The 5 minute post



Trying to see if I can write a post in 5 minutes! It usually takes at least an hour.

Wanted to post a quick update on the Beads for Blogging goodies that I received from Tanya. Here's what I had got: The post about the beads.

I have two things in progress. The first one is a nursing necklace I wanted to make for a friend. I knew I wanted to make something green, I even bought some stringing materials for it, but then there was no further progress on it. Then Tanya sent me the big green heart! It didn't hit me right away, but eventually, staring at it everyday, an idea started to form. The necklace is not done yet, but here is a picture of the work in progress:

I had finished making the pendant, and it sat there for a couple days when I started to have some doubts about it. Would it scare the baby? It could, right? So I decided to show it to my friend before I worked on the string. She loved it, I sighed in relief. This is still in this same state, I need to buy some more stuff before I can finish it.

The second one is this. I just put together my thoughts on what I wanted to do for the Art Jewelry Elements "Inspired By" challenge for August. This is the inspiration photo:

And these are the materials I have put together for it. The photo is missing a key piece, I wanted to keep it a secret coz it will give away my design for the challenge



And the post took 10 minutes :(( See y'all later. Gotta run. Am 5 minutes behond schedule!

A little write-up about me...

...written by Mrs. Bakshi of Project Why. She has such an awesome way with words!

http://projectwhy.blogspot.in/2012/07/sadafulee-so-that-pwhy-children-always.html

Vote for my spots?

Its voting time again, folks!

I have entered my leopard earrings in the "Wild Things" challenge over at Crowd Jewel.

Crowd Jewel is a "crowdsourcing" jewelry design platform. Users (the “crowd”) rate the designs, and CrowdJewel manufactures and sells the winners! A great opportunity for lesser known designers to get recognized. They are a team of 3 women who started this venture. I exchanged a few emails with them about how it works (basically with questions that were not addressed on the website) before I submitted and they came across as very friendly and helpful ladies. And lastly, I love their web design. Its so visually appealing!

So...here's the link to the challenge. Do vote for me if you like my design :)
http://www.crowdjewel.com/entry/141/

Made in Oregon, Assembled in California - Part 2

And here we are again, with Gail's beads.

Here is part 1, in case you missed it.

Now that I had the tulip done, I was on a roll! I just had to make something else with the other beads too.
I picked the flower...the yellow green one.

I had wanted to learn macrame knotting for the longest time. And as with everything, I was stalling. Beginning something new is always such a blocking point for me. I decided to take the plunge with this flower. Looked at all the stringing material I had: mostly at the waxed linen cords. None of the colors I had spoke to me (black, brown, white and aqua. Nah, not going to work ;-)
I was impatient, so pulled out my crochet supplies and picked out yarn! Not sure if this is the best thing to use with macrame, but it sure is so much softer then waxed linen.

I went my merry way learning the square knot from some YouTube videos (does anyone even remember what life was like before YouTube??). I had a rough start, but then got comfortable with it. One trick I used was to thread the "active" end of the yarn through a tapestry needle. This helped me figure out which end goes in which direction. Before that, I was messing up the knots.

A sneak peek...I added some seed beads to the band as well



Square Knot

My biggest fear with using thread/yarn is about finishing it. I keep worrying that the knots will open up. I had asked a couple people on the Creative Bead Chat group whether they glue the knots, and they said they did. So that is what I did too. I glued it tight, and then cut off the ends. I wanted to leave the ends hanging like I had seen others do. But mine did not look that pretty. So I decided to cover them up. Like this, with wire:

That was done, and I was happy with it. But everything looked too green. So I decided to add the chain you see sitting next to the band. Ok, so far, looks good. Then, I thought the flower just by itself looked kinda boring. I wanted to add another one of Gail's bead caps on top of the flower, but realized it was not drilled, so could not do that. But I did need to cover up that empty space, so I "tied" down a Vintaj bead to the center.

