Shannon's Beadwork
I play with beads. I've been playing with beads for six or seven years
now, off and on. I began to get seriously interested when a bead shop,
The Original
Ornament, opened up on a street next to my university. It's moved
since, but I still browse there every once in a while. (I purchase most
of my beads off eBay these days.)
Anyway, here are some of the pieces I've made. Most are keepers I've
done for myself, but a few may go to auction at eBay or at various
charity auctions in the area. If you're seriously interested in me
making something for you, email
me. At this point I'm likely to do it for the cost of materials and
delivery with an extra couple of bucks for buying more beads.
These are two of my early necklaces. The longer one is one I pieced
together from a mixed bag of stones I had had for years, source
unknown. I added fake pearls (source also unknown), silver
flower-shaped spacers and silver seed beads. The silver is probably
from the Original Ornament. It's strung on tigertail with butterfly
clasps. One thing I still have to learn is how to finish a necklace
without a clasp of any kind. This necklace is around 28 inches.
The shorter one uses cheap hollow silver scrolled beads, plastic
jewel-toned bars, and clear quartz rondelles. I think all these were
found at a Michael's. It's about 18 inches.
This is one of my favorite pieces. I got the purple glass disks at the
Original Ornament, along with the small purple crystal beads. I just
started playing one day, trying them with the large stash of fake
pearls I had and some clear seed beads...and suddenly I had a great
necklace. This one is long, maybe 30 inches, but once again, it's got a
clasp. This is strung on tigertail.
This is another of my what-have-I-got-a-lot-of projects. I had a large
number of inexpensive glass beads from Michael's, and I wanted to empty
my bead case. I made a few pairs of earrings and three or four
necklaces. I kept this one because it happened to go well with a
favorite dress. It uses the smaller of the glass beads and I threw in
some silver spacers from the Original Ornament, strung on tigertail.
It's about 16 inches, designed to be almost a choker.
This necklace was an early experiment in using silk cord instead of
wire. I used blue glass beads, some Czech glass and some cubes, and
clear quartz
crystal cubes on white silk cord, knotted between each bead. The center
bead is a heavy silver Celtic knotwork bead I only had one of at the
time. The necklace is about 16 inches long.
The earrings are hollow metal, painted blue with kanji from one of the
Asian languages on both sides, and silver seed beads on sterling wires
and hooks.
The bottom necklace is a long (26 inches) tigertail piece, using purple
and clear glass cubes with clear mirrored seed beads, all from the
Original Ornament. I plan to restring this one on silk and get rid of
the butterfly clasps so it will drape better.
The top necklace is another learning-to-knot project of amethyst ovals
(from eBay) and tiny gray pearls (Original Ornament). It's about 20
inches long on gray silk cord.
The earrings are a quickie of two purple Swarovski crystals each with a
larger silver spacer bead in between.
One visit to the Original Ornament, I bought several tubes of Miyuki
glass beads because I liked the color. I wound up making four or five
long necklaces from them on tigertail, some in blue and gold and others
in green and gold. I gave most of them away as gifts one
Christmas but kept this one. This is another future restringing
project, perhaps onto silk cord or perhaps just to eliminate the clasps.
This necklace is a copy from something I saw in a catalog. I took
silver seed beads, large tourmaline ovals, and smaller various leftover
rounds: clear quartz, amethyst, citrine, green jade or aventurine, red
garnet. It turned out rather well, though I would prefer to restring it
onto silk cord instead of tigertail.
The earrings are various results from my grab-bag. I'll often browse
the Original Ornament and get 2-4 of some interesting beads and later
on do a slew of earrings. Starting with the pair on the far left and
going clockwise: blue-and-amber glass beads, smoky quartz and clear
Swarovski facets, Indian silver and blue glass, more smoky quartz with
silver spacers, blue sandstone and silver fluted spacers, and clear
quartz with garnets and silver fluted spacers.
I was really beginning to get used to knotting on silk with this piece.
I had some green glass, some larger purple glass, some quartz rounds,
and plenty of silver spacers. I also had those three round Celtic
knotwork silver beads, one with an odd configuration to its holes. I
played around and came up with this necklace on white silk cord.
The earrings were a happy accident. I'd made them from two of the three
rectangular Celtic kntowork beads (see the blue necklace above for the
other) and green glass rondelles. They were in a box with a lot of
other earrings for the longest time, until I cleaned out a craft bag
I'd forgotten about. And there they were, the perfect earrings to go
with this necklace!
OK, a lot here. The bracelet is inspired from pieces I saw in the Femail
Creations catalog. I couldn't afford the $150 they were asking for,
but I found some of the sterling word stone charms (Pathways of the
Heart, apparently no longer in business) in a shop in Greensboro on
State Street. From there it was a matter of putting together some spare
silver chain, some purple glass and quartz round beads on wire to
dangle like charms, and the word beads. I get a lot of comments on this
bracelet, and have managed to make two others like it since when I luck
across the word beads.
The earrings on the left are purple glass and clear quartz; on the
right
are amethyst rounds and marcasite-studded silver cylinders.
The above necklace and this one are copies of a design I found in a
catalog. The catalog wanted hundreds of dollars that I didn't have, so
I went to work, having learned the basics of hand-knotting.
These necklaces are strung on beige silk cord, with clear spaces
between beads or pairs of beads. They both use mostly tourmaline. The
above one also has quartz cubes and rounds and some purple glass beads.
The one to the left has quartz ovals, green glass, and freshwater
pearls. I kept the one above; the one to the left was donated to my
school's charity auction, where it fetched at least $60 (that was the
point where the parent who told me dropped out).
Maybe you get the idea that I really like this design. I do.
This one is closer to the catalog piece, using freshwater pearls,
iolite ovals and bricks, amethyst ovals and rounds, and one hematite
star. I strung this one on lavender silk cord and made it longer than
the tourmaline ones. Those are 16 inches, made to rest at the base of
the neck. This one is about 22 inches.
By this time, I was buying most of my supplies off eBay.
These are two of this year's donations to the charity auction. There
are two of the gold necklace going and a word-bead bracelet with
lavender jade accents that I didn't photograph before I delivered them.
The gold is four strands of seed beads, interspersed with clear seed
beads and the occasional gold-plated round. They are strung on coated
twine and gathered in sterling-silver cones. I did two of these for the
auction.
The purple is another of the spaced-out silk creations, using
freshwater pearls, amethyst ovals, and fluorite rounds, all on gray
silk cord. This one is about 18 inches long and is my last auction
piece this year.
All images copyright Shannon Sudderth, 2004. Ask permission if you wish
to use them.