German Lampwork Beads 3

Ever wonder a baby face in a flower-formed bead? I definitely never imagine one! Sometimes I feel I've seen so often flower beads that share common similarities: flat or raised flower details, or sculpted petals with dotty stamens; and I need to see a change. When I browsed Dora Schubert's website by chance, I didn't prepare myself for an unexpected find: sculptural baby flower beads! A chubby baby face sorrounded with sculpted petals. The idea is clever and original. Each bead is big enough to be worn singly as a pendant. It's clearly a head-turning piece.

Dora's creations are distinctive. She makes details on clean-colored backgrounds meticulously. She does the same with colorful motifs and backgrounds. She has her signatures in making sculptural and non-sculptural beads. When I stop by at her Flickr site, I'm sometimes speechless to describe her extraordinary works.

Color Study

I’ve been in a playful mood with big beads. I mean really big beads, as big as 4cm in size. The bigger, the better!

For one thing, large beads would get noticed due to their size. If they’re hung on a single chain, they’ll be a statement piece. People would see them undistracted. Then, another good thing, the presence of colors, motifs, textures, shapes and other features applied on the beads would be visibly recognized.

Recently I’ve done color experimentation with three large focals. Captivated with the multicolors on each focal, I was intrigued to make simple long necklaces based on their palette. I’ve stocked up Swarovski crystals in rainbow of colors and I thought finding the matching colors of the crystals to be paired with the focals would be a fun challenge. It would be impossible if I couldn’t find some. And yes, I was right!



There are yellow, orange, dark pink, sparkling brown, dark green, light green, red, turquoise, and white. I reflected all of them in variety of crystals except brown. Leaving out one color wouldn’t disgrace the overall look of the necklace. The complete design of the necklace is shown in here.



White, green, orange, red, blue, black, yellow… What a mix of bold colors! Here I tried minimalism. I wanted one color to play dominantly, so I picked bright red as the dominant color accented with green and blue without overwhelming the presence of the heart focal. If I used this method with other colors from the focal palette, the result wouldn’t be much different. The focal bead would still be a centre of attention. Click here to see the necklace in full.



Now I wanted to expose this focal with unmatching colors of the crystals. The variegated brown and blue give the flat-sided focal an earthy feeling and I searched different colors that bear a similar feeling. Red magma – the new color from Swarovski – is the one. When I put all the beads together, they clicked right away. See the entire necklace in here.

Most of the findings used for these necklaces are oxidized sterling silver. Dark-colored sterling silver makes the beads’ colors pop and is also a wonderful alternative to black cord.

German Lampwork Beads 2

I’m a fan of lampwok glass beads. When I don’t do anything with my kids or work on jewelry projects, I take my time to marvel at the work of lampwork bead artists. Their skills and creativity to produce something wonderful and interesting in small-sized forms and assorted shapes and colors often makes me wonder: how do they make them? How does, for example, Michou Pascale Anderson combine many colors that turn out to be so irresistibly cool? I personally admire her color style. Bold, bright, eye catching. Not only is she good with colors, she also makes beads with different motifs from birds to water creatures to flowers and many more. Another example of my curious thought: how long does Silke Buechler spend to finish one bead with such a beautiful color combo and lots of fine details? I can’t help but say ‘wow’ to myself everytime I look at her exquisite work in her website’s gallery page. She sure has her own style to create one-of-a-kind pieces.

In my previous blog entry I wrote that artisan beads bear their own uniqueness. Michou and Silke’s beads prove to be like that. Unique. For me it’s become a love-and-love connection to keep checking back their work.

Click the artist’s name and you’ll be directed to their website.

Two Sides with Chain

This long necklace will turn many many heads! Who can resist not to look at four boldly decorated lampwork glass tiles and the blings of Swarovski crystals that are as big as 8 mm?


The artisan tile beads are similar to those used in the other Two Sides pieces (bracelet and necklace) and it took me almost a year to finally come up with another idea to work with them. Since they came from the same strand, the colors are pretty much similar: violet, bluish purple tanzanite, yellow lime, green light olivine. It’s really a fresh color combination that may brighten one’s day especially in the dull cold winter!

German Lampwork Beads

I adore lampwork glass beads. They please my eyes and entertain my soul. They can be my inspirations when I need fresh design ideas; momentarily take the pressure away when I’m on a tight deadline to finish a project; bring me smile anytime during my hectic hours of the day or when I’m in a gloomy mood; and of course make me feel good when I wear them.