The flower still looked a little "lonely", so I added a cascade of tiny donuts. And ta-da...here's the final piece:

Can you tell that I love it? I have it listed in my store if you are interested in taking it home:
http://www.luulla.com/product/34188/green-yellow-square-knot-macrame-necklace-with-hand-enameled-iron-pendant

And here are a few more shots of the necklace:



Made in Oregon, Assembled in California - Part 1!

A few months back, I had won a giveaway that Gail Accinelli was hosting on her blog
http://www.beadsbythebay.blogspot.com/

Here's what I won

As pretty as they are, and as trendy as they are, they challenged me for a long time! I just could not figure out what to do with them! I did not want to just add another glass or lampwork bead with them and mae earrings. Sure that looks pretty, but not challenging enough for me to attempt. I also kept them outside in full view so that I could get inspiration just from looking at them! Nope, nada, nothing for 2 months!

A few weeks ago, a friend messaged me saying she is in Florence, wearing a yellow spring dress, and really needs a necklace to go with it :-) The first idea I had was to use some small yellow flecked murrini beads I had...since she is in Italy. But the tulip up there caught my eye, and I knew that is what I had to use! Not as a bead cap or end cap, but as a tulip. And this is what I came up with:

Then came the challenge of stringing it. I knew I wanted to use white waxed linen, and some yellow wood beads. Beyond that, I didn't know what I wanted to do. Took me a while, and a lot of different combinations to come up with the final "configuration"

I really liked how it turned out. Looks so "happy" :) And all thanks to the wonderful tulip that Gail made for me. I hope she makes more! Here is the link to her store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/OregonMadeJewelry

She has kits for making some really pretty earrings. So do check it out!

I will leave you here with some more pics of this loveliness! It is on its way to my friend today, hope she likes it!

Links from The Charm Barn!

Am still on the "challenge" spree. Am having so much fun with all the different ideas folks are coming up with. This time it is a "link challenge". Nope, we are not talking about web links (I think that would be boring). We are talking about some really pretty, large, acrylic links.

Charming Peggy Johnson of The Charm Barn has set up a challenge for 20 of us. She has sent 10 of us the turtle-shell finish links you see in the picture above, and black ones to the other 10.

I got these...

Aren't they gorgeous!!! I love how there are variations in the color. (And am SO glad I didn't get the black ones!) They are acrylic, but sparkle as if they were crystals or something!

There are 25 links, and we have to make something using them with different mediums. Peggy has two etsy stores: Willow Branch Beads where she stocks some really interesting supplies (some very unique links and connectors) and Peggy Made where she sells her own creations.

I saw these links used in a few bracelets in her stores, so that is something I will not be doing ;-)

What will I do? Don't know. I am stumped. First goal is to find out how to join them without breaking them!

The reveal is on August 17th, and I don't know who the other participants are...yet! So watch this space for more updates. This one is by far the most challenging component I have ever used! Thanks Peggy!

A surprise and new listings!

Just as I was about to step out to go to work yesterday morning, the mailman rang the doorbell. That is always such a good thing in the home of a bead-addict and a stamp collector. Even the mailman is always bright smiles bringing us our packages.

So I got two packages yesterday, one was from Sharyl of Sharyl's Jewelry. I had bought a bracelet from her store, and she, being the sweet friend that she is, added a few extra components along with it as a gift :-) Thrilled with it! (I don't have pics yet, but will definitely write about them soon)

The second package was an unexpected one. From Cousin Corporation. Hmm..I had not ordered anything from them. It was quite a heavy package. Then I remembered that I had applied for their "Ambassador" program. I had not gotten any emails about this, but getting a package was so much more exciting!

I opened it to find a pair of round nosed pliers. And a letter. Saying that I did not make it, but here's a gift and a $15 coupon to Prima Beads! I was not surprised that I did not make it. They had received hundreds of applications and were to select only 5. So my chances were close to zero. But I WAS surprised that the rejection letter was so sweet! Came with gifts :-) I am definitely not complaining ;-)

And now for the new listings...added a few things to the store after quite a long spell. Here's what I added today...do check it out. All proceeds go to the kids of Project Why, so its all for a good cause :)

http://www.luulla.com/store/sadafulee

Free Beads For Blogging!

