Exhibitor Focus – Marianne from Fields of Clover

25/05/2014 / The Bead Show / Featured Article

Marianne from Fields of Clover tells us a little about herself

In late 2005, Marianne attended her first lampwork class in Melbourne with Pauline Delaney as teacher. The class was fun with lots of laughter and even though everyone was making the same beads, results differed vastly. Sometime later, Marianne purchased a kiln, a hot head torch and other equipment necessary for lampworking. Although Marianne initially bought a Hothead Torch (an economical way to start lampworking) it was very noisy. She also got the best mobile internet deals. It wasn’t until about 1 ½ years later when Marianne bought her Minor torch and oxy concentrator that she started to do a lot more lampworking.

Since Marianne’s first lampwork class, she has also attended workshops with international visiting tutors Jim Smircich, Andrea Guarino-Slemmons, Corina Tettinger and Leah Fairbanks. Organic beads are Marianne’s preferred style of lampworking. Although never really being a person that likes abstract art, Marianne finds that with beads, she loves the organic, abstract effect. For quite a while, Marianne was making small beads but has now started to make larger focal beads. Part of making smaller beads was that it allowed Marianne to stay in her comfort zone and not experiment with other techniques. Marianne also prefers to sell her beads individually and not made into items of jewellery, although she does make the occasional pair of earrings from her beads.

As well as lampworking, Marianne enjoys fusing and slumping glass to make functional items as well as decorative items.

Having recently moved to 20 acres in central Victoria, Marianne has 20 alpacas and has recently learnt how to spin their fleece. Evenings in front of the tv are spent spinning or knitting alpaca fleece into simple, small items such as beanies and scarves.

Marianne is very much looking forward to The Bead Show in Melbourne. Melbourne will now have two professionally run bead events spaced well apart so beaders can get a regular beading fix, meet up with friends and actually see what is available to purchase or drool over.

Exhibitor Focus – Jelly Beads Of Mogo

20/05/2014 / The Bead Show / Exhibitor Profiles

We asked Jenny of Jelly Beads of Mogo a few questions so you can get to know her a little more ahead of The Bead Show in Melbourne

How did you come to set up your business?

I was working in the Federal Dept of Families and Community Services, back in the early 2000s when a programme for Mature Age workers was set up to help with planning for retirement and helping the Dept control the loss of corporate knowledge through these workers. I joined the programme and over a period of several months and several workshops was able to focus what I wanted to do in retirement. Ha Ha. My choice of location was to be at the coast, Canberra was too cold in winter, too hot in summer. I was right into jewellery making at that time, so I decided I wanted a bead shop; and I decided on Mogo as a shop front location as it was an arty crafty town. My mum died in this time, and I had a small inheritance and so that was put into the business. Of course, the joke was I was moving from counting beans, to counting beads.

I resigned from the Dept on 30 June 2005 and opened my very small shop on 5 August 2005. I had not been idle in the meantime. I had established a small market stall at the Moruya Country Markets and from 5 boxes to 13 boxes of beads in 5 months, I figured the bead business was a good one to be in and took up an offer to share premises in Mogo. Since then, I have moved premises twice both within Mogo and now have quite a large space at 30 Princes Hwy.

BTW, I had always loved beads. Both Mum and my Nana had always worn beads and hats and they are both my loves. I have the first set of beads I ever fell in love with. They were Nana’s. They need some TLC but I will be wearing them again soon.

What’s the best part of running your business?

The best part of running my business is when I can fix a ‘big’ problem for a customer, with the simplest of solutions. Recently I tweaked a box clasp for a customer on a nice jade bracelet that a jeweller had said he could not fix. It was plated and the join was a difficult one. I agreed with that, but even simpler was lifting the tongue of the clasp up, so that it once again fitted snugly.

My customer was overjoyed and told me I was brilliant. I had to agree, but really it’s that reaffirmation that you are doing a good job that makes all the hard work worthwhile. How do you charge for something as simple as that? Just a hug is more than enough.

Where do you sell – Online, shopfront or show?

