Echoes of Ela

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Czech glass – the little beads that could

My name is Karin and I am a bead addict.

I am not ashamed to admit it.

A few weeks ago I went to our local bead store. Little did I know that what started out as an innocent trip to exchange beads with my friend Marti, who was attending a beading session at the store, would launch me into a full-blown obsession with Czech glass.  It was bead love at first sight!

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The ammonite fossil bead reminds me so much of home!(I grew up in the area where Archeopteryx was found)

Czech glass beads come in a dazzling array of unusual colors, shapes and finishes. Czech bead making tradition is deeply steeped in history. The area, with its abundant resources, among them the high quality quartz and soda ash needed for glass production, ample wood to fire the glass furnaces, rivers to facilitate shipping and of course skilled glass workers was ideal for the production of superior glass articles of all kinds.

When choosing my materials, one of the most important criteria is not only the quality of the product, but also the manufacturing process. And Czech glass beads are a perfect fit for me. They continue to be produced in small scale cottage industries today, just as they have for ages. These small scale producers work from home to supply larger companies with superior quality beads, often with molds that have not changed in decades, still utilizing local materials.

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Once part of the Habsburg Empire (Austria), the region, then known as Bohemia, and Sudetenland encompassed a large chunk of what is the Czech Republic today. The brilliant, dazzling quality of Czech lead glass lead to the production of affordable alternatives to priceless jewels, previously reserved for royalty and nobility. And with the birth of costume jewelry the production of glass beads really took off. Travelling salesmen not only sold their beads world wide, but were also able to return with specific knowledge of which kinds of beads were particularly popular and the glass makers adjusted their designs and production accordingly, giving them a huge market advantage.

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unusual shapes and finished make these beads stand out from the rest

Sadly, the need for seemingly frivolous and unnecessary items like beads, declined during the Great Depression that was followed by World War II. The subsequent communist government did not recognize the need for making glass beads and shifted production towards utilitarian household items. That is, until they realized the potential of the high quality beads as a major income source that would bring much needed foreign currency into the country once again.

But I have a personal connection as well…

You see, most of the German speaking population, and with them a large number of glass makers, were expelled from the Czech Republic during the tumultuous years following World War II  – my mother’s family among them in 1946. While they were not glass makers, I do feel a strong connection to what is essentially part of my ancestry. I hope to be able to visit on my next trip to Germany!

I grew up roughly a two hour drive from the German/Czech border and was fortunate to be able to visit the area of Bavaria along the border, where the glass making continued to thrive, despite being cut off from the region to the east for many years. It wasn’t until 1989/90, when the iron curtain fell, that Germans had the opportunity to travel freely into the Czech Republic. I always found it so sad that my grandmother “Oma” had passed away just three short years before she would have been able to visit the places of her childhood once again.

Here are a few of the pieces I have created with them…

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copper-earrings-folded-washer-lavender3

copper-fishscale-czechglass-bracelet4

silver-halfmoon-tribal-earrings3

copper-lavender-green-bracelet4

Czech glass beads should be dubbed “the little beads that could”, as it is nothing shy of a miracle that they still exist at all. They have survived political upheavals leading to war, communism, the introduction of highly competitive overseas manufacturers and yet today they are going stronger than ever. Truly like Phoenix from the ashes!

The individual families producing the beads today have often been involved in glass making for generations. And I, for one, certainly don’t mind paying a little more for their product, knowing it supports a craft so deeply steeped in tradition.

Have you created anything with these fabulous bead gems? If not, I hope you give them a try!

Karin

Here is a list of sources I found interesting and helpful:

My online bead museum

Bigbeadlittlebead.com

Harlequinbeads.com

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A walk down memory lane

Every now and then I get stuck. Just sit there looking at my work table, tools, beads, stones, wire and despite my best attempts to will myself into re-inventing the creative wheel – it just doesn’t happen.

So I have learned to step away and clean my shop instead.

Then, the other day, I came across two necklaces that I made a while back, like three or four years ago. Looking at them instantly returned me to the how and why I created them, a walk down memory lane…

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Interesting how not only my style, but my entire mindset has changed in such a relatively short time.

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The first thing I noticed was that I had put store bought clasps on both pieces… something I no longer do. And I remember exactly why. Making my own seemed too amateurish and I struggled with a clasp design that I could really hang my hat on. Using store bought, I reasoned with myself, would make my pieces look more professional.

