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 Some of my all-time favorite bead artists are the fabulous family at Green Girl Studios. Cynthia Thornton and Greg Ogden are the husband-and-wife team behind the magical creations cast of fine pewter, sterling silver, shibuichi and bronze. They live in Asheville, North Carolina, with their two amazing children, Azalea and Max. Their wonderful brother, Andrew, also helps out with running their booth at shows around the country.
Their beads and pendants are intricately carved out of wax and then cast in metal. The designs range from hearts, birds and animals to unicorns, sea monkeys and other mythical creatures. I love the tiny words and sayings carved into the backs of most of the pieces. They also have a line of beautiful clasps that really add a special touch to jewelry. Some of my favorites are their newer pieces, like the Bird and Nest clasp and the delicate heal drop pendant.
Cynthia lives in a world full of wonder and imparts that into each and every one of her creations. We are constantly fascinated by her creativity and vision. Here’s an inside look into Cynthia’s magical world:
FusionBeads.com: Where do you find your inspiration?
Cynthia: I find inspiration from the world around me, which is to say I don’t have to search far to find beautiful things. I carry a mini microscope and a monocular so I can see things really closely. It changes your perspective to see miniscule details of a feather or the surface of a stone. I keep a sketchbook with me wherever I go, to record ideas, tape in ephemera and paint swatches of color combinations I like for jewelry. I go to botanical gardens to look at plants, because nowhere else can one find so many interesting color palettes!
FusionBeads.com: How did you start making beads?
Cynthia: I started making beads in my third year at art school. I was studying sculpture and painting and spent a lot of time in the library, looking at books about my favorite artists (then it was Bosch and Andrew Wyeth). I came across a book called Ojime – Jewels of Japan, and I was instantly obsessed. I began carving miniature animals and flowery beads, casting them in ivory-colored resin. Of course, this passion of mine was viewed with a good deal of skepticism! My instructors were charmed by them, but warned that I was heading toward craft. I continued making them when I wasn’t working on my egg tempera paintings and doll sculpture. After graduation, I worked several jobs as a freelance artist, all the while carving my mini sculptures. It took several years to figure out how to get them cast in metal and then how to run a small business.
FusionBeads.com: When you aren’t creating beads, what do you work on?
Cynthia: Mostly my time is spent with my daughter Azalea (almost six) and her baby brother Max (about eight months). We work on projects like making mini food from polymer clay, drawing clothes patterns for dolls and lately making fairy houses out in the yard. Azalea is a very good helper with Max, and he is such a sweet and good-natured baby, always watching the activities with interest. The time left at the end of the day is my time, when I can sew, or draw in my sketchbook.
FusionBeads.com: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Cynthia! Can’t wait to see what you come up with next!
 Check out more of Cynthia’s creations on FusionBeads.com and delve deeper into her creativity with her new book, Enchanted Adornments!
Happy Beading! – Katie
Chunky designs are everywhere! If you take a look around, you’ll see all kinds of bold jewelry made from large beads in magazines and stores. That’s why we are so excited about our new Czech glass rounds, which come in sizes up to 18mm! We haven’t had anything quite like these before – big beads in a whole range of vibrant colors. It’s just what we wanted to see as we begin to head into fall.
So, how would you use these beads? I made a necklace inspired by something we saw in a store and fell in love with. The necklace, A Night Out, features a mixture of deep gunmetal and bright silver chains, which create a beautiful texture and contrast wonderfully with the rich red glass.
This necklace is made by stringing chains onto beading wire in between each pair of beads. Start by stringing the end links of three chains onto a length of beading wire. String a bead, bring the chains across the bead, and string the beading wire through one link in each chain.
String the beading wire through the chain link that sits closest to the bead hole. Continue this way – string a bead, string one link from each of the three chains, string a bead, string one link from each of the three chains – until you have strung all the beads. Then get ready to tie some knots! Using a fourth, longer chain, work from one end of the necklace to the other, tying a single knot between every pair of beads. Pay attention to how tight the chain is between knots (not so loose that it’s floppy, but not so tight that it’s stiff!), so the necklace will have a nice drape when it’s done.
