Galvanized fear no more!

When I started beading, beads that I had access to came in tiny square boxes from Gick or they were hanks of Czech seed beads hanging on hooks in the closest bead shop and I had to get a ride to go there.  I fell in LOVE with these pretty galvanized purple beads that were like purple CHROME! Soooo shiney!  My love was soon speared through the heart as I came to know these beads for the loss of color that happened when I beaded with them or when the piece was worn, the chrome color came off and it didn't always leave a very nice bead below it...  So I lost my love for those beads and moved on. 

Forward 20 years and we have now available to us, PERMANENT GALVANIZED BEADS!!!  I have a few tubes but I find myself holding back because of experiences passed....  So as I gathered beads to make netted pumpkin earrings I grabbed galvanized ORANGE and knowing I would need to stiffen it with fingernail polish, one of the very worst ways to see a bead lose it's color, I beaded them up first.  They are a little smaller than a 50 cent piece and so shiney! 

The pattern is available in my Etsy shop here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/111055685/bead-netted-pumpkin-earrings-emailed

I will get over the fear by using them.  It's nice to have such a cool bead shop here in Redding to teach at.  The Beadman carries so many of the newest colors and styles of seed beads, and they get more all the time.

WAY lower prices on Violetbead.com

I have totally re-evaluated my pricing on my web site.  I have had this web site for a few years now and I get a sale here and there but nothing very steady.  Since I have had my Etsy site, I have really enjoyed having the connection to other beaders - my customers.  I have been updating my files, adding more photos to them and lowering the prices.  Times are hard all over and if you pay $11 for one tutorial, you have to buy supplies to make it with and that can hurt the pocket!  Then I thought about how you buy one book and get many patterns for $15-$20.  You buy a magazine and get many for even less than that. Sure, my tutorials are going to be far more detailed than the magazine and sometimes the book will have, but that is how they should ALL be.  I'm not paying for a 5000 initial book printing.  I'm not selling advertising space to have places to put the patterns in the magazine.  You will be the one paying for the ink and the paper or you can just bead it off the laptop or e-reader screen and save the paper and ink all together. 

So I spend X hours designing the piece or the pattern.  If it's a tutorial, then I have to make diagrams and take photos.  The reality is that no matter HOW much time I have into the designing and creating the file you get when you purchase them, if I price them too high, they will only sell a couple times.  It's the teeter totter of price it too low, and I am under-valuing my work and price it too high and no one ever buys it.  I designed it TO BE BEADED UP BY OTHER BEADERS!  So I have decided that as gas climbs higher and higher, so that even a trip to the bead store has to be one where I have other errands to do as it's 20 miles each way for me.  I deided I just might not be the only one who would like their beady budget stretch it a little farther.

So HAPPY BEADING!!!!  Keep watching for new patterns.  I have a couple on my list of things to get done this week.

http://www.violetbead.com/

When the Design goes where it wants to go...

So I had 2 doilies come out pretty much the way I intended them to go from inception to completion and then the 3rd one did what it wanted to do.  I knew it, but I have had to show it to a few other people to confirm the fact....  I designed what I wanted to be a Christmas Tree doily with a wreath in the center. 

So there you have it - 8 Christmas Trees in the

snow and a small wreath in the center. 

And no matter how I tried,

all I kept seeing were

BELLS!

And so does everyone else....  you know you do too...

So I went back to the mock up and colored it in silver...

So now I have to make one with bells -

take photos of the steps so I can do

So after the livingroom rearrange -

it's on the list of things to bead -

AFTER a pair of earrings for a customer

AND 3 pair of netted pumpkin earrings

AND maybe a brick pair of Pumpkins in delicas. 

Lofty goals, I better get moving!