Love Beads Unlimited

Valerie Hector's The Art of Beadwork: Historic Inspiration, Contemporary Design (ISBN 0-8320-0307-8) is an interesting combination of the historical and cultural analysis of various beadmaking traditions and the presentation of works by modern designers who were inspired by these traditions.

There are numerous books on contemporary bead designs, as well as many histories of beadmaking (which may go back as much as 75,000 years, see
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news

//2004/04/0415_040415_oldestjewelry.html

The book looks at a number of ethnic and historical beadwork traditions:

* Han Beadwork (Mainland China)
* Ancient Japanese Beadwork
* Kathi Beadwork (Guajarat State, India)
* Sa'dan Toraja Beadwork (Sulawesi, Indonesia)
* Straits Chinese Beadwork (Penang, Malaysia)
* Kenyah Beadwork (Indonesian/Malaysian Borneo)
* Ambai Island Beadwork (Indonesian New Guniea)
* Ancient Egyptian Beadwork
* Yoruba Beadwork (Nigeria)
* Maasai Beadwork (Kenya)
* Dinka Beadwork (Sudan)
* Xhosa Beadwork (South Africa)
* Ndebele Beadwork (South Africa)
* Msinga (Zulu) Beadwork (South Africa)
* Seventeenth Century English Beadwork
* J. M. van Selow Beadwork (1760s Germany)
* Wiener Werkstätte Beadwork (1920s Austria)
* Funerary Beadwork (France)
* Plains and Plateau Beadwork
* Achomawi/Atsugewi Beadwork (California)
* Huichol Beadwork (Mexico)
* Chimu Beadwork (Peru)

Each chapter has a short description of the historical beading tradition, sometimes with fascinating anecdotes (I liked the one about the "bead trees" that beads supposedly come from), followed by projects by contemporary bead artists based on each of these traditions. Each project is shown with photos and detailed diagrams.

The overall impression is one of awe at the incredible creativity of the human mind that has turned these small objects into dazzling and amazing creations in so many cultures and so many periods. Even if you are not interested in recreating any of the designs presented here, The Art of Beadwork is a fascinating book that you will most likely return to again and again.

"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you have moved beyond the stage of a hobbyist and want to make at least some money with your creations, these resources might be helfpul for you:

Online Marketplaces:
1. eBay
2. Etsy
3. RubyLane
4. ArtbyUs

Discussion Boards:
5. Bead and Button: Ideas for marketing your work

Collections of Articles, Tips, etc.
6. Home Jewelry Buinsess Success Tips
7. About.com Arts and Crafts Business
8. Craft Business
9. The Artful Crafter

A charming bracelet handcrafted of translucent brown, oblong Indian glass with white and red decorations, interspersed with topaz-hued Swarovski crystal beads. A 14-karat gold-filled lobster clasp and ring finish the look. This bracelet is 7.75 inches (19.685 cm) in length.

I am still amazed how many photos in online auctions for sometimes quite expensive jewelry are too blurry and out of focus to let potential buyers see clearly what they are bidding on.

Would you bid hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a vague blob that is supposed to be a diamond ring? Here is what you will need to take improved photos of your jewelry with your digital camera:

1. A tripod (holding the camera in your hand will introduce some blur!)

2. Two or three worklights with 100 W bulbs (can be found at a hardware store for under $10 each)

3. A translucent plastic storage box to set on its side as a "stage", in which the object is placed on a display stand or jewelry bust

4. Several pieces of silky cloth as backdrops - available at any fabric store.

You do not need to get a top-of-the-line digital camera with 5 Megapixels or more, but the camera should have a macro setting and should let you adjust the white balance to compensate for different lighting condition. Recharagable batteries are a must, as digital cameras go through batteries quickly, and you could easily spend a lot of money on batteries otherwise.

The plastic box setup, with worklights shining through the sides provides soft shadows, and you can use an extra worklight from the front or top when needed. Do not use your camera's flash (it tends to make small objects appear flat), and set the white balance to the type of lighting you are using (see your camera's manual). Some cloth (particularly the kind used for linings) in a nice neutral color (grey, light blue, etc.) makes for an attractive background.

These tips should improve your auction photos, and best of all, they do not require a large investment.

Carnelian and sterling silver choker. Did you know that the name Carnelian (or Cornelian) is either derived from a red cherry or the Latin word for "fleshy"?

I have always liked them. Recently, I got interested in learning more about the technique and found the following resources:

• An article about the history of cloisonné beads by Sandra Paluzzi
• The Art of Decorative Enameling
• The Wikipedia entry on cloisonné
• The Earliest Cloisonne Enamels from Cyprus by Dr. Panicos Michaelides - fascinating article on cloisonné artifacts from Cyprus that are over 3,000 years old.
• Cloisonné Primer

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

The Beader's Companion (Loveland, CO: Interweave Press, ISBN 1-8883010-56-X) by Judith Durant and Jean Campbell is an indispensable tool for bead jewelry designers at the beginning and intermediate level. It is a small (7" x 5") paperback book with spiral binding that lies flat, so you can keep it on your work surface next to your beading projects. The pages flip upwards, so that the text is in landscape mode, leaving plenty of space for illustrations.

