Craftopolis is a great time saving device for Etsy shopowners. It's one of the free access websites that tells Etsy sellers if they are in a treasury or not at the click of a button. This website also lets you know when treasuries are opening up, how many hearts your shop has, whether or not your items are in an Etsy gift guide. All great time-saving devices. In fact, there are several free time-saving websites for Etsy shopowners on the web. Here are the ones I know of and use:
These items included wall hangings, pillow covers, slippers, vases and spectacle cases. Peranakan beadwork is highly coloured and uses the most wonderfully intricate floral motifs and Chinese symbols to create works of art. It was the job of a betrothed woman to produce the beaded items for the wedding chamber as part of her dowry. The detail and scale of this beadwork meant that many hundreds of hours of unpaid labour went into adorning the wedding chamber. Peranakan beading declined after World War II, so pieces from the early 1900s are very collectible and very expensive.
It was in Singapore that I first saw an original early 1900s piece of Peranakan beadwork up close. It was a breathtakingly beautiful wall hanging for above the wedding bead. The hundreds of unpaid hours that had gone into its making was very evident. It was the same day that I first saw a stash of the beautiful vintage Charlotte hanks that had been used to create the original beadwork. I had just finished taking a beading class with Robert Sng (see photo of Robert at work) 
a Singaporean beader working to keep the art of Peranakan beadwork alive by making and selling Peranakan beaded slippers and giving classes. At the end of my second class with him he opened a drawer in his shop to show me some beautiful antique Peranakan beadwork and his stash of tiny hanks of antique Charlotte beads that he had bought in France. The beadwork was stunning and the tiny hanks of beads a thing of beauty. They were so dainty and sparkly. Robert uses the antique Charlottes to bead his most beautiful and intricate slipper designs. Each pair of slippers take him over 80 hours to complete and he sells them for around 800.00 Singapore dollars. Whilst that’s more than the Peranakan women received for their beading labours $10.00 per hour is barely a living wage in Singapore. Robert says that he does it as a labour of love to keep the art alive it but it seems sad and unfair that such little value is placed on his skilled beadwork. He is such a delightful and passionate advocate for this traditional bead art. Mind you, recent conversations amongst the Etsy Beadweavers Team suggest that he is not alone in that. Many contemporary beadwork artists in the US and beyond struggle to earn more than $10.00 an hour for their stunning work. Things of beauty do have intrinsic value but those who make them do need to eat, pay mortgages and generally survive. The tiny hanks of Charlotte beads used by the French beaded purse makers and the Peranakan beaders were so common from the 1840s and through to the turn of the 19th century that they sold for just a few cents. Now you can buy them online for between US 20.00 and US 30.00 per hank. I wonder if in another 100 years the labour of beadweavers will increase similarly, or will we still be struggling to earn a living?
If you are ever in Singapore you can see Robert’s work in his shop - Little Shophouse, 43 Bussorah St, Singapore. Phone: 6295 2328). The art of Peranakan beadwork, like the hanks of antique French beads I saw in Robert’s shop is now becoming quite rare and today Robert is one of the few remaining practitioners of the art. It’s a great privilege to see the work and meet the delightfully friendly man behind it.
A case in point was the stunning sea sediment jasper pendant (see photo) I have just listed on Etsy. 
The main close-up photo I took of Sea Jasper was one of my better quality photos. It’s far from perfect but it for an untrained photographer with a point and shoot camera it’s not bad. Yet, it just doesn’t convey the lovely soft sheen of the cabochon or capture the translucence you see in real life. Trying to describe the cabochon for listing on Etsy I realised just how limited my vocabulary is for describing gemstone surfaces.
This has begun to niggle at me and since listing the Sea Jasper necklace I’ve done some homework. I found some delightful words used by words used by those gemmologists to describe the surface of sea sediment jasper – it is transparent, translucid, luminescent and fluorescent. Fire agate, the centre of a piece I am working on at present is described on one gemmology site as iridescent. I now realise that it the gemmology language of ‘lustre’ I’m lacking. Lustre is the sheen, shine, patina or gleam of a surface, such as a gemstone. The language of lustre is full of wonderful adjectives – glow, glimmer, sparkle, glitter, twinkle, glisten and shimmer to name a few.
