Flickr is always good for a bit of surfing, and I keep finding new ways to find new things. From your home page, you can see a tag cloud of all your pictures (it must use the titles as well as the tags you explicitly enter, because I know I'm not that good about my tags!) and then you can look at all public pictures for any of your tags.
So I was poking around in my tag cloud and found this cool bracelet on about page 6 of "map".
I checked out Suzanne's profile, and found out she sells her pieces at fluidstyle.com. There's other pretty stuff there, too :-)
How luscious are these?
I prefer to pick out beads in person, but there is something to be said for receiving a box full of treasure in the mail....
I saw an interesting book at Borders about wire weaving a few weeks ago. I glanced through it and was pleased to see it wasn't just "wire wrapping" (much of which strikes me as incredibly inelegant) and I put it on my seriously-thinking-about-this-one list. This evening I decided to see what I could dig up about wire weaving on the net. I'd say I found more reasons to go ahead and buy the book than not....
First I came up with this cooool (but definitely not jewelry-related) site:
Maneklal and Sons (Export). Their definition of "small scale" is relative to what, an oil refinery? General Motors? Anyhow, lots of nifty machines there.
Next I came across this article on about.com. Definitely closer to the mark! I quite like the bracelet pictured on that page, although some of the other examples are not very appealing to me.
Eventually I found the book at Delphi. (Also available at Amazon (link below), of course, and Interweave (the publisher, I believe), and probably several other places. For surfing, as opposed to actual shopping, I do try to not start at Amazon although I often end up there at some point.)
In my wanderings, I also ran across this really thorough, entertaining and informative site: Connie Fox's Studio Tour. Oh yes, now that is a work table! And I've bookmarked her page on digital photography for more study at a later date.
The only problem I see with this direction is that, combined with an interest in chain making, it could be even more expensive than straight beading....
Update:
Amazon link removed because it's displaying a bogus generic go-shop-here instead of the book-cover-and -price thingy it's supposed to show....
Here's a way to while away some time: Bead tag clusters on flickr. Mardi Gras gets its own whole cluster! How can it be that clever?
For no particular reason, I thought I'd look for a good explanation of the quartz-that-isn't-quartz (pineapple, strawberry, etc.) and I found a pretty good blurb at Rings 'n' Things: What's with this quartz?
A few other places state outright that this is man-made stuff (ArtGems, Beads Forever, Fire Mountain Gems and Beads and GemBeads.com, just in the first few pages of a google search). This is not to say that every place I didn't link swears they're actually gemstones ;-) but I think it is irritating that I am still having vendors tell me they are "real."
This has become one of my "trustworthiness" tests. I ask a vendor, "What is this, it's pretty!" and if they say, "Cherry (or whatever) quartz" and they don't follow up with a disclaimer, I will ask if it's a gemstone or if it's glass. There is only one right answer to that question, and the wrong answer prompts an "Oh really, I thought that was just a trade name for this color glass," which gives them one last out. (My favorite recent claim was "sapphire quartz" for some pretty blue beads. Riiiight....)
I do sometimes still buy the beads, if the price is right. In all truth, for myself I don't care if it's glass or not, as long as it's pretty, but I'm not going to pass on bad information if I know better.
Anne Choi makes great beads, and I just love the kitty kisses one.... (Although a google for poezekusjes definitely does not turn up "a lively web presence"....) And her artist's statement is not full of capital-a-art baloney, which is refreshing.
Make sure to check out the photographer's assistant. Poezekusjes indeed ;-)
People seem to struggle with wire-wrapped loops, so I thought I'd poke around the net a bit and see if I could find some good instructions. Neither of these are exactly how I do it, but The Bead Shop and WigJig both have good pictures and lots of description.
And incidentally, the wire-wrapped loop instructions on this project at HGTV aren't too hot, but the project idea is great! I have some nice long fancy-tipped head pins that would probably work well for this....