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The next big change was the use of ready-made chain. Sure, it’s pretty and I do still like the look, but once I decided on following the handcrafted path, well, I just cannot go back.

Hmm, the wire wrapping on the beads… if I let myself, I will cringe just looking at it, but you know, I won’t. I was learning how to do it, and the only way to get good at something is to practice – a lot- and allow yourself to fail.

Why am I rambling on about how things used to be?

It is just so easy to feel stuck and beat yourself up for not possessing the skills others seem to have mastered ions ago.

But that is the revelation I had pondering these two necklaces. I am not stuck at all. I have learned a lot and making something that winds up looking like the designs in my head is becoming easier, more doable all the time. And judging by these two pieces I have learned quite a bit since then!

Look!

turquoise-carnelian1

agate-copper-bracelet3

gold-carnelian-bracelet3

And when I sit down to create something new and it doesn’t flow easily I will not despair and throw my arms up in the air, but take a deep breath and remember how far I have come.

One thing hasn’t changed. I still like the beads I used in those old necklaces and cannot wait to re -use them in something I will be really proud of:)

Karin

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Stamp your little heart out!

Have you seen the cool stamped jewelry that is all the rage lately? I love the look and figured it would be fun to add writing to some of my jewelry. So I figured it would be worth to give it a shot – I am always eager to learn a new technique.

Getting stamping straight and even and equally deep is not for the impatient. Argh. Practice, practice, practice… folks that is the only way – you have to stamp your little heart out!

I had previously bought some inexpensive aluminum and brass stamping blanks at my local craft store to get used to stamping on metal. But I have to admit it was a bit frustrating. And I wasn’t exactly in love with the font on the stamps, pretty plain.

It seemed no matter how meticulously I lined up my stamps, even with the help of tape, the letters still looked wonky. Looking for something to practice on, I spied some copper washers and decided to practice various letters on them. I wrote about my love for copper washers here and here.

Diligently hammering away, stamping the letters in circles, I realized that this would be the perfect way to give the copper washers all kinds of different textures! So I began to experiment with various letters, first the W, then an O, S, V etc.

Here are the very basic tools needed:

  • stamping hammer
  • letter stamp set
  • copper washers
  • not shown here: a bench block or anvil

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Here are some of the designs I created from various letters in this simple upper case stamp set:

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Pretty cool, huh? You can fill in as much space as you like, I decided I liked the entire washer textured the best.

Here are the washers lined up with their respective letters:

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Now, I love my plain hammered textures as much as the next gal, but being able to introduce new textures into my designs just gets the creative gears going!

I decided to use my trusty hole punch tool and turned them into an interesting bracelet.

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The patina really adds a whole new dimension to the textures and gives them a pleasing aged look as well as added depth. And because I want the various textures to “do the talking”, I opted to keep this a pure metal bracelet.

Not that beads don’t add that little something extra!

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The textured surface of the copper washer, the patina and sparkling crystal beads are such a pleasing contrast. Here is a slightly different view of the same bracelet…

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So what do you think? I am a big fan of using tools for more than one specific purpose. I can’t wait do some more experimenting and creating with this technique!

While this technique would be much too tedious to be used on a larger piece, it is absolutely perfect for smaller pieces like these!

Is there a technique or a little trick you have discovered that has opened new possibilities? Or have you bought a piece of jewelry and wondered about the various techniques used to create it?

Share your thoughts! I love hearing your comments and stories!

Karin

Disclaimer: I have not received any form of compensation for statements made in this post and all opinions stated are my own!

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Grow out of your comfort zone

 

This month’s topic for the Jewelry Artisans Community blog hop is: COMFORT ZONES

What exactly is a comfort zone? And how does it apply to jewelry making? Why am I so uncomfortable trying to write about it?

According to several different dictionaries I found two distinct descriptions of what is understood by the term “comfort zone”. One is essentially related to physical comfort, temperature, humidity, etc. You know, when you feel like this…

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The other pertains to a level of emotional comfort, one of fond familiarity, the absence of stress. And by that definition I could definitely consider my little basement jewelry work shop my comfort zone:) It is where I do what I love most, I get to create something with my hands, with fairly basic materials and tools. A work or beauty, hopefully cherished by its wearer for a long, long time.

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It is the one place in this house full of men folk that no one – except our Rascal – dares to enter without my permission or invitation, my sanctuary from cooking, shopping, laundry, doctor appointments, cleaning toilets. It is where I get to be a girl and play with pretty baubles.

It is also the obvious choice for me to write about. And that is exactly why I won’t.

I have to confess that this comfort zone thing had me absolutely stumped. I could not find my way into this ambiguous subject. Mentally, I paced back and forth, stumbled into a few dead ends, got side tracked plenty, rebelled against it some.

Until it dawned on me. I have found myself in plenty of comfort zones and I have always fled from them. Why, exactly? Well, you could make a case that I may not feel as though I deserve to be comfortable for whatever reason. Or you could interpret it simply as discomfort with comfort. I am beginning to realize that it is  really about growth. Personal, professional, artistic… growth.

A few years ago I went on a taxing hike in the Alps with my brother. Setting out we felt confident and absorbed the amazing scenery all around. We were headed for the top of a mountain. But the further we hiked, climbed, crawled, the harder and colder the wind whipped us around, literally took our breath away. The mountain top appeared to become more distant, the harder we battled. We were anything but comfortable.

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But the path was marked, and those little red and white circles became my guide posts along the way. I shifted my focus from making it to the top and set my sights on moving from one circle to the next and the next and the next and so on. Others passed us, with an annoying ease at times. But I wasn’t focused on them, I had MY goal in sight and that was to make it to the top of that mountain.

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Some people find their comfort zone, like it, and see no need to move on. They are not driven to see the view from the mountain top. I am not one of them. I will climb the first rung of the ladder, may rest there for a while and then be compelled to reach for the next rung as if prodded by some invisible force. My propensity for that has put me in some very uncomfortable situations and, even though not all of them became “comfortable”, they always led to growth and inevitably spurred me on to stretch further.

There are several facets of my current life that would be extraordinarily difficult to change. Fine. But that doesn’t mean change cannot be achieved in some way. And this is where it all rolls back around to the creation of my jewelry. Had I stayed in the comfort zone that was stringing beads on a wire, or giving my creations as birthday gifts instead of starting a business, merely dreaming about writing a blog someday – I would remain at the bottom of that mountain, looking up and always remain wondering what if.

And that – my friends – would be sad.

By choosing to move, stretch, expanding your horizons beyond that which is familiar and comfortable, you are continuously growing. Very much like a tree that adds a new ring with each year, so will your newly expanded comfort zones be added into your life. It is about increasing your circles of comfort, rather than abandoning one to attain the other.

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One last thing, just in case you interpret this post as leave it all behind and immerse yourself in unfamiliar, read: uncomfortable territory. Just because the path you are about to embark on is unknown, maybe steep and rocky, it doesn’t mean you have to walk on it in uncomfortable shoes. Nor do you have to do it alone. in one day. without a break.

Just be sure to pack the right “gear”, leave all unnecessary baggage behind, follow the right map and pace yourself – who knows what mountain top you might wind up on? Trust me, the view is absolutely amazing!

Karin

The hiking pictures were taken by my awesome hiking partner and brother Christian:)

This post is part of a monthly blog hop through the jewelry artisans community. Please be sure to check out how my fellow blogging friends interpret this topic by clicking on the links below!

jewelryartbydawn.blogspot.com

ponderthecat.blogspot.de

catswire.blogspot.de

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Create what you love

My philosophy is that if you create with what you love in mind, you – and others – will always love what you create. Are you looking for ways to incorporate things you love to do into your jewelry design? I have found that when I create with something that I love in mind, the ideas come freely and make me smile! Recently I told you about my connection with autism and I wrote about the trend to personalize jewelry more and more in recent years. One way to do that is to incorporate what is important to you in your designs. It could be something as simple as your favorite color(s), animals, travel destinations and hobbies. One of my favorite things to do is yoga.

 zenfrog

I came to yoga relatively late. Sure, I had heard for years that it was good for a variety of reasons, like increased flexibility, range of motion, pain reduction and most importantly stress relief. And who couldn’t use all of that?

However, the thought of attending a class with a roomful of hyper-flexible twenty somethings was not appealing AT ALL. And then, by  nothing less than divine intervention, I found Kim’s Gentle Stretch yoga course at the local, ahem, senior center. Cue the rainbows and harp music. Over the past few years this class has become such an important part of my life that I will only miss my Thursday morning session if my household was struck by ebola or I am out of the country or somebody in my family cut an artery;)

Why? The regular practice of Kim’s style of yoga has given me all the benefits promised and then some. It has given me the tools I need to calm and de-stress, to focus when it seems like I am putting out one brush fire after the next and to relieve my aches and pains from sitting at my work bench creating sparkly goodies! Please feel free to check out her website here!

Naturally I wanted to express my love for yoga through my artistic medium, which is jewelry, of course. So I decided to come up with several designs that incorporate the colors of the chakra, better illustrated and explained here.

chakrabracelet

I chose copper washers for this bracelet because copper has a wonderful, warm feel and its patina harmonizes beautifully with those gorgeous rainbow hues.

One day when I was playing around with various wire weaving designs, it dawned on me that I could manipulate them into little yoga people in various poses. And that is how this pendant came about!

lotuspose

I am always tweaking and fiddling to improve upon the original and I have a couple of small changes planned for this design. I have several different pendants of poses in my Etsy shop with earrings coming soon!

The third example is a mixed metal bracelet and earring set in which hammered copper bars are connected by silver jump rings, which in turn serve as anchors for several different silver plated yoga themed charms.

yogaset

So there you have it – one of my many inspirations! What are yours? Do you create with a specific subject in mind? Do you buy jewelry that has a theme? To me it just gives me yet another chance to incorporate things that make me happy into my everyday life!

Karin

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Showing my roots

If you had the chance to talk to anyone dead or alive, who would it be?

For me that question is answered by going straight to my roots. I would be thrilled if I could sit and chat with my paternal great-grandmother Katharina Lehner. She passed away six months before I was born and I am named after her. She was a kind, caring and exceptionally capable person, loved by all who knew her. She was a teacher before she became a wife and then mother of five children, the oldest of whom was my grandmother.

Here they all are around 1918. The middle girl in the top row is my grandmother. And if I do my math correctly my great grandmother was 43 years old in this picture!

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Katharina lived through two devastating wars and saw first her husband off into World War I and later her two sons into the second World War. Miraculously, they all returned more or less unscathed, although her boys were POW’s for some time after the war had long ended. Through it all, her family never suffered hunger or need like so many of their countrymen and women in war-torn Germany. They were “urban” homesteaders before anyone ever knew what that was. There were a couple of goats for milk, chickens for eggs and meat, an astonishing variety of fruits and vegetables as well as the honey from the bees that were kept by my great uncle.  They did it because that is how things were done, not because it was “green”. As a kid I used to love to go down into the root cellar of the old house I grew up in and forage for goodies!  And on the ceiling were writings from when the family must have huddled in it during bombing raids in the war. They wrote dates with the soot from their candles. My great-grandfather was a very skilled carpenter and cabinet maker who built everything from the house they lived and raised their family in, to the furniture in it, doll houses for the girls to play with and the caskets they were buried in. Talk about DIY! Some of his and my great uncles’ tools are displayed in our local heritage museum today!

Here are a couple of examples of her handy work that I am very proud to have in my possession:

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stitchsampler2

One of my favorite stories is one that took place shortly after the end of World War II and really shows her practical side. US soldiers were encamped in the school building right down the hill. And Katharina noticed that the coffee grounds they used were ground much more coarsely than regular German coffee. And that they tossed them in the garbage! So she struck up a deal with one of the cooks who would save the coffee grounds for her. She took them, dried them on dish towels, reground them and voila – coffee!

Theirs was a house full of music and companionship. Their doors were always open! Their children were active in the local theater scene and my youngest great uncle made everyone laugh with his antics! I am so proud to be one of her descendants. Sadly, the musical gift passed me over and went to my cousin’s kids instead. But I have a feeling she had something to do with my fiercely independent spirit and the endless desire to create.

Here is the side of the house my great grandfather built as a young man for his bride in 1900. This part is essentially untouched. No one has lived in the house for 30 years. Don’t you just love all the trim and details he incorporated into the gable?

Oldhouse

I am so blessed, because I had more than just my great-grandmother’s creative genes, my Mom has made things for as long as I remember. I can still hear her yelling at the sewing machine when something didn’t quite work out right and she was determined to finish that pair of pants, or jacket or top…

We were never rich in the monetary sense, but the gift that was passed on to me by these creative and capable women is so much more than I could ever repay in this lifetime! And I always wore designer clothes:) And grew up next to this:

kircheburg

Who is the person you would like to talk to? Is there someone in your past who has influenced you to create or whom you might have inherited your creativity from? I just love hearing stories like that, because it keeps extraordinary, ordinary people like my great grandmother alive!

Karin

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