In gemmology lustre refers to the radiance and gloss of a gemstones surface that is created by light reflecting from it and there is a well-recognised language for describing the lustre of different gemstones. For instance:
Whilst, greasy and resinous lustres might not instantly conjure up images of beauty and style, and very few people might know what an adamanite lustre is, I will add ‘silky’ and ‘pearly’ to my newly acquired lustre list.
My homework has given me 15 new words to help me try to speak for gemstones I use:
A class with Maggie Meister converted me to using coloured bead thread in my beadweaving. Maggie provided gold thread to use with the gold Toho beads that were central to the project she was teaching. Being a creature of habit I had started the project using my favourite thread - black Silamide. It quickly became apparent that Maggie’s gold beadwork was more fabulously gold than mine because she was using gold, not black thread. Then and there I became a convert to matching thread colour to my beads and quickly accrued a rainbow of beading threads. Each time I stumbled across a new colour thread I bought it. Suddenly, translucent Delica gained a beautiful soft glow when I used them. My latest creation (just about to post on Etsy) is a case in point. I used purple Silamide thread with translucent purple Delica beads and it has produced a fabulous soft purple glow to finished weaving. However, my stash of coloured threads has grown in a very adhoc way. I see a colour I don’t have and I buy it. This has produced a stash that is a kaleidoscope of thread brands and it’s taken me a while to learn that not all bead threads are equal. My purple Silamide thread has been so frustrating to use. It seems to split and fray so easily. Similarly, with the wonderful array of colours I have in Nymo thread. One-G and SoNo have been fabulous to use. SoNo in particular just seems to glide unproblematically through the needle every time. Unfortunately, my adhoc purchasing means that I only have those in burgundy and black. I also have an unreliable memory when it comes to remembering the frustrations and fabulosity of beading threads. So, to help lesson the frustrations of beading with threads that fray, tangle and split I’ve begun to summarise my experiences (see below) so I can be clear about what my favourite beading thread is and why. Would love to hear about your beading thread frustrations and fabulosity. What’s your favourite beading thread? Why?
. I found some lovely cabochons made by club members for sale at very reasonable prices. I was also surprised and delighted to find several folks selling beadwork. I thought – why didn’t I think of that? I don’t think a table at the show would have been very expensive and there were lots of people buying beads and beadwork. Prompted by this and by the recent conversations by the Etsy Beadweavers Team (EBW) (see links to their work below) about the challenges of generating online sales I’ve been reflecting on other creative options for generating beadwork sales. Below is a list I’ve generated from several online sites that talk finding outlets to sell craftwork. At first site, some suggestions might seem odd (e.g. dog shows) or unrealistic (chain stores) but on reflection they might not be. For instance, I’ve seen some delightful earrings with images of dogs on them made by the EBW team - 
here's a Beagle earring by Fantasy Beader of EBW
Thanks to an EBW team member I've discovered that despite aughts providing a uniform way of measuring seed beads there is much more to size 11/0 than meets the eye. It depends on who you buy your 11/0 beads from what size they are. Here's what I've found from my web search. They can vary from 1.6 mm (Delica 11/0) to 2.2 mm (Toho 11/0). So, whilst an aught aught to tell us how big our beads are clearly seed bead manufacturers have their own view. For those of us who who are beaders this might just explain why working with seed beads brings challenges to create even weaves. So, now we need to match more than colours to ensure our beads match - we need to know who made them!
Seed bead sizing has always puzzled me. To me it’s counter intuitive to have an inverted system of numbering – the larger the number the smaller the bead. Logically a size 20 bead sounds larger than a size 5 bead – but of course, when it comes to seed beads it’s not. The tiniest seed bead is size 25 (25/0) and the largest size 5 (5/0). How did that come to be? I heard recently that the size number refers to number of beads that will fit side by side in an inch. That made sense and I thought, that's good a way to picture what size beads I need. However, as with many things in life it’s not that simple. It’s all to do with ‘aughts’.
The numbers per mm or inch may vary slightly according to manufacturers but it's a general guide. So, next time you hear that the number in seed bead sizes refers to the number of beads in an an inch - you aught to reply that its the number of beads in an aught!
I’m working lots with orange beads at present. I’ve found it an energising colour to work with and I’ve listed two pieces of my orange beadwork on Etsy in the past week – Tangerine Fizz (the necklace in the photo) and Oranje diamonds (the bracelet in the photo). 
What is your favourite red? What’s missing from my list? I'd love to read about your reds.
