Sunday, May 25, 2008

Updates - as I have some time


Being on vacation (which unfortunately is almost over) gave me some time to update the web pages, so the seed beads are now actually on a seed bead page, the "side bars" are updated to reflect that, and I put some new pictures up, of new things I had time to make, a 30" 4 strand royal poinciana seed and seed bead necklace, as well as my first mgambo/weleweka/Hawaiian pussy willow/velvet seed and Swarovski crystal set that contains a necklace in addition to the earrings and bracelet like I made in the past - I'll put crimp covers on the necklace as I had to use crimp tubes rather than crimp beads. - There's a bigger picture at HiloBeads.

My own royal poinciana seed earring and bracelet set became bracelet-less again, it found a new home at Kona Beads as Mark wanted an example for what to do with the royal poinciana seeds that he bought from me in March - and I needed some things from his store anyway. Of course I don't have enough of the olivine AB2X Swarovski crystals with me to make a new one, so that will have to wait until I get home.

Yesterday I went to the Kona International Market and found that after Katrina's (of Katrina's Kona Pono Art) passing her former business manager Trudy continued the store as Trudy's Island Art. As I much rather have my jewelry on consignment in a store that sells jewelry that I like and real art than at a store in the same area that mostly sells things that look mass produced I'm hoping to leave some with her (without descriptions yet, as I don't have a printer here), consignment or not. Noticing that she'd like them in boxes tells me that I progressed into a different category. She also remarked that $90 was about right for my copper wire, aventurine, mgambo and Swarovski crystal necklace. Not something I would have dreamed of when I started making jewelry.

Update after getting back: There are 8 sets or single pieces of mine at Trudy's Island Art now. I'm currently sold out of simple mgambo/weleweka seed jewelry as well as all royal poinciana seed bracelets. One of the necklaces I didn't get a picture of. The rest can now be found on the gallery page. I guess I'll make some more ...

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

More new things

Got the next order in yesterday, after not being able to find the bracelet memory wire I thought I still had, so I now have bracelet memory wire again in 2 sizes, 2 1/4" and 1 3/4", silver plated in 1oz packages, as well as some eyeglass leash ends and 6mm split rings in gold and silver plated as well as antiqued copper. - And some more sterling silver earring hooks and 1 1/2x2" ziplock bags. - The web pages are only very partially updated to reflect that so far.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Softflex, wire, and more beads

Yesterday my SoftFlex came in. It's only the original color and some bronze/golden color, I decided to start with that as I don't have a lot of use for different color beading cable at this time. It's all three thicknesses of 49 strand wire. I could say "SoftFlex has come back to East Hawaii" - it has. I got mine from Ben Franklin before, but they don't have it anymore.

My wire order came in some time last week, sterling silver in 20-24 gauges, some soft and some half hard, and 24 gauge full hard.

The beads came in long before that. It is mostly 4mm beads, some aventurine, and larger donuts (20-25mm) than are otherwise locally available, aventurine, turquoise howlite and tigereye. In fact, I sold the 6mm onyx rounds already, to somebody who questioned my pricing, bought them anyway and then found out that they weren't glass druks but onyx.


Given the rest of what's going on in life, I didn't make much jewelry other than some seed bead eyeglass retainers (you can find them on Craigslist (Hawaii, obviously))