It is amazing what amount of useful information can be crammed into a mere 104 pages! The book starts out by describing various kinds of beads (with illustrations), as well as types of glass and finishes used for beads. This is followed by section on threads/cords and different types of needles. Particularly useful is a chart telling beaders what thread to use with which kind of bead. There are also extensive chapters on various stitches and crochet techniques (again illustrated with simple, but effective black-and-white drawings).

Further sections on finishings (clasps, hooks, ear wires, etc.), tools and basic wire techniques round out what almost amounts to a beading course in a book. Even after you mastered the different techniques described in this guide, you will be coming back to it for the various useful charts and tips, such as the bead-sizing chart.

Overall, The Beader's Companion is reasonably priced and represents one of the best investments a beginning beader can make. While it cannot substitute for an actual teacher, it offers a good general introduction. Other books and beading magazines will then take you further in teaching special techniques in greater depth.

I recently read Bead on Trouble by Barbara Burnett Smith, a mystery novel set among beaders in Central Texas.

First of all, let me say how amazed I was at the fragmentation of the mystery novel market. Of course I was aware of standard genres, such as the police procedural or the English whodunit, as well as mystery series with regional connections. I had even come across mystery series with themes such as rare book collecting (John Dunning's Booked to Die is an excellent read for bibliophiles) or running a teashop.

These days however, there appear to be mysteries for quilters, potters and scrapbookers as well -- can you imagine the problems for bookstore owners ("Where do you keep the mysteries about juvenile herb gardeners?")

Despite these somewhat odd trends, Bead on Trouble is an entertaining book. The protagonist, Kitzi Camden, is an ex-politician in her 50s, turned corporate trainer and part-time beader. When she attends a beading camp in the Texas Hill Country, mayhem ensues. There is an old flame of Kitzi's, a potential new love interest, fierce competition among the beaders for a lucrative contract from an art catalog, and a mysterious death ... May Feather, a talented beader is found dead in a creek.

Of course it does not help that Kitzi discovered earlier that the victim was having an affair with the husband of Kitzi's best friend Beth.

Naturally, Kitzi wants to solve the case, while the local sheriff suspects her of murdering May...

This makes for nice reading, and the author keeps stringing you along (sorry, could not resist the pun), so that the ending is rather surprising. The best part is the witty dialogs. So, if you enjoy craft-themed mysteries, Bead on Trouble would be a good choice.

When you are selling your jewelry online, you have to put special effort into proper presentation, as customers only have the pictures to go by. One aspect of this is the way the pieces are physically displayed. I have seen online ads for quite expensive jewelry displayed on a carpet or bed spread - that is a real turn-off.

Here are some of your options:

• Display jewelry in nature. Hanging earrings from a branch or placing a bracelet on a lily pad can have its charms, but the background colors can distract from the jewelry, and what do you do if the weather is not suitable for taking new photos?
  
  
• Using glass. I sometimes see necklaces draped over glass bowls and bracelets over wine glasses. While this lets the colors of the jewelry stand out, there can be problems with reflected light, and it might be hard to imagine how a piece would look on your body.
  
  
• Making your own display busts. I recently read an interesting article by someone who had constructed and painted her own display shapes, but I am afraid that takes a bit more painterly talent than many of us have.
  
  
• Wearing the jewelry yourself. This is a tricky issue. On the one hand, it creates a very realistic picture, but on the other hand many people might shy away from jewelry that has been "worn by someone else".
  
  
• Professional display pieces. I prefer this solution. Companies such as Fire Mountain and Jewelry Display offer numerous display busts, hand and feet, as well as earring displays. Watch out for the surface - I found that black velevet looks good, but attracts dust easily.
  

I just wish there were more colors out there - sometimes black or white don't work well. I have a blue display bust, and I might invest in a grey one.

Taking pictures of small items, such as bead jewelry, for eBay or other auction sites is not always easy. You have to use the proper lighting, keep objects in focus and chose the correct background that enhances the target without distorting its colors or detracting from it.

The smaller the item, the more difficult it can be to take good photos, as cameras might have difficulties focusing on such small targets. I was wrestling with a particularly tricky photo of earrings one day, when I came across the suggestion of using a scanner. I tried it it, and the results were great - very detailed images that preserved even the tiniest features of the object.

The only limitations I have found is that objects should not be too three-dimensional, as that can cause focus problems. Also, in some instances very shiny materials, such as silver, can cause distortions.

Another issue is the background - sometimes the white plastic of the scanner lid just won't do. In this case, a simple sheet of construction paper (use pastel or marbled colors) might be the solution. As the thickness of the scanned object also raises the lid more than a sheet of paper would, you might want to cover the top of the scanner with opaque cloth to shut out stray outside light.

