They have a very pretty entrance and the shop is really light and spacey. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to enter a bead shop but that never happens in the Tartaruga bead shop. The norwegian words for beads and bead shop are “perler” and “perlebutikk”, that sounds a bit cute to me, Swedish as I am.

Bead shops are amazing, sometimes I can just wander around in them for hours looking for pretty beads and accessories. They are like a magnet to us beaders, we can’t keep away from them even if we wanted to! Need new beads, need the rush you feel when you have when you realizes that your favorite bead shop just got a new shipping of beads!

Tartaruga has a lot of quality beads, don’t think I have seen anything else.The  glass beads are sorted by color of course and thery have lots to chose from. I’m in particularly a fan of their metal beads, they have both smaller ones and BIG metal beads which I haven’t seen anywhere else. You can make some dramatic designs with those! I found the beads from the Rhinestone Bead Necklace here, aren’t they fantastic?

So you could say that Tartaruga Bead shop in Oslo has everything any beader could ever need: A Great selection of glass beads, metal beads, fresh water pearls, gemstone beads, quality pliers and other beading supplies.

Tartaruga Bead Shop/ Perlebutikk

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Then I pictured in front of me how silver would look fantastic together with wood… Then and there I had it perfectly clear: What about that hollow sterling silver filigree bead and some small silver spacer beads together with a wood bead! Make that into a medium long necklace and here is what you get.

I can tell you that this necklace was so fun to do! Getting a bit bead crazy, just holding a big wood bead in your hand is pretty satisfactory when you’re a beadaholique like me! The beads were pretty big so the assembly was done in a jiffy Anyways, there are lots of wood beads to chose from if you want o make a wooden bead jewelry piece.

Natural Wooden Bead

Natural Wooden Bead

We have the natural wood bead in different sizes, like the ones in my necklace here. There you’ve got graduated wood beads in fact, 4 different sizes I think. You can do lots of stuff with that, graduated strands makes shape. So you should buy the same bead but in different sizes for that effect.

Colored Wooden Bead

Colored Wooden Bead

Then of course we have the colored wooden bead, they come in any color you want practically. There are hundreds of shades out there online and at local bead shops.

If you prefer to chose the exact nuance yourself there is a fun option for that. Buy the natural colored wood beads and paint them with craft paint. I would paint them and then let them all dry on a toothpick or something to keep the the color even. That’s also a perfect choice if you already have wood beads in colors you don’t like, just paint them in any color you want!

Printed Wooden Beads

Printed Wooden Bead

Last but not least we have the printed wood bead, they look so cute with the beautiful patterns made on them.
They can be very pretty to use in macrame knot work or strung and mixed with other colored beads. You can make some really cool but still natural looking jewelry with printed wooden beads.

Don’t be afraid to try all the cool wood beads out there, there is so much to chose from. I’m happy I tried them by making this necklace, and truth is you get more experience by using more new beads. So develop your beading and jewelry making.

Wooden Bead Necklace

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Speaking of that I can’t believe that 2009 is already over, and now we are in 2010. This rhinestone necklace was my closing design of 2009 by the way.

My designer year of 2010 has already started out very well, many necklaces has been finished during these few days!

A great news is that somehow I have found my way back to my best inspiration and pure joy of making jewelry! I’m having that feeling of freedom where I can make whatever I want. I guess those holidays with both fun and rest had a lot to do with it.

Everybody need to catch on to them selves once in a while. Sometimes life goes on like a train so fast that you can’t get on it. I finally cached mine, get on yours too.

Let my show you pictures of what these marvelous rhinestone beads look like.

Rhinestone Rounds

Rhinestone Rondelles

Rhinestone Squaredelle & Multiple strand rhinestone spacer

Look at them, aren’t these bead darlings sooo tasty!? You gotta love them…

My Rhinestone Beads Necklace

Now, here is one of  the necklaces I’ve made with my sparkling rhinestone bead treasures! As you can see I have used a huge rhinestone focal bead and then rhinestone rondelles in between the black beads. All the rhinestones in this necklace are white/crystal colored, but hey try the colored ones too! They’re great fun

The other round silver beads in the design are stardust sparkle beads. They are also so very beautiful. Fantastic beads for necklaces and bracelets, I use them all the time. It’s easy to find them in silver and gold but you can also get them in copper or gun metal.

