Category: Beads

I have enjoyed making gemstone beaded bracelets over the last year and while I’ve taken many photographs of them, I’m never quite happy with how they look in the photos. I’ve just assumed that folks on Etsy and jewelry websites must have a professional photographer take their pictures because even tiny details show up clearly. I finally had a chat with a photographer friend who suggested I get a “light box” and just play with light and color to see what works for me. Sure…

Thanks to Amazon, I typed in “light box” and guess what!! Up came quite a few choices. With the price range from cheap to VERY expensive, I ended up with one like this:

It showed jewelry being displayed, so I figured it would work for my bracelets. It was pretty easy to set up but it took me a while to figure out how to begin. The top had a hole to look down at the surface with my phone camera. The plastic color mats fit inside and the light had an extra shield to diffuse the circle of light.

When I looked down from the top, I could see the bracelet I had placed under the light.

The box came with 6 color choices in plastic sheets.

I first needed to remember what I used last year that turned out such lousy photos. I had a piece of light green foam that I thought would work to put each bracelet on. I did that for each of the 120 bracelets I made for the craft sale in July. The photos looked like this:

Frankly…not very exciting. The colors didn’t show up very well. I recently took pictures of the latest bracelets I’ve made and realized the pale green foam did not enhance the look of any of the bracelets!

So, here’s my first attempt at taking a photo under the light in the light box.

I left this picture at full size so you can see how the circular light is reflected in every bead! Ugly and unacceptable!

Next, I chose another bracelet, put it on the black plastic background with the light at the top. This time I put the extra piece of fabric with a hole in it under the light to buffer the light. A little better.

Next, I stood in front of the box and took a picture. That helped eliminate the reflection from the top. However, the black plastic still reflected the light from the silver spacers.

The black plastic background really doesn’t do the bracelet justice. How about the green background?

Ahhhh…nope!

Next, I tried the beige (plastic) background:

Better for the beads, but the plastic still reflected the light.

Finally, I found a piece of beige linen fabric. That did not reflect any light! Yea! Much better. Actually, if I put the fabric on my desktop instead of in the light box, my iPhone camera and flash does a great job with the picture and is much easier to set up! Who knew that worked just as well as the light box!

I still needed to check a few other bracelets that had more subtle colors. This one had only Amber and Citrine. The beads are washed out with the beige background so I tried a piece of white linen.

Beige background:

White background:

When I switched to a white background, the colors showed up much better!

The final bracelet I wanted to check was the one below, because it had both dark and light beads. The beige background worked fine for both.

I feel so much better about taking pictures of my bracelets now. I’ve got until next July to beef up my inventory! Who knows…maybe I’ll have to put out a catalog! Enjoy!

My latest project with gemstone bracelets involves using Morse Code to design a bracelet for one specific person or group of people. This involves learning about the code itself and translating the symbols to beads to represent dots and dashes. Round beads work for dots, but the dashes would be a specific tube-shaped bead. I thought I could just substitute a larger bead for the dash…it made a nice bracelet, but the code was impossible to read. Then I tried black round beads for dots and white round beads for dashes.

My first attempts involved making a bracelet that said, “GREYHOUNDS.” Using black and white beads this was the result. Even if you know Morse Code this is unreadable!

Then I tried to make bracelets for my grandkids that said, “BEN ROCKS,” and “ANNA ROCKS” using two colors.

Again, looked pretty but unreadable. The last letter in each bracelet was the S (three beads the same representing dots). I could work backwards from that.

My friend Toni suggested I make bracelets that said, “GREYHOUNDS.” That was a long word and if I used the beads I had they would never fit and would still be unreadable! I went to Amazon and looked for Morse Code beads and found this kit:

Hicarer DIY Morse Code Bracelet Making Kit

It even came with these cards:

I guess I’m not the only one trying to adapt Morse Code to beads! With this batch of very tiny beads, I started to figure out which of my beads would go with them. I ended up using very small glass beads to separate the letters and add color to the bracelet, with these beads filling out the necessary length.

Here is the code for GREYHOUNDS:

Here are some bracelets:

These “greyhound” Morse Code bracelets will be fun for my greyhound-lover friends. The only thing I find disappointing is the plastic and glass beads are very lightweight. Of course, without a gemstone in sight, they become just a novelty to me. I’ll make a bunch for the next greyhound event, but my heart just isn’t in them!

Morse Code Bracelets with a Heart

Getting back to my gemstone bracelets, and with Morse Code on my mind, I thought about a friend who was worried about one of her grandsons who had just moved to Colorado. My friend shared some heart-warming experiences that me wonder if I could make a bracelet that would ease her worries while helping her focus on supporting her grandson. His name was ALEX. Perfect length to represent with Morse Code.

I ordered some beads from https://firemountaingems.com. I had learned from my first trial and error bracelets that the code needed to be represented with a dot and a dash in the same color. Various spacers could separate the letters and add color to the bracelet.

My dots turned out to be 4 mm Black Tourmaline. The dashes were 8/4 mm Black Onyx tube beads. These two stones provide psychic protection and support inner strength, will power and self-mastery. Those qualities would be important to the grandson.

Since the grandmother would be the one wearing or holding the bracelet while she thought about her grandson, I wanted the final stone to be something that would help alleviate her worry and stress. White Opal seemed to fit my needs. I ended up making a bracelet for the grandson’s mother also. Then they requested another bracelet for the other grandson who they were also worried about! His name was NICK. Also perfect for Morse Code!

Here is Alex’s bracelet (before I figured out a better way to make the tag):

Here is the bracelet for Nick’s mom (notice the better tag):

You can see that while I’m inventing these bracelets, I’m trying to figure out how to fill out the tags to explain the stones and what they mean. I suspect I’ll end up having to make a printed paper or card to go with each bracelet… especially if I end up doing more custom work. I just can’t write small enough, neatly enough to do very many at once! Here are the back of the tags:

These particular bracelets are for the mother and grandmother of the grandson. They are meant to be worn or held to focus attention on supporting the grandson from afar and alleviating the worry and stress of the mother and grandmother. The grandson may never know that such good vibes are being sent his way…but you never know!

I wondered if the grandsons would like, or use, a bracelet to support their new lives away from home? I made a bracelet for each grandson, using the same Morse Code and substituting Tigers Eye beads to fill the bracelets.

I will offer these Morse Code bracelets for the grandsons…in case they ever express an interest. I’ll leave them with the mother to share as appropriate. I have no expectations that these bracelets will make it to Alex and Nick, but my thoughts go with them as they move out into the world. Who knows, the bracelets may end up under their pillows at grandma’s house…kind of like a Dream Catcher with gemstone beads!

I’m sure my future one-of-a-kind bracelets will change as I learn more about the gemstones and how to label them properly. My various bracelets sold at the arts festival for $10 each. I was happy with that, since I could make whatever appealed to me. However, I suspect these one-of-a-kind Morse Code bracelets will take me longer to make and label. I may have to reconsider the price and charge more. Any thoughts about what I should charge would be appreciated!

Ok folks…this next week is the Art in the Orchard festival I’ve been preparing for with all my gemstone bracelets! This festival will be held at the Way Fruit Farm property just past Stormstown on Rt. 550. Here is the advertisement:

At the same time, two other much larger arts Festivals will run concurrently: the Central PA Festival of the Arts will be held in State College, from July 10 to July 15, 2024; the People’s Choice Festival will be held in Centre Hall at the Grange Fair Grounds, from July 11 to 15, 2024. (The People’s Choice festival had been held in Boalsburg for many years but just outgrew the space.) Both of these festivals are worth your time to attend, but I’m certainly not ready for a venue like that!

The Art in the Orchard festival (July 11-13) has been around for several years and is perfect for my first attempt to be a vendor. Since my set up is pretty small, I’m joining my friend Toni Duchi who has had a booth at this festival for several years. She does amazing things with mosaics, collages and polymer clay. I profiled some of her work in a post from June 2021:

https://marykisner.com/from-a-collection-to-a-collage/

This festival will be a reality check for me. I’ve been making gemstone bracelets for about 6 months and have enjoyed learning about the qualities of the stones and how to make bracelets. I’ve enjoyed the process and enjoyed sharing them with friends and family. It is finally time to see if I can sell them…at least to help pay for all the materials. This is not a cheap hobby! I now have 130 bracelets to sell, in three sizes, for $10 each. We’ll see what happens!

I have so many questions that hopefully will be answered at this festival, such as:

• Should I keep making bracelets? Do the bracelets appeal to others?

• Does my display work?

• What kinds of questions do folks ask about the gemstones?

• How do folks choose a bracelet…by color, by stone, by the message on the tag?

• Basically, should I keep making bracelets?

I’ve had to remember that there are other variables that could affect the outcome of sales…especially the weather, the location of our booth, the competition from other vendors at the festival and of course, the competition from the other two regional festivals. I may have to consider other ways to use the bracelets. Maybe offering workshops to teach others how to make them for themselves would be more up my alley!

If you’d like to experience a local arts festival this week, consider heading out to Way’s Fruit Farm for the Art in the Orchard, and stop to say hello to Toni and me! A friendly smiling face will make our day!

I shared bracelets with my family at a reunion in June. They enjoyed choosing the one that “spoke” to them!

Three to four years ago, I found my interest in the uses of stones, crystals and gemstones in meditation was a way to focus my thoughts. I realized I was reading about the way gemstones were used in ancient times…in crowns, in prayers and in ceremonies…but I really didn’t know what some of them looked like. Unless the stone was someone’s birthstone, I really didn’t have a knowledge base to work with.

After one of our driving trips to California to visit Ted’s family, our stop in Sedona, Arizona was most inspiring! I discovered the Sedona Crystal Vortex shop. I came home with an assortment of polished stones in my suitcase! Each came with a card describing the stone. Thus began my fascination with gemstones and their meanings.

Over time, I managed to collect at least 24 different polished stones and organized them so the card with information was kept with the stone. Now. I can recognize most of the stones by color and have some basic knowledge about each one.

For several months I carried one or two stones in my pocket, depending on my mood and focus…whether it was confidence with my writing, reducing stress in my life or courage to face hard decisions. Not sure if they made a difference in my writing or my stress level, but they did help me focus my intentions to improve my writing or lower my stress level.

Then, I discovered Sedona Crystal Vortex offered various pendants and earrings featuring specific stones…what fun! Very quickly I could see this collection would be a bit more expensive! Not sure I could afford a necklace for each stone!

Here is a Malachite set:

And my favorite Tree of Life necklace:

Learning More about Stones, Crystals and Gemstones

I continued researching these stones, crystals and gemstones on the internet…so MUCH information was available. I ended up ordering this book, The Book of Stones, by Robert Simmons and Naisha Ahsian (2015. Heaven & Earth Publishing LLC). I learned so much more and could reread sections without turning on the computer!

In the introduction to the book, the authors helped me understand why some folks believe they can feel (sense) the vibrations from the stones. They provided a general theory how humans could actually feel and benefit from crystal energy.

Apparently, the crystal lattice structure found in minerals, such as Quartz, Beryl and Diamond, provides great stability of structure and regularity of flow of any electromagnetic energies that move through it. This is why silicon chips are used to provide memory in computers. It’s also the reason Quartz crystals can be incorporated into watches and clocks to provide highly accurate measurements of time. This crystalline structure is present in all stones and crystals at some level.

Humans have their own crystalline structure in their bodies, even at the smallest level. Our DNA basically has a crystalline structure that manages to pass on genetic information quite accurately. Not too hard to imagine that it may be possible for some people to be capable of detecting, or “feeling” these energies.

I will admit I don’t feel the vibrations from my stones. However, I do believe they help me focus my thoughts.

The Transition to Beaded Bracelets

Recently, as the public became obsessed with Friendship bracelets, folks of all ages were making and exchanging them. Why not check it out! I made a few bracelets with plastic letter beads and made a few to represent one of my favorite sayings:

I used up various glass beads to fill in around the letters. Interesting, but I hadn’t planned to wear them so I sent them to a niece.

I tried to make Penn State bracelets using the letters, P S U, but after 4-5 bracelets, I ran out of those three letters! The letter beads seem to come with the whole alphabet and I couldn’t order just those three letters! Phooey!

I ended up making PSU bracelets with Blue and White beads…no letters. The only “real” stone bead that had the right color to represent PSU blue was the Blue Tiger’s Eye. So I added white glass beads, Opals or Howlite to get the Blue/white feel. I don’t think I’ll focus on making too many of these, since I’d prefer to explore the many other gemstone beads I have.

The transition from stones in my pocket and pendants around my neck seemed to happen in the last year or so. If you’ve read my blog (https://marykisner.com/) you’ll know that I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting projects. I thought if I wanted a different way to carry the gemstones, why not a bracelet.

Look at the difference between a polished stone for my pocket and the corresponding bracelet. Perfect!

Production for the Summer Arts Festival

For the past month or two I’ve been cranking out several bracelets a day in three sizes. I now have over 100 bracelets ready to sell at the Summer Arts Festival which will be held July 11-13, 2024 on the grounds at Way’s Fruit Farm in Stormstown, PA. (These are the same three days as the Central PA Festival of the Arts in State College, PA).

To prepare for the festival, I took my bag of bracelets to a family reunion a few weeks ago and let interested folks choose one. It gave me a chance to talk about the gemstones. Bracelets were chosen by mostly women of all ages and a few young men found stones that spoke to them! Very rewarding to watch the process! Save the dates in July! Hope to see you there!

Over this past weekend I drove to Pittsburgh for the Bead Mercantile Show (and to spend time with Kathy’s family, of course). Kathy, her mother-in-law, Anna and I made the 30-minute drive to the Show location. I was so glad to not have to worry about getting to the show…Kathy knew exactly how to get there!

I had no idea what the show would involve but I was hoping to find a few beads for my bracelets. Turns out, beads were just part of the offerings!

The location was in a ballroom of a Comfort Inn & Suites south of the city. I believe the next show will be in the fall. There were at least 15-20 venders with everything a bead-lover could need.

At the registration table, the woman collecting the $3 entrance fee was also a vendor. We got to see amazing works of art made with beads before we even got inside! The display was definitely inspiring!

Entering the large room, I was overwhelmed by the choices! Luckily, I had a list of the specific beads I was looking for.

My first encounter was an assortment of large beads…very unusual and interesting, but I had my best friend Toni in mind. She uses beads like this and could not make it to this show. I wanted to pick up some for her. Here are some of the beads I had to choose from:

These are the beads I picked up for Toni…a total of $12.00!

Unfortunately, the beads I was interested in were more expensive, of course! My strings of beads were $8 to $30 each.

I was also able to pick up some tiny spacer beads in gold and silver plated…the three tubes of beads shown here were $30!

I’ve been saying this hobby of making beaded bracelets was expensive…now I’m convinced that I’d better find places to sell them! I certainly can’t wear them all!

With all the supplies available at Jo-Ann’s, Michaels Craft Stores, Amazon and other online companies, it is a very satisfying hobby. I would recommend giving it a try if you’d like to make them yourself.

Please email me directly if you’d like me to write tutorial piece on how to make them (marykisner@comcast.net). If there is enough interest, I’ll put that together. Enjoy!

I truly have been busy this last week! However, I have been deep into making gemstone bracelets and finally feel confident that I can now explain some of what I’ve learned. I do believe it would be worth your time…if you think you might enjoy learning how to make them yourself. Making things with beads is the hot craft at the moment. The youngest kid (that can safely not put them in their mouth!) can make bracelets out of inexpensive plastic or ceramic beads and trade them with friends. They can stack them up their arms and show off the variety of novelty beads available…from sports to animals to letters. I started with some letter beads illustrating a poem (see https://marykisner.com/making-bracelets-with-words/). That was fun but didn’t satisfy my interest in using gemstones. The hardest part was tying the knot of the elastic string and figuring out how to hide the knot in a spacer bead. A spot of jewelry glue really helped keep it tied!

Learning about the gemstones I’m using is expanding my interest in this craft. I started with making bracelets I wanted for myself. Bert made an adorable stand for me to display them. Then, he made a second one that I can use at the craft fair in July.

Each bracelet I make uses one to three different gemstones. Over time, I could see that if I didn’t label each bracelet, I’d never remember whether that white bead was Moonstone, Quartz or Howlite! For example, here are the three bracelets that will be my “Patriotic” theme:

My three bracelets can be worn as a red/white/blue set together. I really couldn’t afford to make very many bracelets like this to sell…they’d be too expensive for the craft fair. I finally got some red and blue glass beads and used Howlite for the white ones. Now I have some Patriotic bracelets to sell at the craft fair that won’t be as expensive.

Then, I wanted to make some blue and white bracelets (since Penn State is nearby) and first made a few with the letter beads P S U on them. When I had used up my assorted letters of P S U, I tried just blue and white…understated PSU, right?

I’ve now acquired a variety of beads in 3 sizes so I’m ready to make more bracelets. I will try to include glass and ceramic beads to reduce the cost, but I think the real gemstones give a bracelet its sparkle! As I’m learning about the beads I’ve discovered in their descriptions that each stone holds a unique vibration that can enhance things like mental clarity or alleviate stress. In another post, I’ll try to explain how that is possible. In the meantime, my bracelet production is underway. So many beautiful beads to work with! Enjoy!

Before I move on to other projects, I wanted to share one last project with beads. I seem to have figured out how to work with various stones and gem stones. I think I’ve figured out how to tie a knot in the elastic string and hide it in a larger bead. I also have accumulated enough supplies I can make bracelets until next Christmas!

Citrine and Malachite

However, I still wanted to try to make some bracelets with words on them, which sent me back to my pile of beads with letters.

I started with my favorite poem/saying. I think it came from my sister in the 1970s. She heard it at a conference in California back then. I will not take credit for it, but I have used it for 50 years to motivate me to make changes in my life over the years.

I pulled out the five key words: DESIRE, BELIEVE, IMAGINE, ACT UPON, and INEVITABLE. My tray of beads with letters on them came as a set, so I chose a different color for each word. I tried to coordinate the extra beads with the colors/style of the letters. Here are the trays of letters and extra beads I worked with:

Here was my final result:

I had to stick them to a piece of tape so they would stay put until I got the picture!

I wasn’t sure who else might appreciate my poem and bracelets, but I reached out to a niece in California who might enjoy them (actually, my sister’s granddaughter!) I’m so glad I brought my favorite poem to life in this set of bracelets!

Do you have a favorite poem, saying or word that could be represented as a bracelet? It might be the perfect way to share something with someone else…or to wear yourself!

O my goodness! Who would have thought a bunch of tiny beads could be so engaging! I’ve finished about 15 bracelets…which means at least 30 because each one needed at least one do-over. I’m learning so much about the beads/stones, like where they come from and how they’ve been used in history. Here’s the book I’m using for reference:

The challenge of tying a knot in this elastic plastic beading string is tough with my old arthritic fingers! I discovered a wealth of ideas for bracelets to make from Facebook…just click on ONE ad for beads and in two days almost every post that scrolls by is trying to sell me beads and bracelets! Lots of good ideas in their pictures. I thought I’d share a few pictures of some of the bracelets I’ve made so you know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth…although I might be down a rabbit hole!

The little stand that Bert made for me is looking lovely so far:

After seeing all the beautiful bracelets online, I realized I don’t have the techniques down to take good pictures of mine. So, bear with me. I’ll need some advice from folks that sell stuff on eBay to show the colors properly. At any rate, I’m having fun and it keeps me out of trouble! Enjoy!

Amethyst, Rose Quartz and Black Tourmaline

Carnelian and Rose Quartz

Citrine and Carnelian

Malachite and Tiger Eye

Labradorite and Moonstone

Amethyst and Moonstone

Ok…that’s enough! As you can tell…the Amethyst doesn’t look very purple, the Labradorite doesn’t look very gray. At least the Tiger Eye does look brown! I’m getting better at tying the knots and hiding the knot inside a larger bead. If you have experience with this craft…I’d love to chat with you about your technique!