Scanners usually come with software that lets you set resolution, brightness, contrast and other parameters, as well as crop, flip and rotate the object. Play around with these settings until you achive the desired results.

What scanner should you get? There are reviews of scanners on many online sites, such as epinions.com. I personally like multifunction devices that also serve as printers and copiers (saves on desk space) and have achieved good results with the very inexpensive Hewlett-Packard PSC 1315.

While my experience has been primarily with jewelry, other types of items also lend themselves to scanning: books, photographs, coins, CD and DVD covers, etc. Scanners can thus be a real time-saver in preparing your auction pictures.

Here are a number of sites that contain useful information for beaders:

• Swarovski Crystal Beads - Finishes and Effects. Yes, they are for sale, but just looking at the colors and shapes can give you ideas.
• Bead World Bead Facts. Handy charts and measurements.
• Fire Mountain Gems Beading University. I must admit, the bad pun in "EncycloBEADia (TM)" made me cringe, but the site contains useful info, including a glossary, overview of basic techniques, gallery of designs, and more. Now, if I want puns that make me groan, I"d rather go to the O'Henry Pun-Off :-)

Sometimes, it is nice to play through all kinds of variations before starting a project. How would tis look with Bali silver spacers? How about using darker green beads? These two online simulators let you assemble "virtual jewelry" (and of course order the components from the website in question:

http://www.edesignz.com/Instructions.aspx?returnUrl=JewelryBuilder.aspx

http://www.firemountaingems.com/bb_login.asp?WT.svl=VB

Of course nothing really subsitutes handling actual beads, looking at their lustre and feeling how they form part of the whole, but these virtual bead boards are useful in a certain way.

I had to think of Squidoo when I read this book...

The author of "The Long Tail" is editor in chief of Wired magazine, a publication that has been observing (and sometimes hyping) the transformative energy of new media.

In this book, he details the shift from a hit-driven entertainment and media industry into one in which hits lose in importance, while much of the profit lies in selling the hundreds of thousands of non-hit titles. A crucial insight came when the CEO of a "digital jukebox" company asked him to estimate what percentage of the 10,000 albums available on the jukeboxes sold at least one track per quarter. Anderson guessed 50 percent, but was off by a wide margin, as the answer was 98 percent.

The author then started investigating sales of companies such the music service Rhapsody, DVD rental service Netflix and online retailer Amazon. What he found was that while traditional retailers (think in this case Tower Records, Blockbuster and Waldenbooks) make most of their profits through a relatively small number of hits out of a restricted number of offerings, these new companies can expand their range of items enormously (at extremely low cost to them) and make substantial profits in the "long tail" of non-hit items that would not be profitable for brick-and-mortar stores.

Anderson develops the concept into the central metaphor of a society characterized by abundance of content, rather than by scarcity (as when people had only a few TV stations and whatever local record or book stores offered). Instead of a hit-driven culture, we are moving into a niche-driven ones, in which online aggregators (Amazon, eBay, iTunes, etc.) and filters (google, blogs, etc) offer an unprecedented variety of niche markets for almost any conceivable taste.

At times, the argument seems a bit forced (as when the author includes Wikipedia in his discussion), but overall, "The Long Tail" is an insightful book.

[O]ur forebears are deserving of tribute for one indisputable reason, if for no other: without them we should not be here. Let us recognize that we are not the ultimate triumph but rather we are beads on a string. Let us behave with decency to the beads that were strung before us and hope modestly that the beads that come after us will not hold us of no account simply because we are dead.

Robertson Davies

Anklets sell well in spring and summer. I wondered about when they originated and found the following on Wikipedia:

An anklet, or ankle bracelet, is an ornament worn around the ankle. Anklets historically have been worn for centuries by unmarried women in India, though in the United States both casual and more formal anklets became fashionable in the late twentieth century. While in western popular culture both younger men and women may wear casual leather anklets, they are more popular among women, and more formal anklets (silver, gold, beads) are confined to women's fashion.
[ ....]

A survey carried out recently in the UK determined that most anklets are worn on the right ankle. The statistics were: 87% right ankle and 13% left. Perhaps this is due to more people being right-handed.

There you have it - are you right-ankled or left-ankled? ;-)

I have been following these stories with great interest:

Even the very first modern humans may have spruced themselves up with beaded bling.

Twelve shell beads discovered in a cave in eastern Morocco have been dated at more than 80,000 years old, making them one of the earliest examples of human culture. The beads are colored with red ochre and show signs of being strung together.

Similar beads have been found in other parts of Africa and the Middle East, suggesting the first Homo sapiens literally carried their penchant for baubles with them as they populated the world.

"If you draw a triangle covering the three furthest known locations of Homo sapiens between 75,000-120,000 years ago, that triangle stretches from South Africa to Morocco to Israel," said study co-author Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum.