BEAD AND BUTTON 2013: CLASSES

I had a great time at Bead and Button, even though my camera died and I was so rushed that I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to.  I took some wonderful classes.

First was Monday night's WireLace Floating Flower, a pin made with WireLace, Crystal Clay, crystals, and head pins.  WireLace is a ribbon woven with very fine wire of brass, copper, or aluminum bonded with an enamel coating.  I had been curious about the product, so I figured it would be a good idea to take a class from the innovator, Linda Hartung.  We had a fun time and walked out of class with a finished flower.

Here is my finished flower pin.





Here are some of the other flowers that Linda made as examples.

 

Bracelets made with WireLux, another of Linda and Tim's products.  More about this later.


On Tuesday, I took Soldering 1-2-3 with the talented and ever-patient Gwen Youngblood.  This class taught us to cut, stamp, texture, and solder metal as we made two pendants of copper and silver.  Thanks to Gwen, I conquered my fear of torches and walked out of class with two finished pendants.

My 2 pendants.

Unfortunately, I had so much fun in class that I forgot to take any photos but you can visit Gwen's website at Metal Art Lab to see more of her classes.


Wednesday brought the Prong-Set Enameled Earrings class with Kim St. Jean.

Here is Kim surrounded with some of the tools and supplies for class.

My favorite of Kim's many samples of her work.


Thanks to Gwen's solid instructions in using a torch, I was more comfortable with fire and finished 1 pair of earrings.

My earrings


Wednesday night was the ever-popular Meet The Teachers, where I spent a lot of time catching  up with friends and admiring a lot of lovely jewelry.  I couldn't resist taking a photo part of the line for admission.

The line extends around the corner.

Thursday was the Soutache and Bead Embroidery Cuff taught by Amee K Sweet-McNamara, otherwise known as Amee Runs With Scissors.

Here's Amee on the right.

One of Amee's more colorful pieces of soutache jewelry

We did a lot of learning but didn't actually get very far with our motifs.

Here is 1 of my motifs, which will get sewn to a wide cuff.


Friday was back to the 1970's (in spirit) as I spent the day in Joan Babcock's Introduction to Micro-Macrame.  Although I joke about back to the 1970's, Joan's work is definitely up-to-date and we had a lot of fun learning our knots.  My camera was broken by now but you can see some of Joan's gorgeous work at her website: Joan Babcock Designs.

The start of my bracelet. We spent most of our class time practicing knots but I will get back to this project.


So that was it for  the classes this year.  Tomorrow I will share my goodies from shopping.