As many of you know, I am a lover and collector of beautiful lampwork beads. I discovered Deborah Burch of Contessa Glass on eBay of all places, and have purchased several sets since then. In fact, Margot Potter used one set to produce this beauty for the show. It’s been sweetly dubbed “Haight-Ashbury” because it so reminds me of this San Francisco neighborhood where Flower Power and the VW Bus were iconic.

In addition, black and white is super hip this summer, so I put this art deco set together and called this one “Jazz Piano.”

Deborah says she has always been a creative person. Her past includes publishing short stories and culinary training in pastry arts. After a beautiful edible career specialized in wedding cake designs and sugar sculpture, Deborah decided to stay home to spend more time with her son. Still, creativity called, and in no time she was looking for a new medium. A friend introduced her to lampwork beads and when she discovered that molten glass behaved in a similar way to melted sugar and chocolate, she knew she was home!

And we certainly agree!! The main aspect that I love about her work is the use of color. Color combinations are key to the beauty of a design, and Deborah admits being driven by it. She also strives to produce designs that are clean, simple, elegant and inspired. She wrote to me recently and said that she’s inspired by color in fashion, and in fabrics, prints and textiles. She even loves looking through wallpaper books for color ideas!

She is also completely self-taught, and began working and practicing on a hot head torch set up in her basement. After a year, she upgraded to a dual-fuel torch and an expanded home studio.
She also loves the time that this art form allows her to spend with her son (who is now 4) during his first incredible & special years.

Some of my favorite examples are below! Let me know which ones are your faves when you have a chance!!

xxoo

TL

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Guys, you would so NOT believe this show, it’s HUGE! We are so excited to be here, and just to see all the people. The place was packed! Big booths, little booths, color everywhere! And talk about crafters paradise!!! It’s a good thing they don’t sell anything at this show, or we wouldn’t be able to make our mortgage!

We had a blast today and saw old friends and made some news ones! We danced and whooped with the Beadalon gang at the 12^th annual Camp Hoochee Coochee Social hosted by Toner Plastics & Beadalon. (Jim has some video that, quite frankly, I will have to pay him handsomely to keep under wraps.)

Apart from all the excitement and energy, what I really loved most about today was that I saw so many new small businesses started from creative dreams! We met a few of these today, and I will tell you more about them as the weekend progresses! But for now, just a few shots of the day and a video from the floor of CHA!

Jim & Toni in the press room meeting Veronica Hugger from the National Scrapbooking Association.

Jim earns $2.00 during a session for a shameless self promotion about about Crafty Nation!

Talking to “Crafty Nation” (well really, the camera, but it’s like I can see you all!)

Wish you were here!!

xxoo
Toni Lyn

Here’s my video diary of Day 1 at the CHA summer show!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

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Ok friends and fellow Diva’s, here’s the dish on our day with the most enjoyable, most entertaining, and most empowering self-appointed bead queen of the universe, MARGOT POTTER! (We blogged about this a few weeks ago, but for some reason WordPress decided to hide this post from the public!! We have had a long chat with our software, and hopefully the bugs are fixed!!)

The CN team spend a day in beautiful Amish Country to visit this darling gal in her darling studio in a 150 yr old, what-used-to-be Amish Schoolhouse and Town hall.

We sat down and had a proper chat about how it all began, what inspires her, why’s she’s wacky and what she says every crafty diva must know about our own inner creative sparkle! Sparkletastic to be exact!!

We just loved her approachabiliy, her talent to speak in full and articulate sentences at more than warp speed, her full blown hospitality and most of all… HER.

I even got to take home fresh country eggs, WHAT A TREAT!

Margot is a talented writer, and is fulfilling her mission by creating a series of how-to beautiful colorful books that encourage and educate hip craftiness in all of us!

Her mission is truly to inspire and empower others to CREATE, to bring our their own creative mind’s eye, and to emphatically insist that we can do anything we set out to do! Margot’s done it all: Theatre, music, t.v., books, publishing editor, jewelry design, public speaker/teacher, blogger, family, and least we not forget, Bead Queen of the Universe (self-appointed)!

Margot’s daughter, Avalon, is simply adorable, and also taking after her mom quite radically!

When we were there, she was designing her own photo shoot…

And, she is quite stylish… If you have seen the “Hair Show” on M’s website, you’ll get a clear picture on the magnanimous influence in this young beauty’s life!

There is much to much to tell and I need to save all the downright delicious details for the segment, but suffice it to say that Margot’s story is the inspirational gem we all must hear to keep our heads high, our imagination bubbling and our wire nippers ready! After all, we all have the delightful duty to “Empower, Inspire & CREATE!”

We’ll share so much more with you on this episode, which will air when we launch here in the next month or so, and we look forward to having your thoughts on Margot’s World!!

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CALLING ALL CRAFTIES with serious bead addictions! I have been singing this girl’s praises since I became aware of her fabulous work. We asked her for an e-view into her wonderful world, and were delighted with her articulate answers below! Melanie is from Germany, and currently resides in Bamberg. Isn’t she just too cute!!! Below is one of her latest sets. The base is transparent Ornela colors, such as pink, green and light yellow and she decorated the tiny “islands” with detailed stringerwork and handpulled murrinis. This set sold recently on eBay for over $600.00! I don’t know about you Ladies and Germs, but to me…that’s a successful artist!!!

