Designers Page 1

Rosa wore this to the Tucson show, and it was the first time I'd ever seen anything someone else had made with my beads.  Boy, was I impressed!  It was huge & flashy, with pink Swarovski rondelles and fiber optic beads, and she made the cow look even better - she dressed it up in a little seed bead necklace and bracelet set!  

At my first show Pat bought the first beads I ever sold.  She snagged a bunch, and they're all on this necklace - lumpy beginner beads can look great in well-made jewelry!  She added Czech beads and cool silver charms, sent it to Belle Armoire Magazine, and got a full page in their Spring 2003 issue!   YOU GO PAT! 

Silver charms: Mimi's Milagros Nevada City, CA   call for a catalog, (530) 478-9707

And here's the first of Barb's Whiz-bang! Cool beaded dolls - I have a whole bunch more pictures down below!   Barb started by making dolls using my small suns, & now we're hatching Gremlins... 

website: www.beaddolls.com

Sharon designed & made this Totally Amazing 3-D Beaded Soft Sculpture using one of my cat heads, in remembrance of her Late Kitty.  She showed it to me at a show and I whimpered piteously the whole weekend (heaven knows what the customers thought) until she got tired of the background noise agreed that it could live with me. 

website: www.sharonbateman.com

I just LOVE this pin!  Maybe someday I'll be able to talk Sharon into writing up the pattern so we can go into the Kit Business...  What'dya say, toots?

website: www.sharonbateman.com

Welcome Barb's House Of Gremlins, your one-stop shopping for whacked-out little critters with attitude!  Every one's an individual, from the guy on the left who's overdosed on Red Hots, to the Blue Snooze napping in the sand on the right. All the faces are different, and everything's one of a kind, because we can.

Another Gremlin - this one is the Four Flusher, who desperately needs to take a pee and can't find the WC (you can tell from the knees and the color - and that's why I had to have him!) 

website: www.beaddolls.com

Pat makes does great wire crochet work incorporating seed beads, and she used my cow in an Amulet Bag Project that appeared in Step By Step Beads,  May-June 2004 (Out Standing In Her Field, pages 62 - 65).  This is a really cool thing -  Thanks, Pat!  Fyi, the cow is 'Once In A Blue Moo'

(or perhaps it could be 'Blue Moo, You Saw Me Standing Alone, Without A Cud In My Mouth, Without a Bull Of My Own.....')

The world's only UFO-Porker Brooch, with the critter sitting in the control area of his starfighter, one hand waving & the other clutching the throttle, and flames blasting out the tubes in back! 

website: www.sharonbateman.com

Now THIS is a Doll -  it barely fits in a shoebox, and is the star of my Bead Display Cabinet.  Barb used one of my large catheads, and I bet it took awhile to make.  Late at night, it sprays...

website: www.beaddolls.com

Betsy made this slug look good!  The colors are transparent turquoise and Evil Devitrifying Purple, and I'd stung the stinkin' thing a half dozen time and not liked it - then Betsy snagged it at a show and did it right the first time!  

 Sonja's 'Framed' necklaces were born in a blast of Design Inspiration at the 2003 Bead & Button show, and she worked like a maniac for a year creating *thirteen* of these extravaganzas, each designed around uniquely styled lampworked beads from thirteen different artists.   And THEN she wrote the pattern and instruction book:  Framed! 13 Patterns For Split Loom Necklaces Using Lamp Work Focal Beads.  She brought books and necklaces to the 2004 Bead & Button show and we all got autographed books and the necklaces - visualize thirteen insanely happy beadmakers!  Thank you, Sonja - you can work with my beads any time! 

Contact Sonja Podjan: slpodjan@cpuinc.net                    

Website:  www.angelfire.com/mi/beadsgalore

Isn't this a great way to incorporate a fish into a beaded necklace?  This was Dana Bakke's class project at the 2002 Embellishment in Portland, using Karmen Schmidt's '10-strand weave' technique and my flatfish - the fish never looked better!   Thanks to Dana for sending me the picture... 

There's a little glass fishbowl under this intricate beaded covering, just about the right size for one Siamese Fighting Fish.  Sharon has ocean wave patterns all around, and then added curling 3-D swaths of wave crest and froth, and topped it all off with a foaming stopper and one of my flatfish.   Extravaganza! 

website: www.sharonbateman.com

I just love the side-split position of this guy!  I was trying out a new design idea, 'Buddha Pest', and the only bit that worked was the head (won't tell you the body idea, I might want to try again someday!)  I sent it off to Barb, and it came back SO GOOD... 

website: www.beaddolls.com

And then she got ambitious and got a THREE Fish bowl!  This one's over the top elaborate, and we haven't even gotten around to the stopper yet!  This fish is trolling the Barrier Reef, and there's all kinds of amazing 3-D Coral all over it!  You go girl!

website: www.sharonbateman.com

Lynda is a crafting author, has a design business, and has been on the Carol Duvall show making jewelry, the Lucky Stinker.  She made this necklace back in 2000 while she was working with SoftFlex, and she brought it to all their shows for quite awhile to show customers some of the creative things that could be done with colored wire.  Lynda's a whiz at wirework - she formed all the links in this necklace into little fly outlines - way cool!