Finishing the necklace is easy – just crimp each end of the beading wire onto a piece of extender chain (the chain that goes around the back of the necklace), add a clasp, and you’re done! See our instructions here for all the info on chain lengths, other materials and step-by-step instructions. This necklace would be a perfect statement piece for a summer night out – low cost and high impact!
Happy beading!
Mollie
We just got in a terrific new book, Stamped Metal Jewelry, by Lisa Niven Kelly. If you’ve ever thought about trying a stamping project, this is the book for you!
The amount of valuable information in this book is amazing. It takes you through all the basics of the tools and materials you need. Lisa has been beading for over 15 years and has tried out just about every tool ever made, so her information is thorough. Not only will you learn to stamp on metal, you will also learn a myriad of metalsmithing techniques such as dapping, riveting, sawing, cutting and hammering.
Then you get to the projects – and they are awesome (that’s the Lisa coming out in me)! They start with the basics of stamping and nice, simple projects. Then they quickly advance to projects that will challenge and inspire even intermediate to advanced beaders. She includes fabulous projects from top beading instructors: Janice Berkebile, Tracey Stanley, Lisa Claxton, Kriss Silva, Kate Richbourg and Connie Fox.
To top it all off, a great DVD is included in the book! On it, Lisa shows you all the tools and supplies needed, walks you through the basics of stamping and then guides you through a simple stamped pendant, start to finish. A bonus project not included in the book is on the DVD, so don’t miss it!
Get the book, some stamping blanks, and letter and design stamps to play with and have fun!
I can’t wait to pull out my tools and try out the Double Decker Pendant project from the book!
Happy Beading!- Katie
 We have a fun new technique at FusionBeads.com – Basic Riveting. I absolutely love anything riveted, so I was very excited about this new technique. Rivets are a great way to cold-join metal to metal.
We show you how to make your own rivets with wire. The technique is shown with 14 gauge fine silver, but you can also use copper, sterling silver, gold, brass, bronze or steel. While your wire can be any gauge, it should not be finer than 20 gauge. A wire gauge or drawplate will help you measure the wire.
The key to successful riveting is to make sure that your wire fits securely in the punched or drilled hole – the tighter the fit, the easier the riveting. The rivet has to be able to splay over the edge of the hole when struck with the riveting hammer. Riveting takes a little finesse and practice. You’ll want to hammer rivets very gently on a bench block.
Check out our new technique and give it a try. We also have a great riveting FAQ to help you with questions you may have. For an idea, take a look at Little Garden, a fabulous necklace I made with rivets, stamping blanks and design stamps.
Happy Beading! – Cody
It is so exciting that we are now selling rubber stamps and decorative paper at FusionBeads.com as there are so many incredibly creative ways to use these products to make jewelry. Today I have included as many of my experiments with the new rubber stamps and paper products as I can. I hope that this blog post serves as a good resource for you when you launch yourself into the world of rubber stamping and jewelry. You might think this is intimidating, but it’s not, and I hope these tips will take a lot of the guesswork out of it. Below I will show you some photographs of the pieces I experimented with – some worked, while others did not – with a description of each.
 Pendant 1: I made this piece by rubber stamping an image onto paper, sealing the paper three times with Nunn Design Sealant (letting each layer dry for 20 minutes), and then pouring ICE Resin into the pendant. I allowed the piece to cure for three days. I think it turned out pretty cute, don’t you?
 Pendant 2: I wanted to make this piece with the stamped images “floating” above the paper. I began by sealing the paper as before. Then I poured a layer of ICE Resin and filled the bezel only halfway. After letting the resin cure, I stamped the little bird directly onto the resin and let that dry for five minutes. Once the ink was dry, I poured a thin layer of ICE Resin over it and let the resin cure. Then I added another stamped layer, the twig, and let that layer dry. Sadly, this one did not turn out as I had hoped – the bird image doesn’t look nearly as sharp as on the first pendant, and I don’t like the way the twig turned out.