Blue is everywhere around me this week. Ruthie (from the Etsy Beadweaver’s Team) has featured blue work by the EBW team on her blog. Do drop by and have a look. There are some beautiful pieces. Just as Ruthie blogged on blue, I was busy organising my own blue beadwork feature called ‘Blue note’ for the local market that I sell my beadwork at. It drew lots of interest – see what you think of it. Blue is also everywhere around me because shops, cars and people are adorned with the blue and white colours of the local Australian Rules football team (Geelong – aka ‘The Cats’) who won the Grand Final here in Australia on Saturday. The victory blue of the ‘The Cats’ and my ‘Blue note’ display each echo the deep blue tones of the gemstone Lapis Lazuli. I recently bought several lovely large cabochons of lapis lazuli during a trip to Thailand and I’ve been looking forward to creating something wonderful with them. Maybe this will prompt some action.
Whilst, pyrite is often referred to as ‘fool’s gold’, in the 1970s the finest grades of Afghan lapis lazuli with their ‘gold dust’ cost more than gold did on the world’s gemstone markets. Perhaps that should not be surprising given that this lovely deep blue gemstone has been precious enough to adorn the ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamen's burial mask, to be worn ground up as eye shadow by Cleopatra and to decorate palaces and other grand buildings around the world (e.g. the columns of St. Issac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg and the panelling in the Pushkin Palace (Russia)). Lapis Lazuli has also been used to create jewellery, pottery and to produce the ultramarine pigment in the vivid blues in Renaissance paintings and illuminated manuscripts.
In Australia, the golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha), which has a bright yellow flower is Australia's national flower. It is also a sign that spring has sprung in Southern Australia.
"None were cured or stabilized or had any improvement
of cancer-related symptoms. The median survival rate was about five
months. In survivors after seven months, tumor size had increased.
Several patients suffered from cyanide poisoning."
I found various sites promoting the cancer fighting benefits of apricot pits and many warning against them. One rather public promotor - a former arm wrestling world champion (Jason Vale) was imprisioned for his role in promoting them as a cancer cure in the USA. In talking about the court's verdict Commissioner McCLELLAN stated that "The FDA takes seriously its responsibility to protect patients from unproven products being peddled on the internet by modern day snake oil salesmen such as the defendant in this case. There is no scientific evidence that Laetrile offers anything but false hope to cance patients." (Quoted from a press release issued by the US. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York on July 22, 2003.) Much controversy followed the decision.
Who would have thought such a lucscious fruit capable of such controversy. When I beaded my hairstick it was the lovely zesty color of ripe apricots that inspired me, little did I know what lay at their heart. In other coincidence, the rose wood in the centre of my beaded hairstick comes from India where the tale first began! Neither did I know that there are over 50 varieties of apricots, that range from the size of marbles to that of baseballs. Their color ranges from white to dark purple.
For those of you who are beaders, you can see a very luscious photo of their wonderful colours by clicking on the natural cuisine link below. More inspiration for beading...
Thanks to Moonspirit studios for beginning my journey into the deep and dark world of apricot pits and finding purple and white amongst it.
Australia is a place of extraordinary contrast naturally and culturally. In my ‘other’ life I have had the privilege to travel to one of the most dramatic and remote areas of Australia – the west Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. My work with Indigenous communities in the area has held profound meaning for me.
in Australia as part of it’s landscape. In part, it is because of its enormous contrasts - two sides of the Kimberley are flanked by oceans (The Indian and Timor Sea), the other two are flanked by deserts (the Great Sandy Desert and the Tanami). The Kimberley is vast – around 3 times the size of the UK and moving around such a large and remote area is hugely challenging but enormously rewarding. It’s no wonder then that it has offered many sources of inspiration for my bead art. Kimberly Lizard (just posted for sale on my Etsy site) is the first in a bead art series I have designed based on Australian fauna and I have chosen to start with fauna of the West Kimberley.
Western Australia has over 60 species of small lizards (Geckos) and 18 of the worlds 30 species of monitor lizards (this includes the smallest and the third largest of the monitor lizards) and many of those are found in the Kimberley. During my many visits to the Kimberley, I have only glimpsed but a few of it’s many lizards – my bracelet honors those I have seen and the splendour of the world they live amongst and the Indigenous communities that own the countries of West Kimberley.
Posts
All Comments