Questions:

Q. Where are you from originally?

A. I was born in Erlangen, Germany, which is a small town 45km away from where I live now. I’ve grown up at my grandparents on the countryside and moved to Bamberg four years ago. I love to be here, because the city is very historic, we have a big park and many old churches and buildings around here.

Q. Were you artistic growing up? If so, what was your medium?

A. My grandparents have worked at home as violin builders, so I’ve grown up in a crafty area. As a child I loved to sit next to my grandma while she was doing her work and me drawing pictures. Later on I began oil paintings and acryl, painted my furniture, designed jewelry, Fimo and lot of other things. But I didn’t not really find what I was searching for in those materials.

Q. What inspired you in the very beginning of your artistic journey?

A. I think every person has one or two talents, some people are good in everything, I couldn’t think of anything else for myself than doing art.

Q. Who introduced you to working with glass?

A. I had a beginner lampworking class before I bought myself a torch etc. I wanted to see if that really works for me. But I worked with glass years before, not as a lampworker but for my jewelry designs.

Q. How long have you been working with glass?

A. I’ve been creating glass jewelry for 14 years and I’m doing lamp work beads now since 4 years.

Q. How did you become interested in making lamp work beads?

A. I wasn’t interested in doing beads at first, I wanted to do lamp work rings, just for myself. I didn’t like the kind of glass jewelry one could buy at the shops. Now I don’t do rings anymore, because I like the smaller and detailed work of doing beads and love to create sets.

Q. What are some of the things that inspire you in your bead designs?

A. Music is one of the biggest things that inspires me while I’m sitting at the torch or that helps me finding the certain groove of the beads. Furthermore I think all my experiences in life are a inspiration, if I’m happy you’ll see that in my beads and if I’m feeling bad I don’t go to the torch at all.

Q. What is the most pleasing element for you in making your beads?

A. There are so many things that I love about lampworking! It’s the fact that I can do whatever I have in mind, it’s the material glass, the shiny and colorful elements and the fact that I can concentrate myself onto small things and forget the world around me for a while. It’s like meditation.

Q. How long does it take you to make one of your sets? We know time varies based on number, but give us a rough estimate.

A. To be honest I never look on the watch while I’m working. It’s just not important for me if a bead takes longer or not. But I would say I’ll never work more than three days on one set (depending on the number of beads it’s one to three days).

Q. What do you do to keep your work fresh?

A. Maybe I should answer this question in 10 years or something like that. I don’t feel like keeping my work fresh, I’m just at the beginning. But maybe one point is, that I only do beads I would like to wear myself.

Q. You don’t do custom orders, and this is understandable. Can you give some illumination as to why you decided against this?

A. I want to go forward with every bead I do. Of course I don’t manage that goal always, but at least I try. The other thing is also that glass colors and charges change, you can’t always guarantee to offer this or that particular tone and if you do custom orders you have to write down what you’ve used etc., that’s not my way of working. But each artist has to decide that point for him or herself (I also did custom orders at the beginning and felt unhappy with it, so I had to change it). I think it’s a wonderful thing for the jewelry designers, so it’s important that there are artist who DO custom orders.

Q. What would you like to say to the lampwork artists everywhere who are inspired by you?

A. Look into your heart and do what expresses your feelings the best and don’t force yourself into trends.

You can purchase beads by Melanie at
www.melaniemoertel.de
and you can also link to her eBay auctions there.

Melanie Moertel

Glasperlendesignerin | Lampwork Artist

Habergasse 3 | 96047 Bamberg | Germany

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I decided to start a category of my favorite things, mainly because 1. I think it will allow all of you to get to know me better, 2. It will bring to those craft artisans the attention they honestly deserve, and 3. Simply because who doesn’t love talking about their favorite things!!

So, I have to post at my first in this category the German lampwork artist Melanie Moertel. Yes, I know…more beads. But the bottom line is, this stuff is georgous!! True art and stunning craftsmanship genuinely meet together in this amazing work. Melanie is no newcomer, and her work has been appraised by many. And yet, her beads seem to continue to be some of the freshest stuff in the global lampwork community.

Now we have been trying to obtain some of Mel’s work for display on the show (of course I want to wear it!!), but alas we have not been able to get to it fast enough. So the best we can do is pictures. WAY TO GO Melanie!!

We’d love to know what you think of Melanie’s work. Please take a moment to participate in the poll below. You can type your answer in the orange box. Feel free to submit as many times as you would like! Then CLICK HERE to see the answers of others!!

Call for photos: TO THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO OBTAIN HER WORK, PLEASE SEND US PHOTOS OF THE CREATIONS YOU HAVE PUT TOGETHER SO THAT WE CAN SHOWCASE THEM. We want to show off your creativity in what you’ve chosen to do with these.

Courtesy of Jennifer Dangerfield

Best to all!

TL

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Brazil is a beautiful country, there is no doubt. The contrasts of green and blue throughout are striking!

I found a similar beauty in the work of Fernando Dasilva. This native Brazilian creates “culturally infused designs that sizzle with scintillating juxtapositions of color, shape and texture.” And truth be told, this is exactly the case.

I met Fernando while filming a segment on the CHA convention in Anaheim this last January. He was working furiously away designing for Beadalon, and when I laid eyes on some of his creations, I was captivated. My crew and I interviewed Fernando, and I look forward to having him on our show. In the meantime I wanted to introduce you to his work. Here is a piece that he recently made for the show, isn’t it gorgeous! I intend to wear it every chance I get.

Visit Fernando’s website the first chance you get, you won’t be disappointed.

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