 Pendant 3: I made this piece by rubber stamping a graphic image onto paper with orange StazOn® Ink, sealing the paper three times with Nunn Design Sealant (letting each layer dry for 20 minutes), and then pouring ICE Resin into the pendant. I allowed the piece to cure for three days. I then used the same process here as I did with pendant 2, but I added a final layer of resin after the twig stamp. You can see here that the twig disappeared almost completely. It seems the resin made the green ink disappear. I have since discovered that if you seal the ink with Nunn Sealant, it will not disappear and will remain as sharp as if you had stamped onto paper.
  Pendants 4 and 5: Here are some more experiments similar to pendants 1, 2 and 3. As you can see, I did not seal the ink before I poured a second layer of resin, so the black text is a little faded and not very sharp.
  Pendants 6 and 7: I experimented with Diamond Glaze with these two pendants. You can see the ink worked well with the glaze – it did not blur or fade as it did with the ICE Resin. But the Diamond Glaze layers were too thick, so they dried with a milky finish. I don’t think it looks too bad, but I was a little disappointed.
  Pendants 8 and 9: I’m so pleased with how these turned out! All I did was rubber stamp directly onto the Nunn raised tag pendants – so easy! (I sealed the bird cage piece with Nunn Design Sealant but did nothing to the spiral piece. I suspect the bird cage will hold up better after lots of wear, but only time will tell.) I have noticed that rubber stamps with fine lines rather than a lot of solid areas tend to work better on non-porous surfaces. I think it may be because the ink bleeds on porous surfaces and therefore covers up any inconsistencies, while non-porous surfaces are not as forgiving.
 Pendant 10: After the success of pendants 8 and 9, I decided to take it one step further. I stamped directly onto the tag pendant with a cute floral design and mint opaque StazOn® Ink, and then I stamped a little bird with black StazOn® Ink. Adorable! I sealed the pendant with Nunn Design Sealant, let that dry for 20 minutes, and applied a thin layer of ICE Resin. I fell completely in love with this pendant and made it into something flirty and pretty. Take a look!
Till next time – Sam
We have just launched some great new Easy Peasy paper pads and new Nunn Design collage items. One of the coolest things about these paper pads is that most of them are made to fit perfectly with Nunn Design collage pendants! I am especially excited because some papers are made of transparent plastic with images and words printed on them so you can make dynamic layers in your collage pendants using resins. Shown below are some pieces I made using the new transparent paper and some Nunn Design collage pendants. I thought I would take this opportunity to show you my successes and a failure so that we can all learn from my mistake!
Pendant 1: I mixed a batch of ICE Resin and added some Salmon Pink Pearl Ex Powdered Pigment. I then poured a thin layer of that into my collage pendant. I did not let it cure. I carefully applied a piece of transparency paper with cute text and images on it to the surface of the resin and pressed down in an attempt to remove bubbles. Sadly, this did not remove the bubbles – they were too large to press out, and if I had pressed any harder, the resin would have spilled out of the pendant. Oh no, FAILURE! This piece did not work at all….oh well, try again.
Pendant 2: This time I glued and sealed paper to the surface of a pendant. After the sealant dried, I poured ICE Resin into the pendant and let the resin soft cure for 6 hours before applying the transparency paper. Once I had placed the transparency paper carefully over the resin, I poured a second thin layer of resin over the transparent paper. I made sure to cut the transparency image slightly smaller than the original image. SUCCESS! This piece worked wonderfully. I think this is my favorite!
Pendant 3: I glued the paper image to the bezel then I added a layer of glue to the surface of the paper. While the glue was still wet, I added the transparency paper to the surface of the paper layer. Then I poured ICE Resin over both. I made sure to let the glue dry before I poured the resin. SUCCESS! What a good day!
Till next time – Sam
P.S. To get more detailed step-by-step instructions on similar techniques take a look at the FusionBeads.com Beading Techniques page!
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Some of my all-time favorite bead artists are the fabulous family at Green Girl Studios. Cynthia Thornton and Greg Ogden are the husband-and-wife team behind the magical creations cast of fine pewter, sterling silver, shibuichi and bronze. They live in Asheville, North Carolina, with their two amazing children, Azalea and Max. Their wonderful brother, Andrew, also helps out with running their booth at shows around the country.
Check out more of Cynthia’s creations on FusionBeads.com and delve deeper into her creativity with her new book, Enchanted Adornments!
