When, and how, did YOU start beading?

How long have you been beading -- when did you start? And how'd that
disease creep into *your* hapless veins?

I know this Q has been done here before, but there are new people here.
So I thought it would be lovely if we all answered. It's a great way
to get to know each other better.

I'll step aside for now, and let someone else answer first. Then I'll
tell my story. Ready, Set ---Go!

Don't know why, don't know when (to quote an old song).
It was before 1992, because there are pictures of me taken then wearing
necklaces I'd made.
I do remember how I first got beads, which is just as strange: a fellow
fiber artist who had season tickets next to mine for Illinois basketball
told me that mail order bead suppliers advertised in "Threads" (which I got
because I was a knitter). For a couple of years I ordered beads on the basis
of photocopied brochures with *no pictures*!

Georgia
http://www.georgiamorgan.net/html/allnew906.htm
http://www.georgiamorgan.net/html/knitting.htm

"Dr. Sooz" wrote in message
oups.com...
How long have you been beading -- when did you start? And how'd that
disease creep into *your* hapless veins?

I know this Q has been done here before, but there are new people here.
So I thought it would be lovely if we all answered. It's a great way
to get to know each other better.

I'll step aside for now, and let someone else answer first. Then I'll
tell my story. Ready, Set ---Go!

I started beading about 9 years ago. I had just been given some new earrings
(captive hoops) and I didnt like the beads that were in them.... It was all
over with then! (rollseyes).

The christmas of 1998 I recevied my first torch. AWWW man I was hooked!
Buying glass and tools is now more fun then buying beads. Since then I
have taken classes from some of the best. Crain Milliron, Sharon Peters,
Alethia Donathan, Kim Osibin and Andrea Gurino. I havent been making to many
beads these past months. It seems if it isnt one thing it is another.

Also in 2000 I started working for a bead wholesaler and made a few
connections myself for importing Bali silver. I started selling on Ebay to
pay for my addiction of Beads, Glass and Tools (and all the bills when DH
was out fo work for 6 months a few years back) This year I made the decision
to go back to school for my Accounting Certificate... I had to give up
selling on Ebay I miss the bead buddies and the beads!

I have been to several of the large shows.... Working them and being a
buyer. I have meet many of the wonderful ppl on this list (Sooz, Kandice,
KDK and I am sure there are more)

I will soon be giving up my job at the bead wholesaler and moving to
Phoenix, AZ in the spring. I am scared to death!

OK.. now that I have talked more in this post then in the last.. oh year on
this newsgroup, I will shuttup! LOL


TTFN!

Nicole
www.blackcatbeads.com


"Dr. Sooz" wrote in message
oups.com...
How long have you been beading -- when did you start? And how'd that
disease creep into *your* hapless veins?

I know this Q has been done here before, but there are new people here.
So I thought it would be lovely if we all answered. It's a great way
to get to know each other better.

I'll step aside for now, and let someone else answer first. Then I'll
tell my story. Ready, Set ---Go!

I got into beading about 9 years ago. I saw some kits for amulets in The
New Stitches magazine. So I bought two, when the arrived I had a look at
them and promptly put them in the back of the cupboard. I thought them
far to hard to do. Then about a year later, I saw another amulet in
Classic stitches which the directions seemed to be easier. So I got out
my kits and made them and I also bought the beads and made the one out
of Classic stitches. Then I made more of them. The ladies at my Monday
night class wanted to do them. So I ended up ordering more beads and
showing the ladies how to do it.
It was very difficult to get beads etc. at that time in UK only a
handful of places and all mail order. I joined this NG for a while but
at that time it was not very friendly. Only about 5 posts a day.
I was seen off buy sending money to USA and not getting the beads
despite many emails. I asked that she send them to my email friend who
would forward them. Never did get them and I hope the cash stolen from
me haunts that person.

Then I did a one day course on beaded tassels and that set me off on the
path of where I am today, well and truly obsessed with beads and what I
can make with them.
My grateful thanks to my friends on RCB for sending me beads so I can
follow my obsession and thanks to Sooz for stepping in this NG and
bringing it alive.
Love and peace to all
Shirley





In message .com, Dr.
Sooz writes
How long have you been beading -- when did you start? And how'd that
disease creep into *your* hapless veins?

I know this Q has been done here before, but there are new people here.
So I thought it would be lovely if we all answered. It's a great way
to get to know each other better.

I'll step aside for now, and let someone else answer first. Then I'll
tell my story. Ready, Set ---Go!


--
Shirley Shone

http://www.allcrafts.demon.co.uk

In 1986 I was in my final year of art school (majoring in jewelry) and
one of my fellow students told us about a lady who sold beads from her
garage. Her clientele were mainly stage mothers making dance costumes.
My friend proposed we all go to see The Dance Lady (as we called her)
and buy some beads. When we got there it was incredible - shelves and
shelves of beads, wall to wall, floor to rafters. She sold them by the
scoop. We bought as many as we could afford on a student budget. I got
some screw together plastic canisters (a huge extravagance for me at
the time!) and set them on my jeweler's bench where I admired but did
little else with them. My friend figured out how to knit with them.
That was about it. No one in the jewelry department at Curtin Uni had
the slightest idea how to bead weave or anything else for that matter.
So I would pick them up, gaze adoringly at them (they shimmered so)
until eventually with all the moving around I did, I lost them.

About 6 years ago I was robbed and I vowed I would replace the lost,
precious items of jewelry with distinctive pieces that I would make. At
the time my husband set me up on the internet for the first time and
found rcb for me. I met people who were more than enthusiastic about
this medium and I found myself become infected with a madness only
beaders truly understand.

I have replaced what I lost many times over and gained much more than
than jewelry.
Marisa
www.galleryvittoria.co.nz

I blame it all on you people!

I went from stained glass to lampworking in about 1997 (I think) and then I
started hanging around here!

--
Jerri
www.beadbimbo.com
"Dr. Sooz" wrote in message
oups.com...
How long have you been beading -- when did you start? And how'd that
disease creep into *your* hapless veins?

I know this Q has been done here before, but there are new people here.
So I thought it would be lovely if we all answered. It's a great way
to get to know each other better.

I'll step aside for now, and let someone else answer first. Then I'll
tell my story. Ready, Set ---Go!

Alright class, settle down. This is Ancient Beading History 101. G

I got my start in 1974 (yes, that's a 7 in there). Liquid silver and
carved stone animal fetish beads were all the rage. I'd just come back
from a family vacation in AZ, where I found a magical bead store in
Sedona (which is still there!). I really didn't have a plan or designs
in my head, I just bought pretty beads. The owner showed me how to
string a simple necklace and I took off. (Oh, I was a freshman in high
school.)

Luckily, within a few months a bead store opened locally, conveniently
located as part of a larger needlework shop I'd been feeding my other
addiction at for a few years (my grandma taught me to embroider when I
was 7). So I could buy fabric, yarn and beads and get all sorts of wild
ideas. I embroidered a pair of jeans with sequins, liquid silver and
facetted amethysts one Christmas, made tons of jewelry, jumped into the
beadle-point craze (needlepoint stitches with seed beads caught in each
stitch), and generally had fun and made my parents grateful I wasn't
some crazed hippie kid (not much, anyway).

I made jewelry through college in the early 80's, but it was overtaken
by my new love for handweaving and spinning. When my niece turned 15
(she's 10 years younger than me) I gave her the last of my bead stash
and told her to have fun...and history repeated itself. LOL When she
went off to college in San Diego, she discovered several bead stores,
and came back one Christmas to promptly turn me on to polymer clay. I
dabbled for a year or two and then, 9 years ago, took my first lampwork
class. Woohoo! I've been making beads and some jewelry, ever since.

KarenS

I'm in there with Karen - I started beading back in the early 1970's (73
or 74?). My mom was into Macrame and took me to the crafts store with
her. I got to play with beads, she got her macrame stuff and I was
hooked. I've done stringing ever since, added seed bead work about 10
years ago, and since then added polymer clay, wirework/maille, and PMC.

Barbara
Beader and Polymer Clay Junky

http://www.penguintrax.com and http://www.backseatgrammarian.com

There is a very fine line between a hobby and mental illness. (Dave Barry)

Need quality, inexpensive web hosting with site builder and 50 apps? Check out http://www.lyonshost.com.



Dr. Sooz wrote:

How long have you been beading -- when did you start? And how'd that
disease creep into *your* hapless veins?

I know this Q has been done here before, but there are new people here.
So I thought it would be lovely if we all answered. It's a great way
to get to know each other better.

