Vintage Page 1

2 x 1.25" (average)

I had a Really Happy Beadmaking Day in Sept. 1996, when a round patterned bead wasn't cooperating and I got pissy and tried to kill it with the Giant Mashers.  The mooshed-up result looked vaguely fish-like, so I stuck on eyes & mouth & fins & tail and the classic OhShit! Flatfish was born.  From that moment, whenever I'd notice I was 'Oh Shitting' while working a bead, out came the Mashers and the Finned Brigade added a new recruit. Some of the early fish had strange innards - flowers, trees, and faces.  Then I started making them deliberately, with patterns & spots, bulgy eyes, multicolored transparent fins/tails, and big red kissy lips.  Sometimes they go radioactive, and grow three eyes... I call these Nuclear Fission, and they look pretty cool strung (as they *should* be), with Uranium Glass hollow bubble beads.  Check the 'How Beads Are Made' page for a step-by-step on how these guys are made!

2.25 x 1.5" (average)

I was invited into a bead & jewelry exhibition at the Bullseye Gallery in Portland, and thought a Fish Necklace might look good.  "Flounder!" I thought... "Both eyes on the same side!  I'll make goofed up flounders, and they can look back at the customers!"  And this is the result...  crossed eyes, fat cheeks, stupid grins and not nearly as scary as the face a grouper is born with.  I made a couple like the flatfish, too, with eyes on both sides and fat poochy cheeks.  Don't have any individual pics of those, they sold way too fast, but I do have a good image of the necklace that went into the exhibit - you can find it in the Jewelry pages., and it has both Front-Goofs and Side-Goofs.  It's disgustingly cheerful.

1.25 x 1"    (more or less)

I'm not making the small catheads for individual sale any more - now they're getting hats, or bodies, or going into earrings and necklaces (they're on the site somewhere... go look!)   BUT........

I'm still making the larger heads!  They make nifty pendants, and are flattened on the back so they won't rotate.  The big ones are available in lots of colors, and stripes or spots can be done, too.   Eyes look up, down, left, right, and (my favorite) crossed.  Ears up, flattened, or half n' half.   Note: the more recent cats have larger muzzles and pointy ears - I'll plug in a new picture as soon as I make some more!

1.75 x.75"

Everyone calls this Cat In The Hat,  but it isn't - please note, Seuss lawyers!   The design evolved when I was making the 'Artists and Politicians Cats' series.  There's  Monet's Cat (blue with water lilies painted on the body); Mondrian's Cat (bright plaid body); Van Gogh's Cat (swirly stars on body, and one ear).  Then I made Lincoln's Cat, in a black stovepipe hat, and everybody started raising a ruckus because the hat didn't have bright decorations.   So now the hats come with stripes (shown), swirls, polka dots, spirals, and flowers, all in bright primary colors. Still trying to perfect checkerboards. And the cat heads come in black, gray, & gold, ivory, blue, whatever!  with green/blue/turquoise/lavender/gold eyes.   They make pretty cute pendants, eh?

1.75 x 1.5"

When I'm making a bead and it doesn't cooperate, I squash it and make a Flatfish (some of them have been pretty strange, flowers and trees inside!)   Then a black base bead went wonky and I tried a Flat Cat, and it turned out so well that I made the bead on the left.  The design has improved a bit since then.. the head is higher up, the tail curls up the back from a little white butt spot and the design flows better. Flat Cat can be made in any color you want -  the Black/white (shown), Gray/white, and Amber/white are nifty, and once I did 'Monet's Cat' in blue with water lilies.  And there are the optional decorations - spots, stripes, tongue, two little dots to make it male (you can just see one peeking around the back..)

2 x 2"     (size variable)

Disgustingly cheerful, eh? I had to come up with a design for a desert-themed exhibit, and Desert led to Heat led to Sun led to This, grinning yellow suns with orangey red rays. Teachers and nurses buy these at lot, wear them as Anti-Crankiness Amulets (it's hard to gripe at someone when they're wearing something that's looking back and grinning!)  The suns come with lots of different expressions, eye & mouth positions, and some are sticking out their tongues (just like the Actual Sun does - we can't see it cause it's too bright, but I watch Nova and they said that it's so!)   Nice new picture - pretty, dontchathink?

