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Hello everyone! I hope everyone has been enjoying the holiday season! It’s been a while since I have updated my blog and I am happy to share with you today the holiday ornament exchange that I participated in. Sally Russick, with Wire Worked, matched us up with a partner for the exchange, and I was partnered with Tamara Soper from Handcrafted Baubles. I enjoy working on petite projects such as bezels, pendants, earrings, and charms, and creating a handcrafted ornament falls right into this category.

I was very excited when Tamara’s packaged arrived. At first, I didn’t know it was her package, but thought it was a package of beads that I had ordered a short while ago, and put the package aside. After a few days, something was tugging at me to look at the package again, and when I did, I noticed it was my package from Tamara!  I quickly and excitedly opened the package and unwrapped a beautiful beaded ornament with colors of gold, clear crystal and pears. It truly was a beautiful ornament that would sparkle from the lights reflection. Thank you, Tamara, it hangs on my tree, front and center, and I will always cherish it.  Happy Holidays to you!! (Unfortunately, my photo does not do this beautiful ornament justice).

And for my ornament to Tamara, I created a soldered glass pendant. The pewter bird charm hanging from the bottom of the charm was created by mamacita. She creates lovely pewter charms and her bird charms are my favorite! And I was to discover, after Tamara received my ornament that she had a “thing” for birds, I was so happy to hear this. Wishing everyone a very happy holiday, and a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! Underneath the image below is the list of other participants!

Please visit the participants in the Holiday Ornament Swap:

Erin Prais-Hintz and Alice Peterson
Sally Russick and Kim Hora
Susan Kennedy and Kathleen Lange Klik
Patty Gasparino and Cindy Wimmer
Hope Smitherman and Melissa Meman
Jennifer L. Justman and Sandi Volpe
Jenny Davies-Reazor and Christine Altimiller
*Rebecca Anderson and Jen Velasquez
Jeanette Blix Ryan and Tamara Soper
Holly Westfall and Mallory Hoffman

I’ve been busy going through some leftover inventory after closing my shop, fundametals.net. I have decided to list some of the inventory in my etsy shop at discounted prices. I will continue to occasionally add items until the end of the year or until they are gone.

fundametals.net will be reopening under NEW OWNERSHIP. Lots of supplies are being added to the shop, so in addition to tools, there will be a larger inventory of supplies-which will round out the shop nicely:)

Have a great day!

Change is good. I wanted to make a few changes about a year ago, but it didn’t feel right. I wasn’t ready to let go. But now I am ready. I am ready to move forward without any regrets. What kind of changes, you ask? The way I spend my days and fill my time so that I am happy and content with how I live them.

First things first, I am closing fundametals.net, my on-line shop on October 31st. It has been lots of fun, but too big a job for one person and found most my waking hours taking orders and shipping packages.  I miss my time creating in the studio. I miss spending time with my children. I miss catching up with my friends…you get the picture. Closing the shop will definitely bring new goals and opportunities, but nothing too big so that I can continue to do the things that I love but still have time for those who I love.

The kids are back at school. We closed our summer by spending the last week at the beach in the Outer Banks and had an awesome time. Right now I am busy with ArtBLISS  and have been a little under the weather, but will be blogging again soon in a few weeks. I look forward to seeing many of you next weekend at the retreat!

Until October….

I played with colors and textures…

fun colors for summer…

I changed the way I do my rivets so they appear more decorative, like a button perhaps..this one is my favorite.

This one is also really cool. Much nicer looking in person. Added texture to this one.

This one reminds me of pumpkin pie…
The edges of the bangles can be left black or filed down to expose a copper edge…each bangle has been enameled three times on both sides and filed to remove any rough edges. Some colors may be far-out, but these are the give-away bangles, so if you would like them, the first to reply, they are yours. Most bangles measure 8.25.

These bangles, along with some others that I made this weekend, are going to my mother.

I will be posting another set either towards the end of this week or beginning of next week which I am giving away! The first person to respond on my blog that they would like to have the bangles, then they are yours. I am having so much fun making them and look forward to listing a bunch in my etsy shop soon.  I have several other designs that I am working on and will debut them once my shop is open. If you have any favorite color combinations, please share them with me! You never know, they may end up being yours if you wish!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Until next time,

Jeanette

It’s been a while since I have worked with enamels. It’s not my medium of expertise nor experience, but there’s just something about melting beautiful shades of glass on metal that really excites me.  And boy, have I been in a creative rut! I did some kiln and torch enameling several months ago and woke up the this morning anxious to return to it.

I really enjoy making bangles. Today I focused on re-familiarizing myself with the enameling process, no high expectations.  I meant to work with opaques but with all the excitement I was feeling, I accidentally choose a transparent, which I wasn’t aware of until the first fire was completed. But I went with it, looking forward to see how it would work out.  I was fairly pleased.

I thought I would share with you my favorite tool to shape bangles, the bracelet bending pliers. I definitely prefer it over using a bracelet mandrel. I have a bracelet mandrel and I do think it’s a great tool to have, but I also find it awkward to work with sometimes. So, what I do is form the metal with my bracelet bending pliers, rivet it closed, and then slide it on the bracelet mandrel for one last fit and forming. Ah, and I just remembered, I DO love using my bracelet mandrel to rivet my bracelet together!

I look forward to returning to the kiln tomorrow. It feels so good to have that feeling of anticipation again!

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