Texture beads revisited

So far, the weather here below the Emerald City has been pretty mild for winter time.  We had one snow episode that lasted not even a day before it melted away.  When I see what the rest of the country has had to endure weather wise, I realize how lucky I am to live where I do.  Sure, I do have to put up with SAD due to the almost constant greyness, but Vitamin D and light therapy has helped make it more bearable in the recent years.

   The one complaint I had about the snow day was that I got stuck at the hospital where I work overnight.  That would not have been so bad, but it was the day for sign up for Lori Anderson's Bead Shop Blog Hop.  We are not allowed to access things like blogs, FB etc, from work so I missed it.  No Bead Soup for me this year .... Whaaaa ....

I finally set foot in the studio again after several months of the blahs.  I revisited a tried and true method for me .... texture beads (a big thank you to Lydia Moseley from Diva Designs for the tut).  I experimented with different way to color and finish the beads and now it is time to share them with you. 

  This first picture is the overview of some of  the beads ... several coloring methods included.

 These beads where colored with Pan Pastel Chalks and then I used shoe polish to antique them.  I really like the gritty look they have.  What was great when I made these, was that I was getting over my cold, and still had a stuffy nose. I couldn't smell the polish!  I don't use polish as much as I would like, because of the smell.

 These were colored with Pan Pastels also, but I used Black Kato LC to finish. I love this stamp for creating texture (Cool Tools) 

These beads were also colored with Pan Pastel chalk.  I used black to highlight, and thought it would be too much to also use black LC, so I finished with clear Kato LC.

These beads were colored with acrylic paint and black LC used to antique.  The texture was really not deep enough to get good contrast, but this look can be nice too.

These two sets were colored with chalks.  I only colored the highlighted areas, which created more of a contrast with the black LC.

And lastly, beads that I highlighted with mica powders for the color.  I used both black and clear Kato Liquid Clay for the finishing.  The mica powders were applied before baking, and for the most part stayed on the beads.  If you look closely at the darker green beads, you can see that the powder did not stay put ... when applying the LC, it drifted down into the "valleys" and gave a bit of color there too. 

And, of course, it wouldn't be my blog unless I shared a pix of the cutest kitten in the world (just MHO, of course).  The Quinnitator is getting bigger by the day, and is swiftly taking over dominating the other Underfeet. 

I'm FINALLY tuckered out....think I'll rest a minute or two before attacking your toes again!