I'll step aside for now, and let someone else answer first. Then I'll
tell my story. Ready, Set ---Go!

I started beading in 2000 I believe. I was taught how to make hemp necklaces
in my senior year of high school and picked it up after I graduated. There
was a bead store down the street from where I lived and I would go in there
and paw through their beads looking for large hole beads. After spending an
arm and a leg, my bf at the time, told me about polymer clay and that I
could probably make my own. So I did. ;-)

After a while I stopped doing hemp necklaces and moved onto learning how to
off loom bead weave, although I continued to play with clay. One of my first
pieces was a netted necklace with polymer clay drops (it was hideous!). I
think I still have it bagged up, never to be seen again. ;-)

I really got into clay and making beads at first and didn't do much actual
beading for some time. It was probably about a year until I really got into
beading and by then I had found RCB (although I lurked for some time). My
stash grew and grew and so did my beading level.

These days I don't bead as much as I'd like to but I off loom weave, string,
bead embroider, work in polyclay and have recently gotten into lampworking
when the time and weather allows it. ;-)

--
Valerie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.valeriebeads.com
http://valeriebeads.etsy.com

Come join OrphanBeads, sales and trading for the financially challenged
beader!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orphanbeads
"Barbara Forbes-Lyons" wrote in message
...
I'm in there with Karen - I started beading back in the early 1970's (73
or 74?). My mom was into Macrame and took me to the crafts store with her.
I got to play with beads, she got her macrame stuff and I was hooked. I've
done stringing ever since, added seed bead work about 10 years ago, and
since then added polymer clay, wirework/maille, and PMC.

Barbara
Beader and Polymer Clay Junky

http://www.penguintrax.com and http://www.backseatgrammarian.com

There is a very fine line between a hobby and mental illness. (Dave Barry)

Need quality, inexpensive web hosting with site builder and 50 apps? Check
out http://www.lyonshost.com.


Dr. Sooz wrote:

How long have you been beading -- when did you start? And how'd that
disease creep into *your* hapless veins?

I know this Q has been done here before, but there are new people here.
So I thought it would be lovely if we all answered. It's a great way
to get to know each other better.

I'll step aside for now, and let someone else answer first. Then I'll
tell my story. Ready, Set ---Go!

First -- I LOVE all these posts, they're so interesting! Thank you,
everyone, for indulging my question. I know even the people I've known
for years better now.

I started beading in 1966. (I know, SHE'S SO OLD! AAAAAAAA!!) I made
love beads for a local store -- I was 12. (Yeah -- I did end up being
a hippie.) My sister and I came upon a stash of old, old beads from my
great-grandmother (I still have some of the best ones), and some from a
hobby store, and we were off! Entrepreneurs.

Both of us still bead. I did other things in between, and abandoned
beading for years here and there. When I closed my rubber stamp
business in 1997, I took some of my profits and blew them the very next
day at a fabulous bead store in Seattle (I was there for a stamp show).
What a day! What wallowing and treasure and self indulgence!

I consider myself a beadweaver, PMCer, and collage artist at this stage
in my life, and a connoisseur of lampwork beads. I do some wirework
too, because how else ya gonna get earrings? I don't string much at
all if I can help it (shrug~ it just doesn't interest me). I like
embellished-to-the-nines beadweaving to *do*. (I'll *wear* strung
pieces happily!) I usually have projects set up all over the house, in
various states of half-made mess. I find it very inspiring to have the
house all messed up with projects.

I have a few webpages on Kandice's website (thank you, dolling!!) that
give info on beads -- The Links List. It's categorized and
alphabetized, and has a table of contents. Go use it!
http://www.lampwork.net/soozlinkslist.html
It needs a good updating and housecleaning, but it's FULL of great
stuff. (WARNING: Be sure to take snacks, and pee before you go.)

I came here right before the 9/11 tragedy, so I've been at RCB for 5
years. I've met three of the best friends I ever had here, and so many
other good friends. I'm so lucky! It must've been fate. And GOD,
have I learned a LOT here on RCB! I want to return it to its former
richness, with prolific posting, exchange of knowledge & ideas, and
friendships blossoming.

I know I've left a lot of stuff out, but that's basically it. RCB has
been good -- and bad -- for me, but it's seldom been boring. And of
course we all know that BEADS are never boring!

Love,
Sooz