Jeannette Faber's Blog

I love to bead and recently I've found myself in over my head. I started making beaded lanyards for some of the folks I work with. Before I knew it people were coming out of the woodwork asking me if I was the Lanyard Lady. I'd laugh and say I guess I am. I had so many orders I was having trouble keeping up with them. I'm really sick of making these lanyards and I've lost my desire to bead. Everytime I sit down to make something new there's that list of backorders stareing me in the face and I feel guilty for starting something new. If that isn't bad enough when people get them caught on their desk and they break they bring me a baggie full of beads and ask me to fix their lanyard. It's not that I don't appreciate the business it's just that I'm really frustrated making the same thing over and over again. Any suggestions???

I know that some of you have wondered where I've been and why I have not been diligent in my swaps. Well here it is in a nut shell. With one daughter getting married, one in college, another one starting college in Aug. and another one starting in 2 years I found myself in the unfortunate position of giving up my days and finding a real job....with a paycheck.
We celebrated my daughters wedding on Oct. 9th and I started the new job on the 11th. I know, no rest for the weary. A couple week later my husband had a severe allergic reaction to some dye given him for a CT scan. Buyer Beware this could be Hazardous to you Health. He looked like someone had dipped him in a vat of acid. After 3 weeks of pain, sleepless night, and eventually his whole body peeling he returned to work. That was the week before Thanksgiving. I prepared our wonderful feast here because he still could not travel. We where thankful to have him on the road to recovery. Then Christmas came upon us. I'm not complaining but boy does this job put a cramp in my style. I had no gifts made or bought. I leave the house at 5:30 am and return at 5:30 pm with hungry children, husband, and dog waiting for the much anticipated evening meal to appear. Needless to say my art room was very lonely without me. Every time I had to go in there for something I could hear the walls saying "Come back to us, we need to inspire you to create something." Now that this year has come to an end, I'm looking forward to finding some time to do the things that make my soul sing. I'm dedicating every Sunday to church and art. So if I have flaked on you in a swap I am in deed very sorry. I hope you will understand and accept my sincere apology. If you have been following me and I've given you nothing new to see, I apologize, stay tuned for some wonderful things in January. I hope everyone has a wonderful Happy New Year. If you're going out please drive safely, if you can't drive safely stay where you are. Remember you are loved.

I recently followed a thread from the hive to an ATC swap. My life has been so crazy that I forgot to book mark the site and now I'm signed up for a vintage 50's and a vintage christmas swap and I don't know where to find them. Can someone pleeeease help me find my way. Thanks :-)

I was experimenting with some sculptural elements and a piece of jasper (I think) If anyone knows what this stone really is please tell me. I knew when I purchased it but I've forgotten. Even though it was labor intensive I had fun with it. I'd like to try another when I find the time.

I was playing with some clay and trying some new techniques with ranger ink and mica powders. I thought I would share some of the beads I made. They have a lot of visual texture but the beads are as smooth as glass.

I recently joined a swap called "It's all about texture". This was one of my favorite swaps. My daughter saw me working on it and wanted to help. It gave me a great opportunity to teach her how to make fabric beads from muslin. She had a blast, and I loved watching her. I think we'll always remember the night we made fabric beads together. I stamped the glossy cardstock with resist ink then sectioned it off and blotted each section with different colors. I wrapped a pipe cleaner with fibers and glued that down. I used the beads my daughter and I made. There was paper towel under the fabric when we dyed it and the paper towel looked so cool I used some of that too. I also used some clear microbeads and the face in the upper corner is polymer clay. This is one that I almost don't want to give away. I just hope the receiver likes it.

Today I'm sharing a polymer clay technique using an eggshell and good old fashion vinegar. You can make a beautiful lattice structure to embellish on the outside or leave an opening to decorate the inside of you structure. I'll run through the steps with the visual following.
1. Blow out the inside of the egg. This works better if you stick a skewer inside the eggshell and scramble the egg a little before blowing it out the other end.
2. Decorate the egg shell with conditioned polymer clay. Leave enough open space to achieve a nice open look. Make sure you create a base for your structure to stand.
3. Bake at the manufacturers recommended time and temp. You can cushion your structure on polyester fiber fill or stand it on its base.
4. If you want to add more embellishment to the outside of your structure you can do it at this time, then rebake.
5. Gently tap a few holes in the shell of your egg and completely submerge your egg in apple cider vinegar. Old butter containers work great for this. You don't want to seal the lid but you do want to put a little bit of weight on the top to hold the egg shell under.
6. Let the structure stay submerged for about 3 days. When you take it out a lot of the eggshell will be dissolved. It will look rather gross. Rinse you structure and chip any remaining shell off with an x-acto blade.
You now have a wonderful open structure to embellish however you want.

I recently tried a technique of painting citra solve on national geographic pages causing the ink to bleed. I came up with some really cool backgrounds for ATCs. Check this out.