Winter blues … and silver • 01.30.10
With most of the nation facing severe cold weather this season, the southeastern US is no except
ion. We’ve had to endure ice and snow and cold temperatures that are very unusual indeed. What better way to shake off the winter blues than creating a few flowers.
I decided on two flowers using an off-white floss spun with silver and embellished with silver wire and beads, and added a light blue flower with some silver accents. I thought it made a nice winter bouquet. Here’s a photo of the finished piece.
I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Ganutell flowers offer unlimited opportunities to be creative and expressive. This is just one more example.
I’ve had lots of requests for some basic instruction in this art form, as well as the bead and wire flowers, and I’m currently working on a new e-book. Be sure to register for my newsletter, as I’ll be emailing an announcement when it’s available.
In the meantime, stay warm, and bead something pretty!
Inspired by wire …… • 10.25.09
An exciting aspect of Ganutell as a craft is the endless opportunities to be creative. There are many colors and types of floss and wires, and the number of beads and embellishments available can be overwhelming. Then there are the different shapes of petals we can create, and the many ways they can be assembled.
I admit it …. more than any other craft, I find myself thinking ‘out of the box’ most often with Ganutell.
A while ago, while rummaging through my stash of copper wire, enjoying the lovely shine and beautiful colors, I was inspired to try a Ganutell flower made just from wire. No floss and prepared thread for this one, just some beads and wire. I chose the color because purple’s my favorite, and found that 28 gauge wire works best for the petals, with the usual 24 gauge for the stem. It took a short while to become accustomed to wrapping the wire, but frankly my experience in doing French beaded flowers was a great help with this. I added beads for some extra bling and to allow for a little larger petal size, then chose gold colored wire for the leaves to make the final piece extra special.
This one proved to be a winner, and sold immediately.
Which reminds me …. crafters often ask how they can sell their work, so I thought I’d share my experiences in shows, retail sales and online selling, in some upcoming posts. I hope you’ll visit often!
Ganutell Rocks !!! • 10.17.09
Forgive my play on words. Actually, Ganutell DOES rock, but the reference is to a cute little mount I’ve been using for Ganutell flowers.
While I love the traditional look of Ganutell florals, I also like to find ways to display my work that are more casual or contemporary. Here’s a quick and easy way to mount a flower to a river rock. You can find bags of these in most craft stores.
Choose a rock shape that appeals to you, but be certain it has a flat bottom so it will balance well. Take the l
ower inch or so of your flower stem and make a spiral, then bend it at a 90 degree angle, giving your flower a ‘seat’. Glue this spiral to your rock, using a strong glass or mosaic glue, as the surface of the rock is smooth. E600 glue works well for me. While the glue is curing, you’ll need to hold the flower in place. I sometimes place the rock/flower in a small glass and balance clothespins that are attached to the flower to hold it, or use the wonderful ‘third hand’ clips.
When the glue has cured, and your flower is well adhered to the rock, use some moss to cover the base of the flower. Most floral departments in craft stores have a nice assortment of mosses. Any simple white glue will work for this, and it will dry quickly and clear.
This is a great inexpensive little hostess gift, or teacher gift, or whatever you need it to be. I hope you’ll try this mount, and let me know how it works for you!
Ganutell news! • 10.10.09
Life gets in the way, right?
I had to take a brief hiatus from blog posting and focus on work and life issues … not nearly as much fun, but there it is. Happens to all of us, right?
The good news is that being away from it has given me an opportunity to review and regroup — to think about what direction I want to take next. I love to learn new arts and crafts. Can’t help it; when I see something pretty I often want to learn how to make it. I’ve done most crafts at one time or another, and enjoy just about all of them.
Thing is, I keep returning to bead and wire flowers, specifically Ganutell. These delicate little flowers are fun to make, offering lots of opportunities to be creative. They’re unique, and people love them, and I think I’m quite obsessed with making them.
So there’s my new focus. I’m looking forward to sharing lots of information on how to make these lovely flowers, resources to purchase the hard-to-find tools and supplies, and interesting ways to embellish them. I’ll even give you some new ideas on how to use your work in projects.
I’m looking forward to sharing Ganutell with you, so visit often!