What's better than beads? Free beads :-)

And am one of the lucky winners of Tanya's "Free Beads for Blogging" program.
Here's her website: Fusion Muse, and here's the store where these lovely beads are coming from...all the way from Thailand: Ploi Thai.

I was supposed to write this post earlier, but kept waiting to get better light outdoors. The sun is still playing hide-and-seek, but I decided it was not fair to not do this already. So hoping some edits will help the quality of my pics this time.

Here's what I got:
(Am going to have to ask Tanya for the exact descriptions and will update here once I find out.)

I believe the pink coins are dyed coral, the brown ones are man-made resin (they are gorgeous!) and the turquoise are "magnesite" (Sandra, I got this info from your post ;-))

Need to find out about the black cylinder beads. They are beautiful, they have a subtle  brown pattern in them that the camera has not been able to grab.

These cuties are mother-of-pearl. Love the colors, and I think I have some plans for them!

And lastly, the focal! I definitely have something in mind for this. Hope to work on it this week. Isn't it stunning! Love the color and its a good size...about 2 x 2.25 inches.

Thanks much, Tanya for these lovelies!



Gate-crashing into the "What's in a Name" party

Well..this is a first. I am gatecrashing :-)

I missed seeing the invite from Shelley Graham of Tori Sophia Designs to sign up for the "What's in a name" blog hop. Its quite simple, she just wanted to know more about all of us friends of hers, so we were to write down how and why we named our blog/business.

Not only am I going to gatecrash, I am also going to cheat! I have already written a post about how I started making jewelry. In fact that was the first post on this blog.

So here's the link: How Sadafulee happened! Do go on and take a look. It has pictures of my very first designs. I just revisited the post, and am quite impressed with those first creations!

Now getting to the point of this hop: the name. I have not explained THAT in the old post :-)

So here's that story:

Once I decided I wanted to register my jewelry business, I needed a name. I asked my husband. He came up with names like "Rathore Jewelers", "Patel and Sons (or Daughters or Sisters)", "Kashmira Jhaveri".
I know, you guys are all confused. Well, these are traditional names of jewelers in India. Back home, occupations such as this are carried over for generations, and you will find stores, chains even, owned entirely by a single family for over a hundred years. Yup, he was all out to pull my leg :-)

I said, nope, I don't want my name in there, there are no sons or daughters happening here, and sisters are probably not interested. So lets leave all that out, ok?

Out of the blue, he said "Sadaphallee". Now, I smiled, and said I like it, but lets make it Sadafulee. Do you know what it means? Turns out, he had no clue :) He was still on his merry trip...trying to trip me up.
Yup, I had my name! He was still confused about why. (Even now, he wonders why I like it so much!)

Sadafulee is the Marathi name for Periwinkle. My husband does not know that language at all :-)

Lets break it down...
Sada = always
Fuli = bloom

I had always loved this flower. Loved it for its simplicity, loved it for how happy it looked! (I think daisies look very happy too, and roses look pretentious, haha).
I told a friend of mine about the name. She is a landscape architect, and this is what she said about it:
SADAFULI, vinca rosea or Periwinkle is a happy-go-lucky small shrub. It cares not for the world. It rejoices in sun or rain, or the seaside, in good or indifferent soil and often grows wild.

I absolutely loved it! It very accurately describes how I feel when I am creating...happy-go-lucky, rejoicing, and often wild! And the name also ties in very well with the main purpose of starting my business: to help the children of Project WHY!.

With proceeds from my store, I hope to help the children bloom, just like the Sadafulee!

Time for some soup again!

Seems like such a long time ago that I had signed up for the 5th (and my first!) bead soup blog party hosted by Lori Anderson. It was only back in January of this year, only 6 short months. But so much has happened since then...most of all, I have so MANY wonderful friends that I made and so much that I have learned because of them. All of this, I have to attribute to the 5th Bead Soup Blog Party.

