FusionBeads.com Blog

Read Our Interview With Lillypilly!

Who doesn’t love Lillypilly’s vibrant and fanciful artisan pendants and anodized aluminum products? We sure do! We were inspired to use this Colorado studio’s delicate shell pendants to add a classy touch to our Love Me Do and Tooled necklaces and our Rising Sun and Bamboo Shoot earrings, while their anodized aluminum blanks dazzle front and center in our Intrigue Necklace. The intricate detailing and rich colors of Lillypilly’s pieces are absolutely breathtaking!

The founder of Lillypilly, Heidi, was gracious enough to answer a few questions for us and give us some insight as to how she creates these beautiful works of art. Here is what she shared with us:

FusionBeads.com: Your decorative shell pendants are what Lillypilly is best known and loved for. How do you choose the designs for these pendants?

Heidi: I am inspired by lots of different artistic styles. I love designs from wallpapers, tapestries, artifacts, architecture and nature and they seem to speak to me at different times. When I am working on a new collection, I am drawn to certain designs or their components. Then, a dance or synergy begins between the design, the feel I am looking for, and how it works with the shape of the piece. It is a satisfying process when it all comes together.

FusionBeads.com: Are there any new shell pendant styles that you are currently working on?

Heidi: I am always thinking about new styles and materials to design with. Over the years, our focus has primarily been on new designs on our collection of shell and other fabulous materials like tagua nut and gemstones. This year we will be adding some new designs but also new shell shapes to our collection. I am excited about a spiral shell that has a playful swirly spiral design that we are debuting in Tucson next week. I just love spirals, and it is a very fun piece.

FusionBeads.com: You recently started working with an exciting new medium, aluminum. What inspired you to add this line of products to Lillypilly?

Heidi: Last year, I was trying to create a certain look on different metals that I so far have not been able to achieve. But, through that process, one idea rolled into another and the idea for the anodized aluminum line was created. Anodized aluminum is just so fun on its own with all the fabulous colors offered. But, add designs to those fun colors and the possibilities are endless. Also, with metal prices at all time highs, aluminum seemed like a great alternative. Anodized aluminum is so playful to me. The colors and patterns make me smile big and my eyes grow wide with delight.

FusionBeads.com: How have your jewelry designs been different when designing with the aluminum as opposed to the shell pendants?

Heidi: What I love about the aluminum is its playfulness. Can you tell I love playfulness? What I like about our shell is that it can stand alone in a very simple way with a cord or chain or can be designed into a very complex or sophisticated piece. The variety of designs that we offer on the shell allows one to create a variety of finished works from whimsical to elegant to bold or delicate. Also, the shell seems to evoke a more organic feel by the nature of its composition. For me, designing with the aluminum has a more contemporary and modern feel. The colors are bright and the designs are fun and bold. What I love about the aluminum is how easy it is to work with. It can be cut, dapped, stamped and riveted just like other metals. It looks great paired up with silver components. And, the best part is that you can add more color and uniqueness to your piece by coloring in the silver part of the design with Sharpie pen and wiping clean with a pro polish pad. This adds a whole new dimension to creating with our collection.

FusionBeads.com: We love the colors that the aluminum is available in – black, red and gold. Are you working on launching any more colors in aluminum in the future?

Heidi: We are very excited to be launching 6 new colors at Tucson next week. All the designs have such a different and unique feel on each color. A design you might not have noticed before can speak to you differently or just pop on one of the new colors.

Check out our selection of Lillypilly Pendants and Anodized Aluminum today!

- Gabby

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Tuesday Tips and Tricks!

My tip today will help you make the same size simple loops (see technique here), on any wire work project with lots of simple loops! If you are working on a piece of jewelry with multiple simple loops and the same size bead this tip works great. Bend the head pin at the top of one bead and cut it, leaving about 3/8”, and make your simple loop. Then use the cut off part of the head pin as a guide to measure where you should cut off the rest of your head pins with the rest of your beads. This way you end up with the same size of simple loops for all of your beads. I find it is best to do this in an assembly line, so I bend all the head pins, make all of the cuts and then make my loops. I hope that this tip works for you too!

Happy Tuesday! – Cody

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Learn All The Variations of Brick Stitch!

Brick Stitch is a fabulous and versatile bead weaving stitch that can be adapted in so many different ways to achieve a number of different looks. You can use basic brick stitch with decreasing to make flat shapes with seed beads, or you can embellish components or beads with brick stitch to add color, texture and definition to your jewelry! Listed below are the brick stitch techniques that you can find at FusionBeads.com. Once you learn these, you’ll be all set to create all of the Brick Stitch Inspiration jewelry on our site as well!