Rhinestone Bead Necklace

Rhinestone Bead Focal

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After cleaning up in my bead stash and using my new organizers I’ve got a much better working space for beading and crafting!

When you have lots of supplies and beads, it easily gets crowded with all supplies… But won’t worry you just need some new organizers to help you out! Here I have gathered several good ideas on bead organizers.

I took the opportunity to replace old plastic zipper bags on beads and findings for new ones, they get ugly after using them over and over again. Removing all the old zipper bags was so worth it! All my “old” beads feels new and fresh again in brand new bags.

Get organized in your bead- and crafting by having your supplies in order with zipper bags and organizers. I’m getting new inspiration for my old beads, it’s amazing. And by the way, zipper bags are cheap, so replace the old ones to become more inspired in your jewelry making!

So the two craft and bead organizers are finally filled with the whole bead stash, that makes me so happy! At the same time I’m getting a lot of “why didn’t I do this earlier “-thoughts. But now at least I’ve done it. This will give me more piece and quiet to work with new jewelry designs and exciting beading techniques.

I’ve taken some before and after pictures! What do you think, has there been improvement?

Before

Before my bead organization

Old Beading table

After

After my bead organization

My new bead organizer

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With him he brought gifts! I can’t believe it. He told me he had bought a little something. So I was expecting a scarf or something. Then when he was back on saturday he have me a huge bag, and in the bag a box… Can you guess what that was? It was a Bamboo Pen Tablet! I’ve wanted a pen tablet for several years! So that was soo sweet of him…

Draw Designs with Bamboo

I tried it just last night, it was fun! You can draw and write just about what ever you want. With a Bamboo Touch & Pen Tablet you can even paint with various “regular” painting techniques like sketching, aquarelle and oil. I think I will digitalize my jewelry design drawing ideas. That will be so awesome! It will take less space, and with the colors I can make them more vivid.

Me trying out my new Bamboo Touch and Pen

One more Gift!

And as if this wasn’t enough he had another gift for me… A Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 lens for my camera which both me and him had checked out a long time ago! We had tried it and it seems really great.

As a review I can tell you that this lens takes fantastic pictures indoors and with bad lighting. That sounds too good to be true, but it really works! Taking good pictures of jewelry and beads in bad lighting has been difficult, but not anymore with my new Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8 lens.

I still can’t believe it, he got me both a fantastic Bamboo Pen Tablet and a Canon 50 mm lens… My darling, he is such a jewel!

This will improve so much for me! I’m so thankful I’m also looking forward taking some portrait pictures of people with the canon lens, it’s supposed to be really good with that too. It’s fun to take pictures of people, to see their expression and presence in the photo.

And drawing my new jewelry designs with the Bamboo Pen Tablet…oh don’t get me started on that because now it’s time for bed. Good night everyone! See you soon again..

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So right now I’m turning my bead stash upside down, trying to sort the beads by color, shape, material and etc. This is going to take a while I realized after a few hours with the beads…But it will be so worth it to be an organized beader!

There are many good bead storage solutions depending on your needs, because of my huge bead stash I went for bigger storage organizers with sections which you can put on the wall or on shelves. There are many great bead organizers, I will keep those too for smaller beads, findings and gemstones. Here are some examples of good and pretty bead storage solutions.

1. Bead organizer Tote Storage. Light storage bag to take your beading and crafts with you
2. Bead organizer Rolling Tote Storage. This one so perfect when you have lots of beads and tools to take with you somewhere!
3. Bead Storage 24 Compartment organizer. Super handy box to keep all kinds of beads and findings in.
4. Beaders Carousel Storage Organizer. Also so handy and looks great on your beading table!
5. Bead Organizer Big. This is the kind of storage organizer I used, it can contain a lot of beads, tools and findings.

Btw, I had an excellent weekend! On sunday I made pancakes for my husband and me while having a Strawberry Daiquiri… That was soo great! With the pancakes we had blueberry jam and vanilla ice cream, a tasty dessert as we know it! Although beads and beading are some of the most fantastic things in the world, don’t forget to enjoy yourself with your loved ones, we all need to spend some time together and care for one another.