So when Lori started taking sign-ups for the 6th one, there was no way I was going to be left out. I think I was one of the earliest ones too to sign up.

This time around, my partner is Kathy Combs. I did not know Kathy before this partnering, so another new friend gained! Yayy! She is so extremely talented! Her blog is at Torched in Texas. Yup, she is a whiz with a torch! She says..."If it is metal, I will torch it".

Here's an example of her beautiful work:

She does things I can only dream of doing! Really.
Here's her store, you will find some amazing, unique jewelry there!
http://combsco.etsy.com/

We both have signed up for the August 25th reveal. I sent her soup out a couple weeks ago. She was on vacation when it reached her. She came back, and had enough self-control to wait till she mailed out my package to open what I sent! So very sweet!
Here's what I sent:

I received my soup from her today.

And was overwhelmed to say the least! I got so many things similar to ones I had been drooling over on the FB boards! Feeling so very lucky :-)
Here's a pic of everything, can't really see much since there was so much!

There are some mysteries wrapped up in that fabric! Even the fabric is matching the color scheme of green and blue!

Here's what came out of the little bundles:

Three focals!!! And some lovely headpins. All of this she enameled for me herself!

Here's a closer look at the focals:

The top left one has a single hole, the one on the right has three holes on each side, and the last one is actually a bail! How fun!!!

She also made me some jumprings and a clasp from copper. I have wanted to make my own compnents for a while, and having this clasp in my hands to look at and examine is definitely going to make that a lot easier.

The other two piles are of cute yellow czech glass beads, and AB swarovski crystals.

And here's some more beads that she enameled for me, and carefully packaged in these tins:



In my long wish-list of "things-to-learn" is working with "real" wire. So far I have only used artistic wire, and have kind of grown out of it now. I had asked Kathy if she could send me some of the wire that she uses for her designs. And of course she did. She even annealed it for me since I don't have a torch. And won't have one coz I am scared of any kind of flames. So here's a pic of the wire and some silver beads and a sweet little silver clasp that she added in the mix.

I am SO loving it! Has so MANY things on my wish-list! Can't wait to get started.

I got me an award :-)

I had been seeing so many of my beading friends receive the "Kreativ Blog Award", I wondered if/when I would get one too. And I just did :-)
The very sweet Sharyl of Sharyl's Jewelry and Reflections (store at: http://sharylsjewelry.artfire.com/) awarded it to me. Thank you, Sharyl! Glad you enjoy my blog!

 I had seen a pink badge on some of the blogs that I wanted to add it to my post. Googled for it, and found out how these awards originated. They go all the way back to May 2008. This is what the original "badge" looked like. And guess what, it was handmade, with good old paper and scissors! Love it! Click on the picture to go to the very first Kreativ Blogger Award post!




Moving on, the rules are:
1) Mention 7 random facts about you
2) Pass on the award to 10 other bloggers and let them know about it.

So here goes...random facts

1. I am the youngest of 4 siblings
2. I have 4 other blogs:
1. http://thisiamgratefulfor.blogspot.com/
2. http://anerimasissoapbox.blogspot.com/ - this was my first one. The name "anerimasi" on this blog means (to me) Aneri's Masi, which translates into Aneri's Aunt. I made many many many friends through this blog, and quite a few people call me "masi" (aunt) or aneri (my niece) because of it. Talk about identity crisis!!!
3. http://mewannabeaphotgraphertoo.blogspot.com/
4. The last one is a private blog for me and a group of close, close friends
3. Until last year, I had two baby teeth and two wisdom teeth. (Got the baby teeth out last year)
4. My last big vacation was to Egypt in 2009.
5. I have 2 nephews and 4 nieces
6. I always thought I wanted to be a fashion designer, and here I am, an amateur jewelry designer instead!
7. I am struggling with this post! Am glad am at the 7th fact already: which is that I am struggling with this post!