Since I live in Germany, a country where one of reputable glass material brandnames Lauscha is produced, I’ve googled to find lampwork beads made by local artists. Among many German lampwork bead makers I've spotted, I’am fascinated with the artisan works of Anja Basan of Anastasia Beads, Melanie Moertel and Manuela Wutschke. They have their own way to interpret objects found in life and present them in miniature works of art. I’m always in awe to see their endless creativity like, for examples, how Anja potrays seasons and underwater life in her glass focals and bead sets. They’re oh so magnificent! I sometimes wonder how Melanie could come up with unique elephants and fairy characters in her glass work. They’re truly original ideas. I also have no clue how many hours Ms. Manuela spends to create a delicate bird in a small-sized glass space but for sure she must have done it patiently and meticulously.

The facts that their beads are one of a kind and become collectible items make them highly priced in ebay auctions. I’m no longer surprised if bidders don’t mind paying more than one hundred US dollars (or even a thousand dollars!) for a single set as they’ll get beautiful jewels that they can treasure in many years to come.

Click here to see the artists’ websites:
http://www.anastasiabeads.de
http://www.melaniemoertel.de
http://www.manuela-wutschke.de

Hibiscus Delight

I usually keep one lampwork bead that I like best from particular bead sets for myself. I like to marvel at the bead’s patterns, colors, details or I may have a personal feeling attached to it – just to name a few of the reasons. And every now and then I let one bead or two go from my lampwork bead collection. Why? I have found equally beautiful materials to match with that bead and therefore it’s time to share it with everyone else. Like the Hibiscus Delight bracelet below.

It began with the potato-shaped creamy white freshwater pearls I used in Pure Bliss set not long ago. I felt the pearls were truly gorgeous which led me to think up of a design for other pinkish potato and tiny white keishi pearls I had in my bead bowl. It was right after a sudden urge to check my lampwork bead box I knew I should pair them with one of my favorites: the hibiscus lentil made by German artist Andrea Venschott. I love this bead’s play of colors. Pinkish peach hibiscus with vivid yellow stamen… green leaves with delicate brownish stripes… two little white flowers with a single pale pink dot in the middle… altogether they really pop against amethyst/purple background. Very interesting!

I think all these little beauties (freshwater pearls and hibiscus lampwork bead) deserve equal attention from anyone who sees them and so this time, I strung them with less Swarovski crystals and extra Bali silver daisy spacers. The outcome? A simple yet elegant piece without loosing its crystal bling!

Click here to see the full picture of the bracelet.

Fresh Start

Finally...

One of my 2009 resolutions is to re-activate this blog that has actually been here awhile thanks to my dear friend Niken who gave me the idea of blogging sometime ago. She has created her own blog at http://www.rumahniken.blogspot.com/ prior to making a similar one for me. She also has two other blogs dedicated to polymer clay and interior designs and both sites are directly linked from the rumahniken blog. Feel free to visit her blogs but I should let you know first that they're written in Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language).

Having completed re-designing this blog, I'm pretty happy to be finally able to write something. So here it is.

This short necklace is named Dara's Heart and currently displayed in Beading Daily's Reader Gallery for Heart-Felt Designs theme. The story behind the making of this necklace is what I'd like to share with you. It was last year when my daughter Dara asked me for beads to work with. I immediately gave her one of my favorite lampwork glass beads: a big fluffy heart-shaped focal made by a German artist Andrea Venschott. It has bluish color with hints of white, yellow and green. The color combination is lovely but at that time I decided to stop working with this gorgeous focal bead because I couldn't find matching colors of Swarovski crystals to justify its beauty. Soon after my daughter hold the bead, she quickly chose the complimentary colors of the crystals in various bead sizes and shapes. The result was beyond my expectation! The glitters of light pink and yellow paired with the opaque looks of green mint and chalk white blended nicely with the colors of the focal. Moreover, the variety of sizes and shapes of the crystals gave a dynamic look to the design. I simply couldn't believe myself that my 7-year-old girl created this color mix as she'd never showed her interest in making jewelry pieces. Since then I've occasionally asked her opinion when working on new jewelry designs. Who knows she will come up with a better idea than mine.