Beaded Flowers – what do they mean???? • 07.07.09
All flowers have traditional meanings, and beaded flowers are no different. The next time you want to create a beaded flower gift, or you receive one, you might want to consider the meaning behind that beautiful blossom!
A bouquet of withered flowers means rejected love, but with beaded flowers this can’t happen — they’re everlasting!
Ganutell rose
Roses are likely the most popular of all flowers. A red rose means love and respect, also courage and a job well done. The yellow rose represents joy and friendship, but can mean jealousy, too. Put a red and yellow rose together, and the meaning is congratulations. Enhance your arrangement with baby’s breath — it means happiness.
French beaded carnation
Carnations are very popular as a beaded flower — a white one stands for pure love, sweet love and innocence, while the yellow carnation means disdain and rejection. We all know the four-leaf clover is a symbol of good luck. Did you know there’s a five-leaf clover? It symbolizes bad luck.
The forget-me-not appropriately means faithful love and memories, and the gardenia says “I love you in secret”. At the holidays, mistletoe is the symbol of affection and love, no surprise there! The poinsettia means “be of good cheer”.
A red tulip is a declaration of love, and the variegated tulip stands for beautiful eyes. A violet is the symbol of modesty and simplicity, while wisteria means youth and poetry.
So the next time you want to choose a beaded flower to create as a gift, consider it’s meaning. Then bead something pretty that has a message as well!
The beaded flower workspace – part 2 • 05.26.09
I recently posted about workspace, with some tips and tricks for making your beaded flower workspace easier and more efficient to work in. Now I’d like to talk about setting up a workspace that will help us work more safely. These are things I’ve read about for many years, but it wasn’t until the past year or so that I began to take it all seriously, realizing how important some of these things may be in our crafting experience. Well, actually, it was because I started to hurt! I should have been more aware, and began to suffer chronic back and neck pain.
There are ways to avoid or lessen these problems, though, that are pretty easy to do. First, good posture is essential, so be sure to sit straight without hunching over, and sit fully on your chair. Sit with your feet flat on the floor, and keep your arms and wrists relaxed in a neutral position. A great aid to good posture is using an appropriate chair. I found an office chair a few years ago that adjusts up and down and is very comfortable for me.
I’ve also found it helpful to take frequent breaks, every 30 minutes or so, to walk and stretch. I often find my muscles getting tense, and doing a few stretches usually alleviates this tension.
Creating French beaded flowers and Ganutell does not require a lot of tools, but those you do need are available in different versions. Look for a size and shape that fits your hand and is comfortable to work with. Try the new ergonomic versions … they’re really helpful in reducing the stress of working with your hands.
Good lighting is critical to avoiding eye strain, and I often use a magnifier as well. There are some excellent lamps available …. The photo at the right is an Ott light that I love to use. It has a Truecolor bulb so I see the exact colors I’m using, and I can direct the light onto my work. Click on the photo to view detailed information on this lamp.
Lastly, have your workstation set and ready for use. While this may not be an aid to health and safety, it surely keeps the frustration level down when I don’t have to interrupt my work to go find another tool or supplies.
Beaders in general, not just those of us working with French beaded flowers and Ganutell, are prone to repetitive strain injuries as well as other back, neck and vision problems, so it’s important that we’re conscious of the causes. Take a good look at your workspace and see of there’s something there that needs attention. Then sit down and bead something pretty!
French beaded flower … Ganutell. So what’s the difference? • 05.20.09
Let me tell you about the differences between flowers made in these two wonderful crafts by first talking about how they are most similar – that is in the process of creating them. They are both made by wrapping around a central wire stem. They are both made with individual petals assembled into a flower. And there the similarity ends.
If you have seen examples of beaded flowers and Ganutell, I’m sure you noticed quite a difference indeed. The obvious, of course, is that they are made from different materials. In this photo, the French beaded flower, on the left, is made from small glass beads strung on a wire. This flower is more substantial and quite a bit larger in size than a Ganutell flower. The bigger beaded petals can be laced with a fine wire to give them even more strength, and the largest of these flowers can then be five or six inches across without losing it’s shape. 
French beaded flowers are used in wedding bouquets, decorative floral arrangements, jewelry …. they have endless possibilities, except that all those beads make for lots of weight.
French beaded flowers are used in wedding bouquets, decorative floral arrangements, jewelry …. they have endless possibilities, except that all those beads make for lots of weight.The Ganutell flower on the right is made from rayon floss and a fine copper wire spun together to make somewhat stiff thread. This material has enough body to hold a shape well in a petal, but only to less than an inch in width. As you can see in the photo, even after assembling a good number of these petals together, the resulting flower is still quite light and delicate. That’s the charm of flowers made in the craft. Ganutell flowers also provide great opportunity for embellishment with beads and wires that are corrugated and spiralled. These flowers are used for decoration in wreaths, sprays, and framed arrangements.
Both these crafts are centuries old and often ornate in style. Today’s crafters, however, are creating lighter and more whimsical beaded flowers and Ganutell florals, making good use of the huge variety of new materials. Imagine with me — wouldn’t it be interesting to combine the best of both these crafts for a contemporary fusion of styles?
Stay tuned ………
When you lose your muse • 05.18.09
The encyclopedia describes a muse as coming from Greek mythology and meaning a goddess or spirit who inspires creation. In contemporary times, though, a muse can be just about anything from another person to an object; we are all inspired by many things.
For me, inspiration for a new Ganutell blossom or French beaded flower comes from everywhere … I can be inspired by a new color combination, or a flower blooming, or simply shopping for beads. It can be anything, anywhere, that strikes my fancy and sends me to my workspace. Sometimes I have no idea what inspires me to create a beaded flower; suddenly I can see it in my head and am motivated to create. This happens a lot when I wake in the early morning hours — not my favorite inspirational moment, for sure.
Then there are times when nothing comes to mind …. my creativity dries up like the desert …. and I find myself frustrated and disappointed. I’ll start a project, only to decide I don’t like it. Putting it down, I’ll start another and give that up as well. Aaaaarrrrgghhhhhh!!!
I’ve found there is really no way to avoid these times, but to simply wait them out. Often I won’t work on beaded flowers for days, but stay out of my studio and find other things to distract me and fill the time. Creating Ganutell and French beaded flowers is my passion …. perhaps I need to take time to refresh and regroup. It’s always my experience that suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, I envision that new piece and become excited with the prospect of making it. Glorious moment, that.
I don’t think there’s anything unusual in this experience, and that everyone goes through similar frustration. Let me invite you to respond to this post …. leave a comment and tell us what you do when you lose your muse.
A Lovely French Beaded Flower Book • 05.15.09
Anyone who works with beads has a bead stash, and mine rivals the best of them. I probably have enough beads to make beaded flowers and Ganutell well into the next decade without buying another bead. Not that I won’t buy more, of course. I also have a beading book stash. I love beading books, and I have bought most of the books available on French beaded flowers. I’d have a considerable collection of books on Ganutell, too, but there’s only a few of them in existence.
As time permits, I want to tell you about some of these books, and today’s post is about my most recent purchase, 
“Beads in Bloom, the art of making French beaded flowers” by Arlene Baker. At first glance, I wasn’t sure about this book. It seemed it might be only for beginning beaders, but I’m so very glad I ordered it. “Beads in Bloom” is a beautifully illustrated softcover book that has it all. The author tells us about supplies, general information and techniques, then gives us some really unique patterns to try.
The section on Things to Know includes some neat tips on making beaded flowers, such as using old fashioned hair clips as an extra pair of hands. The section on Fundamental Techniques is just that. Well illustrated, this section takes us through the basic techniques in a very clear manner; a beginner should have no problem learning here.
In Flower Assembly we learn how to put it all together, including shading
and coloring techniques, as well as how to shape the petals with wonderful finishing touches. We’re given a beautiful Gallery of finished beadwork, then several Projects that are quite well written with easy-to-follow instructions. My first post to this blog includes a photograph of a rose pin that I did following a pattern from this book. Here’s a close-up photo of that piece.
“Beads in Bloom” indeed has it all. Being long on instruction and short on projects, the main focus seems to be for beginners, but there’s plenty in this book to interest and inspire beaders from beginner to advanced, and it remains one of my favorite beaded flower books.
At the time of writing “Beads In Bloom” is available at Amazon at about 30% off normal price. Click here for details.
