PICCADILLY PICK

There's nothing really different about me, as far as being a beader goes.  Like many other beaders I love beads and have accumulated an impressive stash of them.  I also have accumulated quite a collection of odd beads, orphan beads and a vast array of What-The-Heck-Am- I-Going-To-Do-With-These beads.  This situation is probably true of all crafters and the medium of their choice; bits and pieces of scrapbooking supplies, fabrics,  odd skeins of yarn along with many partial skeins, and the list goes on and on. 

Trying to use some of my odd-bit beads I began constructing the bracelet pictured below.

Kind of kooky, especially for me but I'm liking it and have already given it a name, "Piccadilly".  Usually I reserve a name until a piece is finished and then only christen very special pieces.  I must admit that as this bracelet progresses it gets more and more "special".

 

At the moment I'm faced with a dilemma and that's;  how should I go about connecting the peyote beaded strip (over on the left in photos below) to the beaded tube? 

 

A bridge of some sort is needed but I haven't decided what I want to do yet.  You can see that I used a couple of flat-round tablet beads and a few tube beads to bridge the other side of the beaded tube.  If anyone has ideas or suggestions please feel free to share them in your comments.  Also I'd love to hear about your collection of odd supplies that you just can't part with but haven't figured out what you're going to do with.

Hallelujah ... Another Project Completed !

Not long ago I lamented that I had purchased some foil glass pendants which did not meet my standard of perfection and was trying to figure out what could be done with them. 

I received a number of good suggestions one of which came from  Moonlitfantaseas   who recommended that I make a seed beaded bezel  to go around it and conceal the flaw.  So I beaded a bezel AND a bail for the pendant (yes I could have just used the hole that was a part of the glass pendant but I tend to make more work for myself than is necessary. LOL).  All this was done with tiny little 11/0 Delica beads and minuet 15/0's ( I was cross-eyed for 2 days afterwards).
Since I can't seem to leave well enough alone I then embellished the bezel with firepolished Czech glass beads and an assortment of lovely freshwater pearls.  

The swirls of copper and silver foils embedded within the glass pendant reminded me of   galaxies or a cosmic nebula so I named it "Pearl Nebula".  If you think of a better title please feel free to leave it in a comment and I will certainly consider changing the name.

Next I beaded a rope necklace using crystal seed beads with a copper lining to match the tiny beads that were used to construct the bezel with.

The Herringbone beading pattern consists of over 550 size 8/0 seed beads in copper lined crystal and Straw Gold with an aurora borealis finish.   Naturally I didn't have any end caps or cones that would fit this rope and when I tried making my own seed beaded end caps it made the rope so thick at the end that it would not fit through the beaded bail of the pendant.  OH BOTHER !  Fortunately I found these pretty antique brass flower end caps at Ornementea, they fit perfectly and look so feminine.

The end flower end caps are topped with solid copper beads that match the copper in the seed beads nicely, to this I've added my handcrafted extender chain constructed with Swarovski adorned wire links and 10 mm jumprings.  At the ends I've added my own handmade hook and eye clasp.

I think it came together well.  In this photo I had to pull most of the rope necklace back in order for the pendant to rest on the flocked display bust.

A Shocking Realization

Photo above...Seed bead work, a supple beaded band and hours of work.

Starving Artist! We've all heard the term before and those of us who are involved in the arts in any form or fashion may even have had a chuckle or two over the expression. But this morning in particular it struck me big, bold and blatant, the truth. Most artists do struggle to make some form of existence, many times their art ends up being a sideline while another means of employment pays the bills and puts food into their mouths. Why? Good question and one I wish I had an answer to.


Yesterday I was remorsefully viewing my etsy shop, a number of items had expired and many items that I had worked so hard to fabricate where sitting there with very little views. Disheartening yes, especially when one considers how vast the Internet is and how many tens of thousands, if not millions, of people are browsing it at any given moment.

One item in particular caught my attention, a beaded spiral rope made up of hundreds of tiny little 3 millimeter Czech glass beads and approximately 10 to 12 hours of tedious work. It was listed at $55 (for both the beaded rope and a glass pendant with my own handcrafted seed-beaded bail). How much was my time worth ? What's minimum wage ? I googled "minimum wage" to find that, at the present time, it is set at $7.25 per hour.
Okay now for the math:
I spent about 10 hours carefully constructing the beaded rope alone and another 3 or 4 hours designing and fabricating the bail made from maddeningly tiny seed beads.
So let's figure 14 hours of my time. 14 x $7.25 = $101.50

Now add to that the 6 strands of Czech glass beads that went into the making of the rope necklace 6 x $3.00 = $18

About $1.00 for the cost of yards and yards and yards and yards of Nymo beading thread.
I won't count the cost of things such as the #12 and #15 ultra fine beading needles that were used (beading needles tend to develop a cork screw curve to them and have to be tossed after a couple of projects - also they are very fine and fragile and I can't count how many I've broken).

2 sterling silver metal beads were used in the construction of my handmade clasp; worth about half a dollar each, so there's another $1.00.


The 39 mm art glass pendant cost me only $3.00 wholesale (of course I had to purchase in bulk to qualify for that discount, and a bead shop would at least double that price).


Then about another $2.00 in expensive little Japanese Delica seed beads, the best money can buy (had I purchased them in my local bead store I would have paid 3 times that amount...but bead stores have an overhead to pay for).


Final value of Beaded Rope Necklace :
$101.50 (time in labor)
$21.00 (in beads)
$3.00 (for glass pendant)
$1.00 (for Nymo)
$126.50

Numbers don't lie! I should be charging $126.50 for that handcrafted beaded rope necklace.
I have it listed at $55 and I have $25 invested in it in supplies.
Etsy's take on my $55 would be $1.93 + $0.20 = $2.13
Paypal's take would be $1.66 (for necklace + S&H) + $0.30= $1.96
total etsy/paypal fees = $4.09


Shipping and Handling is listed at $2.25 (gift box for shipping necklace cost $1.00 USPS fees $1.58 = $2.58 and packaging doesn't include cost for printing out a packing slip, or for gift wrap, tape, a free Thank You Gift, etc.)


So :
$55 minus supplies = $20 minus etsy/paypal's $4.09 = $15.91 minus S&H $2.58 = $13.33
My take for 14 hours of work is a whopping $13.33 that's less than a dollar an hour.

Suddenly Starving Artist takes on a whole new realization!