I sell shopfront in Mogo, online at www.jellybeads.com.au, on ebay (mostly Delicas) and now I am trying The Bead Show. My first show was good and steady and I am hoping that word will spread and you will become my good wire and metals customers. Each show I will bring something new, just to tempt you. I don’t only supply metals, wire, tools and books, but have a really big selection of seedies in the shop. They are small and fiddly to transport and so I have decided to keep it simple. You all know the KISS statement. Do one thing and do it well.

What do you like about attending a show?

It’s very tiring and I’m not so young, but I like seeing what other people have, meeting with people I’ve only chatted with by email or Facebook and it’s a very happy place to be. Who wouldn’t be happy with so many beads around?

What questions do customers ask most often and what do you reply?

“OMG, you must have every bead available. I’ve never seen so many beads” To which I reply, “I wish. This is only a microscopic portion of what is available.” They find it hard to believe. We all know you can never have too many beads and that there is always something new on the market to indulge our beadaholic pleasures.

Another statement that I get is “Where are the jellybeads?” We have a jar of them on the front counter. They are resin cats eye ovals that look just like a jellybean. The jar does say, DO NOT EAT. There are always comments about beads looking good enough to eat. And yes, we have had people put their hand in to try to taste them.

Which of your products which excites you the most?

I’m a gypsy and a bower bird. Anything new, is what I love today. But I still love resin, big beads and Lucite. The brighter the better.

Do you create with your products yourself and if so what do you make. Do you have other creative pursuits?

I am a jack of all trades at the shop. But my preference is stringing asymmetrically usually with a mix of shape, textures and colour. I do quite a lot of repairs, exchanging clasps to magnetic ones (our population base is predominantly retirees) and restringing pearls. I like doing that, when it goes well. I like playing with wire and metals and want to get into drilling sea glass and playing with that too.

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Featured Article – Preparing for a show

10/05/2014 / The Bead Show / Featured Article / No Comments

With just three weeks to go to The Bead Show in Melbourne, (at time of writing) it’s time to look at how to prepare for the show.

We have some great tips on how to prepare for the show.

Please read through then plan how to get there, know where to park if driving, know what your budget is, have a list of essentials and extra cash for impulse buys.

The parking for the Melbourne show in Box Hill is limited, so we have prepared some tips for the best places to park. Public transport is a great idea for this show too. Visit the Melbourne page for more info, all the parking details are at the bottom of the page

If you want to see even more great tips take a look at this great blog by Sydney bead artist Neva Brown.

Neva has an extensive list of all the things you should do prior to the show and at the show. You can tell she is a show regular, so make the most of all her good tips.

Let us know if you have even more tips, but we are pretty sure between these links that there is pretty much everything covered.

We’ll see all of you very prepared beaders all at one of the shows this year

Interpreting a Magazine Project – Two perspectives

03/05/2014 / The Bead Show / Design / No Comments

Do you like to make the projects from magazines?

Do you follow it exactly?

or

Do you let your ideas wander and adapt ?

Here we look at what Prue and Jo did with a project from issue 8 of Digital Beading Magazine.

Prue

I purchased the aqua beads from a destash market a while ago. They are a really old glass and were from a broken necklace. The mauve beads I’ve had since I started beading and now after creating this bracelet there are just three left. I love the two colours together. It’s heavy because of the old glass beads and feels great on. I played around with the clasp and adjusted the rounds to fit through the loops for the clasp. I have basically followed the pattern but changed the bead selection to create something more like what I wear.

Jo

I’ve had these multicolour rondels for a while so when we decided to do this project I had a look through my bead stash and saw these, but there were not enough, luckily I had some smaller ones too, but again not enough. I decided to use the bigger beads in the middle and graduate to the sides, then using some small fire polished beads at the ends to finish it off. I used a plain slide clasp, as I did not have enough beads left to make the beaded loops.

What do you think about our interpretation of this project? It’s fun to see how two different bracelets evolve from one design. It’s good to experiment with a basic pattern and see what happens.

We challenge you to have a go too.