beadsandquotes Archives • Jessica Smith Creates

August 18, 2013

It’s back!

After nearly eight and a half months of hiatus, my Etsy shop is back up and running, featuring my handcrafted jewelry, and my hand-illustrated quotes!

I actually set it up a few days ago, but I was slowly adjusting listings and re-listing items, but I finally have fifty or so of my items back up for sale, which allows me to take a step back and breathe a bit.

My shop and this blog won’t have a ton in common, as I made this blog to highlight all of my craft hobbies, and the shop only makes up a bit, but when I have big news that I can’t believe happen with my shop, I’m probably going to share!

Like the day after I reopened my shop when I got an order! Thanks to Steph in New Zealand!

She bought my hand-illustrated Christopher Robin quote.

My excitement was hardly contained, until I realized that I had already packed all my supplies. That was no problem though… Just a little sifting time.

I got the quote off the next day, allowing me to work on finishing the re-listing of the shop!

It’s ready to show off, so I’m going to link to it again here!

June 23, 2013August 19, 2018

Creative Process

Today I’m here to tell you all about my beadweaving process.

Welcome to my business notebook. My business notebook makes up for its lack of, well, business figures with lovely sketches of necklaces. Necklaces that I plan to make in the future.

Like this one! It’s a rough sketch of the necklace I’ll be working with for this post.

So this necklace will have a focal of a square metal worked flower thing. See, my grandmothers gifted me with some old earrings, mostly clip-on ones, but because I have little ears, most of these were too big for me, and the ones that weren’t clips won’t work for me because I’ve never pierced my ears.

My favorite ones are the sparkly diamond ones, but I’m saving those for some very special necklaces. The ones shaped like drops are probably going to be involved in my TARDIS costume.

Here are the beads I brought with me on my study abroad trip. There are definitely enough to make two necklaces, and I brought along a second pendant for that reason! The rectangular bead next to the square focal will be for the other necklace, and a number of the beads will be more involved with that one.

Here’s the plan. I’ll show you pictures of the in progress. My process is more visual than anything else.

Here it is about halfway through. This is still a testing phase, making sure all my plans actually look good in reality, instead of just in my head.

The problem with having a small workplace is that I can only do one project at a time, in the space. In the middle of the necklace making, I had to use the desk for something else, so here is all of the beads and the in-progress necklace packaged up in a small bag!

And here is the finalized necklace. Its a beautiful piece and drapes quite nicely.

When I return home to my other beads and necklaces, I’ll be putting the necklace up for sale! I’ll post the link when I get it up for sale!

April 21, 2013

Beads and Necklaces

If you haven’t noticed from my previous posts on costume plans, I have a minor obsession with jewelry.

I’ve been beading my own jewelry for years now.

Remember the craft packs for creating your own daisy chain jewelry?

Perhaps you don’t, but that’s really what got me started with beading.

I have my own shop for my jewelry, BeadsAndQuotes, where I also sell hand drawn and illustrated quotes. It’s on a break for the moment, until I return stateside in June.

I started out simply making stranded jewelry, mostly just eclectic one stranded necklaces and bracelets.

My favorite by far of my older jewelry is this one, which is well worn. I made it in 10th grade, I think, and honestly I’m surprised it has not broken yet.

Then I graduated into working more with seed beads, the super small and fairly regular in size beads.

And then I became obsessed with beadwoven necklaces. They allow me to use my creativity in a three-dimensional medium. It also puts restraint on my creations, knowing that it should still be able to be worn on a person’s neck.

This one is my master creation. It is my one creation, potentially ever, that turned out nearly exactly as I pictured it. I’ve got the idea drafts to prove it, as well. I modeled it after the sunsets I could see from my dorm room. At the time, I had a room that looked out over a hill. It was partly obstructed by trees, but the magnificence of the sight shone through anyway.

I brought some of my beading supplies with me on my journey, and am planning on making one of the beadwoven necklaces soon to both reduce the number of beading supplies that will return with me, and to add to my collection of necklaces. I’m going to be creating a post to show you how my process of necklace creation works. Any week (or day or month) now, I promise!