1.5 x 2"     (size variable)

So I was making a sun bead, humming the song, and my automated pun-generator spit out the name, and on impulse I slapped a snout on the bead, and history was made!   These have a pig face on the front and are flat on the back - but guaranteed, they'll rotate around and stick their noses in your Boobal Structure - they always do.  They're pigs, after all.  As usual, eye colors &  tongues are optional, and I could put a little curly tail on the back...   and if you want it Anatomically Correct, we could talk. 

2 x .75"

After I'd gotten enough practice with Beadmaking Basics and started figuring out sculptural techniques back in 1996, the cats (below) and these Beanies were the first designs I came up with that were MINE!  I'd been making beads for almost a year, trying to find my style, and I cleaned out a closet and found all the old sketches and doodles that I'd done when I was a kid, and there was a BeanieBoy head lookin' out at me!  The first ones were pretty bad (I've still got them), but they got better quick.  They're all 3-piece compound beads, with the body, head, and propeller separate - if I put them together with a little slack, the propeller twirls.  BeanieBoys come in lots of different color combinations, and they can hold most anything.... cats, teddy bears, bagels with lox/cream cheese (BoogieWoogie Bagel Boys!), bowling balls (Wholly Bowlers), lizards, frogs, cats, dogs, aliens, octopi, train engines, snakes, bugs, dolls, whatever!  In the 'BeanieBoy in Peril' series, there's one being chomped by a crocodile (Tourist Season).  And then there's my favorite - Beanie with beret, whiteface,  black & white striped shirt and a nice fat tire tread across his stomach......  because A Mime Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.     (insert snicker here)

2 x .75"

There are two types of BeanieGirls - the type that ends at the waist (like the BeanieBoys, $85) and then there's this kind, with a full body and little feet. This babe is barefoot, but can also be made with color coordinated shoes (don't expect straps and heels, I usually just shape a nice blob... check out the dressed up cows further on, to see the effect).   All the BeanieGirls can be made holding pretty much anything the boys do, and I make a mean rag-doll.   Literally.  Unlike the Cabbage Patch folks, I don't name 'em and give 'em a family history, cause I might get carried away & get bizarre, and we don't want THAT.....

2.5 x 1.75"

Thru the marvels of Genetic Engineering, I've managed to splice genes from a rare breed of South American tree frog (seen here artistically clasped to the chest) with those of the Beanie Boy Classic, thus allowing him to finally grow a set of pudgy little legs, just like a polliwog.  Actually, I was down in the Luxurious Studio making a bunch of the Frogs Formerly Known As Prince (further on in the catalog), all sitting on their fat little rumps with their legs sticking out, and I had what around here we call a 'DUHHH Moment'.  Like I could make legs for frogs, but not for Beanie Boys?  So I gave it a shot, and now the little boogers are nagging&whining for $400 light-up athletic shoes...    The frog this one is holding is lime with darker dots, and since I found that reallyyyyyy small dental tool, I'm able to give the critters a nice smile (which, after all, is what dental tools are for...)   Works good for little webbed feet, too!

9 x 1.75"

I did this one way back in 1997, when I was just starting out with sculptural beads.  I was making lots of BeanieBoys and everything was so cutesy and sweetness & light that I got this nasty hankering to kill off a few.  And that's how the Roadkill Series started, but that wasn't enough, so I made these.  Yup, after a hard day ridin' the computers at work, there was nothing like coming home, firing up the torch, and building cute little BeanieBoys that looked just like Roger the Boss, and then killing the little suckers off!   Back then the alligator body wasn't as good as this one;  just recently I got into another homicidal mood and upgraded all the bits below the head, and it's just nifty now, all sleek and hydro-dynamic! And when you flip him over, he has a yellow-dotted ridged belly and you can see the bottoms of his feet.  If you ever want to see it, I'll email you a picture!   

Note from 2004:  This body's not bad, but this is a REALLY old picture - if I ever make another, I'm gonna work on the tail, and make it look more like the Spike Bead (there's a picture of Spike in the Hot Off The Presses page... he's the Big Ivory one who looks like he's just gotten ... well, this *is* a family website, just look at his expression and you'll figure it out!)  

