Have I  mentioned that summer is my very favorite time of year? For a person who is addicted to color, the variety of patterns and color combinations I see during  this season is mind boggling! I love wandering through the swim suit sections of our local department stores. Not because I love trying on the suits but because I love the bright colors and designs of the fabrics.

Yesterday I took my daughter and some friends to the beach and even though it’s a fairly small park, I found some colors and patterns that I want to experiment with when I sit down at the torch. There were some wonderful beach umbrellas that caught my eye as well as the crisp lime green and white of Liz’s beach bag.

One of the color combos that has been screaming at me the most recently is my own beach towel. The pinks, yellows, greens and blues are perfect summer colors and definitely need to be part of one of my next designs…

It’s hard for me to balance making beads and jewelry with being outside enjoying all the best parts of living in Michigan in the summer. But at least while I am away from my studio I can find colors and patterns that inspire me when I return from my time in the sun…  Happy summer!

Nancy Sells Puffer is a lampwork bead/jewelry artist from Grand Rapids, MI.  She blogs from time to time and has a  website as well… But her true obsession is Facebook!

Apart from the gutting and rebuilding of my bathroom, the only thing I have going on that is the least bit creative is editing. Right now, my editor, the lovely and extremely talented Beadwork Designer of the Year, Jean Campbell is sending me file after file for review. Every publisher has a style of writing they put out for their readers. One house might say “string one bead” and another might say “pick up one bead”. It is Jean’s job to make my writing work with Interweave Press’ style. That, and fix my horrible grammer.

I thought it might be fun to give you a tiny little peek into my book and at the same time show you how my work is being edited.

An original exerpt from my book:

1: Start this project by making the faux watchband first. Flush cut and file the ends of 7in piece of 16 g SS wire. Form an eye pin loop in one end of the wire with your round nose pliers.

This text comes back to me from Jean looking like this:

1): Start this project by making the faux watchband first. Flush cut and file the ends of 7 ” (17.8 cm) of sterling silver in piece of 16-gauge SS wire. Form a simplen eye pin loop atin one end of the wire with your round nose pliers. Set aside.

From here I take these changes, figure out how the new phrasing reads, make sure the same thing is still being accomplished to create the finished jewelry, look through more then 900 photos to assign the right image to this step, and send it back to Jean with any changes that need to be done.

Those crossed out bits and blue highlight blobs will end up reading something like this:

1) Flush cut and file the ends of 7″ (17.8 cm) of sterling silver 16-gauge wire. Form a simple loop at one end. Set aside.

Cool huh? You’ll need to wait until March 2010 to see anything more. Until then… I have about 6 more files to read through today, at about 6 pages per file (all criss crossed and highlighted). I better get back to work. I can’t wait for the fun part of all this… seeing it in print!!

Kerry Bogert is blogging and creating glass beads from her home studio in Western NY. You can see more of her work at www.kabsconcepts.com and catch up with her daily at her blog www.kabsconcepts.blogspot.com.

Lord Byron wrote these opening lines as an homage to the wife of his cousin, a Mrs. Anne Wilmot whom he met at a party in June, 1814. He was so bowled over by her that he wrote these most famous words in praise of what he felt was the ideal of beauty.

What a dazzler she must have been to inspire such a lyrical tribute! I sometimes wish that we still spoke in the romantic language of times gone by if for nothing more than to inspire such a reaction in a suitor. Can you imagine being the subject of such praise?

I like to have something to inspire me when I create as I find it very hard to simply create pretty things without the background and the story. It could be a place I have been, a show I have seen, a book I have read or a song that I hear. No matter what that inspiration is, my interpretation becomes very personal to me.

I have a picture of my grandmother that was taken when she was about 15. It is by far one of my very favorite photos. I have been told that I very much resemble my grandmother in looks and that makes me very proud. In this photo she has long, dark and wavy locks and is sitting in what appears to be a garden. She is glancing up at the camera in a somewhat evocative manner. A farm house is visible in the background. I am not sure exactly what she is doing there, if this is just a spontaneous moment, or if this was a posed shot, but the effect is very bucolic.

I enjoy using raw brass in my jewelry designs. I feel that it can pull off both a modern and a vintage feel. Vintaj is where I choose to get most of my brass and they have monthly challenges (I would encourage you to join in the fun by submitting your work using their product). July was “Fond Memories.” Sometimes I need a good challenge to get off my duff and make something special. I knew that I wanted to use this photograph as the basis of my design. I am proud to say that this piece took second place in the recent voting on the Vintaj blog.

Using one of the new bezels from Vintaj, and my new metal stamping skills, I decided to stamp the first line of the poem on the back.

“She walks in beauty, like the night…”

I then did an experiment to see what liver of sulfur would do to the brass. It aged the brass considerably. I buffed away some of the dark color and left the patina to seep into the crevices of the letters and the raised edge.

I have been experimenting with different sorts of resins of late. My newest find is something called Gel du Soleil. It is a one part, a rather watery substance. But there is no mixing and measuring. You simply pour it straight from the bottle. The cool thing is that this resin is UV activated: simply leave it out in the sun or under a UV lamp to cure in about 20 minutes. I got mine from Patera/Nunn Designs at the Bead & Button Show.

I trimmed the photo to size and affixed it to the shallow Vintaj large round bezel. I added a bit of the resin. Then I put a mustard seed near her heart before topping it off with more resin and letting it cure. Why a mustard seed, you ask?  From the tiniest seed a large plant blooms quickly and all the birds come to find shelter in it. That is a perfect tie-in to the pastoral setting of the photograph and to remind me that all that I need I have within me and great things are certain to happen. I just need to plant the seed and nurture it to let it grow to its full potential.

For the remainder of the necklace, I took my cue from Lord Byron’s words. There are blue goldstone beads with sparkles representing the heavens. A moon and a star charm. Pieces salvaged from old jewelry and new freshwater pearls. There are vintage barrel shaped Swarovski crystals in a shade that is no longer made, and the most beautiful ombre silk ribbon in deep shades of turquoise, navy, plum and violet.

Lord Byron speaks of this mysterious beauty in terms of the heavenly bodies and the juxtaposition of light and dark. From her raven tresses to her soft illumined face, it is no wonder that this woman held his attention and gave him reason to pause and ponder her loveliness. Much the same way I see my grandmother in this picture and in my memory.

If you like what Erin Prais-Hintz has to say, and would like to read more, please stop by her blog http://treasures-found.blogspot.com and tell her what you think or check out a gallery of her work at her website www.tesoritrovati.com.