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BeadFX Shenanigans!

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I bet you think that we spend all of our time, playing with beads! No so!!! Two big events, and a road trip, over the last few weeks, made for a burst of early fall shenanigans. We started with the introduction of new Swarovski products (at our evening launch), towards the end of September. Next, Pam and I took our travelling road show of products, to the Needle Arts Fair, sponsored by The Cataraqui Guild of Needle Arts, in Kingston, Ontario (last Saturday), and then back home, to participate in our Sunday, Artist’s Trunk Show. Whew! A very busy couple …

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Texture talk!

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I didn’t think that this blog post was ever going to get written! Some of you know that my old desktop crashed, only to be replaced by a new notebook. Unfortunately, my photo editing software doesn’t appear to be compatible with Windows 10, so I needed to search for a quick replacement! No time for research, so after a few misfires, I ended up just using Google’s own photo editor (the one that replaced Picasa). All I can say is that it works, and I was able to download my photos. No other info to share! The real subject of …

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Dirty is, as dirty does!

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I’ve started experimenting with “dirty pours”, and I think that I’m in love!!!! They’re so much fun, that I’m sure it will become yet another fascinating addiction for me (heh, heh, and perhaps for a few others)! ! As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, you could use either resin or acrylic pouring medium, as the base of your pours. I used pouring medium this week, but I do promise to work with Ice Resin next time. The small measuring cups were overkill, as no measuring was required with the pouring medium, but you will need to remember to …

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What’s on my bead mat – September edition!

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The kids are back in school, but the weather seems to be stuck in summer mode. A cooling trend has been predicted, but today was still quite warm. Strangely enough, we all seem to need the cooler weather to get our rears in gear, and start thinking about learning new things. Do you think it’s because we think fondly of school days, and still tend to slack off during the lazy days of summer? Please excuse the sorry state of my bead mat, because I’m using my original, and it’s apparent that it needs a good cleaning! However, I’m excited …

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What the heck is a dirty pour?

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You may or may not know this, but one of my leisure activities is to troll the internet for unusual art activities. I belong to several resin and alcohol ink groups, and the latest one I joined, “Let It Flow”, introduced me to the “dirty pour” term. Just like in the old blogging days, one Facebook group leads you to another group, and the cycle is endless. It’s fun, it doesn’t hurt anyone (other than discretionary time), and you are always learning. What exactly is this strange and wonderful term? It has nothing to do with either bad language, or …

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Lessons learned!

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I had to learn a very hard lesson yesterday. When your intuition tells you to go shopping for a new computer, you should listen very carefully!!! Rats! Earlier this week, I browsed around at Best Buy, made a tentative decision to buy a Notebook, and then toddled off home, to think about it a little more. What I should have done, was to immediately back up my, older than dirt, desktop!!! Insert a lot of bad words here!!!! I had absolutely no problems, until I tried to fire it up today, to hear strange noises, and see the dreaded hard …

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Millefiori

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By Cindy Goldrick Millefiori translated from Italian to English as “thousand flowers” and it’s a glass technique that dates back to Roman times. Examples have been found in the Sutton Hoo burial site so we know that “mosaic beads” as they were called were a hot and highly valued trade item. The island of Murano was home to the technique for hundreds of years but the secret to making the murrini canes died out and was revived in the 1800s. Here is a picture of the millefiori I work with in my enamelling. Very tiny and very pretty flower shapes. …

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A concrete idea!

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Well, I couldn’t let Dwyn have all the fun, could I? I was the second person in the store, to nab a container of Create Recklessly, Artist’s Concrete, and I need to confess, that I’ve already used up half of my supply. This stuff is seriously fun to work with, and I’m just getting started! Many of you know that I love to experiment, so instead of showing you my first efforts, I’ll show you a few of my final ones (okay, I’ll show you all of them, but I like these the best). The idea is not my own, …

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Inspiration from the past

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By Cindy Goldrick I love the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I could spend hours looking at the minutiae of life and daydream about the lives people lived in the past. The last time I was there I was lace crazy and took tons of pictures of the drawers of lace they have there.  But if you can’t get to England and want the inspiration of an amazing collection of jewellery, you can search the V&A archives online! Talk about going down a rabbit hole… Go to collections.vam.ac.uk http://m.vam.ac.uk/collections/?q= and get started asap. I browse, sketch and then riff …

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First Look: Artist’s Concrete

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I saw a video on Artist’s Concrete, and then another video – and then another and someone asked about it and it looked really cool and I could see a lot of potential, and here we are – we are now carrying it in the store! So I had a chance to sit down with it and do a little experimenting before it goes live on the website (tonight at midnight!). First thing I can tell you – is that the amount of water that they say to add is not enough. You will need to add a couple more …