Basic Brick Stitch

1. Basic Brick Stitch – Before you learn any variations of brick stitch, it’s a good idea to master the basic stitch!

Basic Brick Stitch - Decreasing

2. Basic Brick Stitch – Decreasing – Once you’ve learned basic brick stitch, you can start decreasing the number of rows in your work to create unique shapes out of brick stitch. Check out the Heartbeat Necklace to see how you can decrease with brick stitch to create a woven heart!

Brick Stitch around a Component

3. Brick Stitch around a Component – Use brick stitch to weave beads around a wire component, and add as many rows of beads as you’d like! Check out our Ring Me Up Necklace for inspiration!

Brick Stitch on a Component

4. Brick Stitch on a Component – This technique is similar to Brick Stitch around a Component, however you are able to cover only a segment of a component with brick stitch for a fresh look! You can see this look in the Metallic Dream Earrings!

Brick Stitch Around a Bead

5. Brick Stitch Around a Bead – Learn how to create a ring of brick stitch around a bead, which you can even attach together to create a gorgeous strip of brick stitched beads! Our Warm Sun Bracelet is made up of 5 fun brick stitched beads in Southwestern colors!

If you haven’t learned brick stitch yet, now’s the time! – Sara

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Guess the Crystal Colors and Finishes Giveaway!

*This giveaway had ended. You are all just way too smart, because the winner of this contest was the SECOND person to guess the answers! Congratulations to Erin, you did an amazing job and you’ve won! (If you want a leg up on the competition in our future contests, make sure to subscribe to our blog so you see our posts first!) Here are the correct answers:

1 Dark Sapphire
2 Fire Opal AB2X
3 Heliotrope
4 Lime Satin
5 Light Rose Champagne
6 Jet AB2X
7 Vitrail Medium
8 Light Amethyst AB2X
9 Blue Zircon Satin**
10 Siam AB Satin

This week, I thought it would be fun to give you a little challenge for our giveaway. I’m not going to be selecting a winner at random, but instead you’ll get the opportunity to earn a fabulous prize! You can see below that I have shown 10 different Swarovski Elements Crystal photos, numbered from 1 to 10. Leave a comment on this blog post telling us what crystal color and finish you think each of these 10 beads are. (If I show you an Emerald AB finish, you have to give me all the info, as just responding with ’Emerald’ won’t count!) I made sure to pick some really tough ones, so if you think you already know all your Swarovski Elements Crystal colors, you might be surprised! If you are really stumped, try heading over to FusionBeads.com to do a little research, because you’re going to want to win! The winner of this challenge gets a stash of each of the crystals shown, along with a $50 gift certificate to FusionBeads.com! You only get one guess, so make it count! I will announce the winner on Monday, January 23, 2012, at 4 PM PST here on the blog, so stay tuned!

**We are extremely sorry that we originally posted the incorrect answer for #9, which was in fact Blue Zircon Satin, not Indicolite Satin. The first person to guess all 10 answers correctly was actually Angelica S. Congratulations, Angelica!

#10

Good Luck! – Sara

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Tuesday Tips and Tricks!

When you’re learning new beading techniques at home, you probably come up with lots of questions that you don’t know the answers to, and you might even start wishing you had just taken a class so you could ask the instructor for answers. Well, for today’s tips, I have any easy short cut for you that will help you get the responses you need at a click of a button! Don’t spend hours researching how long it takes resin to cure or whether or not you can use a tumbler with oxidized silver – we have nearly all the answers on our Beading FAQ page! Just click on the Beading FAQ link at the top of our website, and you’ll be able to read all the commonly asked questions related to tons of products and techniques, and you’ll get professional answers!

Happy Tuesday! – Sara

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Our Top Ten Valentine’s Day Picks!

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and to help you get started on some fabulous love day jewelry we picked out ten of our favorite products! Whether you are a seed beader or if Swarovski Crystal is more your style you are sure to find something you will fall in love with. If you need more great ideas, you can always check out our Valentine’s Day Picks page. This page is one of my favorites since I am a huge fan of pink - it is so pretty how all of the beads are laid out by color for easy shopping. And if you need ideas of what to do with all of those beautiful beads, then check out our Valentine’s Day Inspiration Gallery!

1. Size 8 Cherry Blossom Round Japanese Seed Bead Mix by FusionBeads.com