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The butterfly barrettes can be placed to hold or decorate your hair anywhere in your hairstyle. When you wear them, they help you into a better mood. I’ve already worn the yellow and the turquoise butterflies and I felt So incredibly good those days! It’s fantastic how a little feather butterfly can do that to you. And especially us beading girls deserve to look good don’t we?

How to make the Butterfly Bobby Pins

• I used little feather butterflies with wire already attached to them, so it’s easy to wrap the top part of the barrette with the wire and place the butterfly on top of it.

• The trick is to wrap the butterfly close and tight to the barrettes, so that the wire disappears under the butterfly. You can use any barrettes with some space for wrapping the wire.

• On some of the barrettes I added glue between the butterfly and the wrapping to make it more steady.

Examples of butterflies you can use:

More of the feather butterflies I made!

There I am, wearing a Feather Butterfly...

Here is one of the smallest butterfly bobby pins I made, the metal is copper colored.

Yellow Feather Butterfly with silver barrette

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It’s so nice to see and touch the carvings in a cinnabar bead! Something that’s also amazing about cinnabar jewelry is that you can get the cinnabar beads in more colors than just this red one.

Although red is fantastic, there are some stunning cinnabar beads in blue, black, brown and even turquoise. You can make some super sweet cinnabar jewelry with those!

Here are some different cinnabar colors:

It’s exciting with the ancient feel about these beads, it’s like you dug them up your self from a treasure chest! Sometimes exclusive jewelry requires exclusive outfits but that’s not the case with cinnabar jewelry. It’s no problem to wear them with casual outfits, and that’s perfect if you love to accessorize yourself with jewelry everyday…

And here is my Cinnabar Necklace which I will be wearing any day I want! As you can see in this jewelry I have the cinnabar beads mixed up with black gemstone chips, czech round glass beads and even some black fire polished glass beads.

Cinnabar Beads Jewelry

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Ancient Cinnabar Beads

The most common use of cinnabar is in Chinese carved lacquer work. This technique originated from the Song Dynasty. The danger of mercury poisoning was reduced in ancient lacquerware by entraining the powdered pigment in lacquer, but if the pieces were accidentally destroyed the poison was released.

Nowdays the toxic pigment is replaced by a resin-based polymer that approximates the appearance of pigmented lacquer, which is totally safe!

Make your own Cinnabar beads with "Faux Surfaces in Polymer Clay"

Make Faux Cinnabar Beads

You can also make you own cinnabar beads and pendants with mixing the right colors of polymer clay. This is so fun!

I found a great cinnabar recipe on page 81 in Faux Surfaces In Polymer Clay. It truly looks like any cinnabar bead you bought in a shop. Anyway this book has some incredible polymer clay recipes for faux stones and other surfaces.

With the cinnabar beads I bought I will make some kind of necklace, the idea is not finished yet but in the process to be…

I’ve seen some really sweet cinnabar and turquoise bead combinations… And what about cinnabar and lava beads, that’s gotta be something! I’ll think about it…

Meanwhile here are some more photos of my bead shopping in London!

Coffe break with pies is a must when bead shopping...

...and of course we need a little bit of hugs!

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Lush shades of avocado green swirl through these beads, which are the of the color nephrite jade with more opacity. Think earth tones, and the combinations are endless in your jewelry making! What’s really great about African Jade is that it’s not enhanced. So it’s easier for you to make jewelry with these beads, because there’s no need to be afraid of ruining surface treatments or any dyed-in colors.

African Jade Bead

Green garnets like the African Jade are said to bring peace, pureness of thought, unobscured mental capacity, and creativity. True or not, I guess you can’t get enough of those things in your life!

My experience working with African Jade beads is that they genuine and colorful. Even if gemstones are “dead” materials, creating jewelry with them is fantastic and very different from working with manufactured beads. The variations in the beads gives a touch of individuality in the jewelry pieces.

Round African Jade Beads

For jewelry making the African Jade comes in these shapes:

• Round beads
• Graduated focal fans
• Coin beads
• Oval beads
• Squares
• Faceted nuggets

I made this African Jade beads jewelry yesterday. It’s a nice feel about a real heavy gemstone jewelry like this one. The celtic knots I have used in this necklace are very good connectors, it’s easy to attach beads and findings to them. African Jade beads fits lovely both silver and gold findings, I used silver for my necklace.

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