And now for the 10 bloggers:

1. Rose from Ahtee's Blog: An amazing artist. Love her detailed sketches, and love the jewelry even more! She has also written some really nice tutorials
2. Tania of Moobie Grace Designs: I got to know her through the "Flap Your Wings" blog hop. Love her polymer clay designs
3. Antiquity Travelers: I recently started following her blog, am loving it!
4. Shannon of MissFickleMedia: Oh how I love reading about her work. She is one amazing lady!
5. Tracy Statler of Make Bracelets: She, well, helped me make my first bracelets by hosting the Wrapped, Stacked and Layered challenge :)
6. Malin of Beading By Malin de Koning: This is one eye candy of a blog!
7. Heidi Post of Ex Post Facto Jewelry: I felt an instant connection with her, don't know why...
8. Amy of Copper Diem: Love her work, another one of those instant connections :)
9. Shel of MiShel Designs: OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD designs and photography!
10. Diana of Suburban Girl Studio: How can you not love her :-)

So many many many more bloggers that I follow, was quite hard to pick just 10.
Hope you find some new blogs in my list, trust me, they are all super cool!

Please vote for me :-)

UPDATE:
Voting is open now!
Browse through all the categories and write down the number of your favorite design in each category.
Then click on the "button, and enter the numbers.
I am number 91 in the whimsical/romantic category.

Yeah, no niceties and formalities here, just asking you to go vote for me ;-)

Ok, ok, I will tell you what this is about.
I have entered the 2012 Summer Beading Contest hosted by A Bead Store. They are hosting a contest, and these are the categories:

• Whimsical or Romantic
• Ecclectic or Bohemian
• Traditional or Contemporary

Public voting begins at 12PM MST on July 10th and runs through July 17th.
I have entered these earrings in the "Whimsical or Romantic" category:

I bet you agree, they are both whimsical (they are buttons after all!!) and romantic (red hearts, can't argue with that ;-)

So go ahead and vote for me :-) Here's where you need to go:

http://www.abeadstore.com/beading_information_index/Whimsical-Romantic-Jewelry-Entries-Summer-2012

Links for the other categories:

Traditonal/Contemporary

Bohemian/Eclectic

Thank you, Gracias, Dhanyavaad :-)

Two Acrobats with a Dog!

Yeah, I know, strange name for a blog post...for those of you not familiar with the Art Bead Scene Blog.

The ABS is, in their own words, "Art Bead Scene is an interactive blog with the goal of uniting bead artists of all materials and the jewelry designers who use art beads in their work."

They host a monthly design challenge, where they put up a painting as inspiration. The challenge is open to jewelry artists, fiber artists, collage artists, etc. Basically, anywhere that beads can be used. Entries have to be based on the inspiration provided, and MUST have at least ONE art bead used. An Art Bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an 'independant artist'.
Do follow that link up there and find out more about ABS. They do a lot more than the monthly challenges!


I have been wanting to enter these challenges for a long time. Every month, I would religiously look up what the inspiration is, what beads I can use, I even come up with ideas, but for one reason or another, end up not doing anything. Was able to get in this time! And early on too!

The inspiration painting for this month is Pablo Picaso's Two Acrobats and a Dog

The ABS folks explained a bit about the painting: "painted right in the middle of his Rose Period. This was the time when Picasso was slowly coming out of the severe depression that marked his Blue Period, and the colors Picasso used here signify that recovery"

I like this...end of the darkness and the beginning of a new rosy dawn is what it says to me. So I picked the lightest shade of blue...aqua, brass to signify the browns, and copper to signify the rose colors.

And then I looked at the painting again to see what else jumped out at me, and it was the diamond pattern on the older boy's clothes.

I had the perfect ingredients for the colors and the shapes I picked :-)

Diamond shaped, aqua beads, handmade copper charms by Kristi Bowman, and antique brass seed beads and came up with this darling pair of earrings.

And this one just because I like how the ambience is like the wee hours of dawn...like Picasso coming out of his depression...stepping into a rosy day!