Posts Tagged ‘lava beads’

Featured bead: Hollow sterling beads

Friday, August 28th, 2009

“Hollow” means a lot of different things when you talk about beads and findings.  Let’s look at hollow sterling beads…

Hollow sterling silver beads all have one thing in common — they’re light in weight and they’re more affordable than solid silver beads.

  • There are organic-shaped hollow sterling nugget beads.  They’re hollow because they’re a continuous surface like a pebble, only empty inside:
hollow sterling nugget beads

Hollow...

hollow silver roller beads

...toroidal...

  • Silver teapot charms are hollow because they’re shaped like a real teapot, with room inside for a tiny drink:
hollow 3-D silver teapot charm

...concave

If you really think about it, “hollow” could mean even more things…how about those deeply pockmarked lava beads?  Leave a comment to suggest more ideas about hollow beads!

Thank-you Friday

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Thanks to a number of kind people who talked about Rings & Things in the last week…

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Bead Origami has already made some splendid beaded beads she shows in her blog, that use amethyst just bought at our trunk show.

In other tour-related blogging, KJ at the Silver Parrot tantalized us with a promise to show off her discoveries at our latest bead showAJ at Erthefae managed a mini-vacation to our BeadTour show and to the Bead Museum in Arizona…lucky!  SoftFlex Girl Sara also managed to visit us at the Phoenix show, and blogged about it.

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Heather at Humblebeads paired some Rings & Things brown lava beads with some cool, lustrous-toned beads and a striking handmade wing pendant in her Earth Angel necklace.

Heather also posted a nice-looking “Luna Flor” (Moon Flower) bracelet design at the Art Bead Scene blog.  Dawno at Dawno’s Beaded Badge Lanyards devoted one day’s post to interviewing me.  I’m humbled…  She also wrote up an informative review of Rings & Things’ black rattail cord!

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Tish over at JustATish wrote up a nice project using some of our hammered-oval gunmetal chain for a necklace and matching earrings!

Margot Potter put up a fun design of her own, the Peekaboo mixed-media necklace, at her Impatient Crafter blog.

A discussion over at Etsy about “what free gift do you include in your sent-out orders?” mentioned our candy in a positive light.  The conversation generated a huge amount of response, by the way, and is really worth reading to get your marketing gears turning.

Thanks so much to everyone who found us worth talking about this week!

May giveaway:
* You enter by leaving comments this month
* At the end of May, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*
So read the blog regularly, to enter a lot & to see if you won!

New beads: brown lava stone

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Lava rock beads have caught on in recent times.  Their pockmarked surfaces have a really interesting feel.  Because they’re basically pieces of pumice, these beads are also surprisingly light–with tiny holes all through them, they’re full of air!

Most of these beads so far have been glossy and black, from the treatments applied to their surfaces.  Rings & Things has just added another great color, brown lava stone beads.  They’re an earthy matte hue, and we have them in a lot of shapes and sizes!  Look how nice this stone looks in corner-drilled and regular cube shapes:

Does that make anyone else think of brown sugar cubes?

There are also plenty of brown lava beads with curves that contrast wonderfully with their naturally uneven surface texture.  Have a look at some rondelles and rounds to see this effect:

You can see how impressive this stone looks in all kinds of beads.  Do you think it might set off metal beads nicely, the way the black lava stone does?  Will it pair with wood?  Hmmm, azurite makes a nice planet-Earth bead…  How about brown lava stone beads of various sizes to represent a few of our rougher neighbors in a solar-system necklace or bracelet?  (Mercury, the Moon, Mars?)

Exciting news: every month, we’re going to hold a lottery right here on the Rings & Things blog. Here’s how it will work:
*At the beginning of each month, I’ll announce a new lottery.
*You enter by leaving Replies, also known as blog comments.  Comment on any post(s) this month.

*At the end of the month, I’ll randomly draw 2 names to receive surprise goodie packs!