3 x 1.25"

This is a compound bead - multiple beads strung together to complete the design.   The elephant and platform are separate, and have been connected loosely enough that the elephant can rotate.  This is part of my 'In the Third Ring' circus necklace, which sold for so much that I'm embarrassed to write down the price here.  HOWEVER, there have been enough requests for the elephants that I'm now willing to make them separately.  There are two versions, the one pictured, and another with the elephant sitting on his butt on the platform with all four feet in the air.  It's just as cute as this one;  I'll get a picture the next time I make one.  The price is based on the necklace - I divided the cost by the number of primary beads, and got $185.  Can't lower it, or the lady who bought the necklace will lynch me.

2.5 x .75"

2.5 x 1.25"

Modeled after my cat, Nicky "The Meatball" Corleone,  these beads are doing what he does best...  Liberating munchies.  The fish are murrini chips, with yellow stripes and black eyes, and the one in the stomach looks worried (it should - stomach acid isn't much fun!)  These are compound beads, with separate heads, bodies, & rhinestone collars.  And they're anatomically correct, with white tips on the tails in back and little white butt spots firmly in place.  Everybody's female, cause this is a Classy Website.

2 x 1.5"

This isn't commonly known, but late at night when everybody's gone to sleep, the household cats unzip their fur suits, toss em on the white sofa, and romp around as they really are... Cats Out Of Hell.  This one was caught in the act and immortalized in glass, complete with crossed eyes, little horns, bellybutton, bushy black tail, and the traditional butt-spot. The bead hole runs vertically, so she can be worn as a pendant - but perhaps not to Church, unless your clergy have odd senses of humor?

(AW, QUITCHER BELLY ACHIN!)

7 x 1.75"

NAG, NAG, NAG... all I'm getting is grips from the Teeming Multitudes about discontinuing cootie bugs, and I have no clue why, because in my entire beadmaking life I've only sold *five* of the damfool things.  But The Public is apparently pissed,  so okay,  I'll make em again and bring them to shows, but they'd better find new homes!   So here's the Luxury Upgraded 2001 model, the new Deja Coot Sportster.  It comes standard with 6 arms nicely arrayed around a central chassis, with a new indented black-throat mouth, pink Corinthian Leather tongue optional (we're negotiating with Ricardo Montalban to do TV adverts);  the tail has been refitted for a sleeker aerodynamic look, and we've put the center set of hands to work, clutching a barfably cutesy little bouquet of lunch (cooties are the scourge of flower gardens, even putting the make on local snails...  imagine the offspring...)

1.5 x 1.5"

includes cow spot filler beads

And this is the sideways cow, with the bead hole running horizontally thru the chest and out the other end,  in the appropriate anatomically correct place.  She's been balanced to hang feet down, as all cows are, and has all the necessary cow parts.  Combined with round cow-spot filler beads and cylindrical udder beads and a couple green cuds, and you've got yourself an instant necklace! 

This is a copy of one of the beads in 'Bad To The Bone', a doggy-themed necklace that was shown in an exhibit of Contemporary Glass Beadmakers at the Rockwell Museum in Corning, NY in May, 1998 (there's a picture on the Jewelry page).  A number of fellow beadmakers advised me it would be tacky to send a dog watering a fire hydrant to a class act like the Rockwell, but it was all I had,  so I added some little brown poop filler beads and sent it off. The folks at the museum thought the filler beads were kibble, and the necklace made the local papers!   (insert 'neener, neener' here....)

2.5" x 2"

Can't you tell by the leer?  And you can also tell by the characteristic call that echoes across the swamp on nights of the full moon - "Needit!  Needit!"  These are tricky to make, the legs flop around when they're hot (don't they all?)  It's strung vertically, with the hole going from the top of the head, out the butt, and down thru the feet.  Your challenge is to string him without the bit below the belly looking... hmmm... how shall I say this?  masculine?  (snicker!)  He's lime with darker green transparent dots, and has the Standard Bellybutton (yeah, I know frogs don't have bellybuttons... he's a mutant.)