Facebook Live Artist Spotlight: Licia Ramos

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Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
hi everyone thank you so much for joining us today at beadaholique I'm Julie and I have with me a very special guest this is Lisa Ramos and she has an incredible bead embroidery artist so we wanted to share her talent with you and so she's brought a lot of wonderful pieces here to show us and she's gonna talk about what inspires her what got her started how to you know come up with ideas and how to sell your jewelry a whole bunch of different topics we're gonna touch on and we are also joined by another very special guest we have Sara diamonds our co-founder here at beadaholique with us sharing some thoughts with Leisha as well and Kat is here too but she's behind the camera today so as you're asking those questions which we want you to do please ask questions we'll try to answer them live but it's gonna be Kat today who's gonna be helping you with those so let's go ahead and first start by looking at some of these wonderful pieces that lisa has created now she is a bead embroidery artist so if we want to take a look over here we're just gonna do a quick pan so you can start to see some of these pieces and we'll come back and look at them in more detail in just a little bit but I want to show you some of this incredible artistry just the detail and the fine work that Leisha has done it's beautiful stuff Alicia thank you so Lisa how did you get started with this this is all very beautiful you take a look over here Julie there's a picture of an opera singer my mother Rosa she was a New York City Center opera singer a soprano in the 1930s to about 1960s where beautiful costumes I was exposed to she made them all herself costuming and adornment plus my great-grandmother and grandmother were threat artists from Italy so I learned that they're nice I'd a number of embroidery techniques and I incorporate a lot of their pieces in my material and recycle had pins oh how nice I recycle a lot of old buttons you'll see very small ones and some of pieces can you show us a button yeah I'll show you some of the buttons here these are a number of the buttons now where these buttons from these buttons probably were manufactured in Germany maybe in the 1930s Wow these are buttons oh these are glass or these are glass and they may have had a shank broken on them these were her buttons these are Czech glass so let's take a look at these there so the typical button that you might remember the 2 hole button and a 2 hole button these are all her buttons which I made into a little cuff these were her vintage buttons from the 1950s she was a serious button collector and it has a little button clasp this piece has some of my great-grandfather my grandfather actually cufflinks you can want to see them here and they would take the back so often use them so you see the little metal components yeah this bib so I love that you're incorporating these older elements it really makes them this things I think I mentioned but I would like to highlight it again it's a hat pen the happen was broken up is bakelite and this would have been the bottom and had a pin in it was broken and I used a little painting of a Klimt drawing I had and Ivy purposed it into a little portrait using my grandma's have gorgeous is that a is it a brooch or this is just a little portrait and I keep it on a little tiny easel and I have it next to some larger menthos as I mentioned my grandparents were collectors Victorian collectors and they had many many beautiful objects my grandmother would have been on the Titanic she would go back and forth to Europe so I found many beads hat pins buttons cuff links and other adornment items in my 1860 home that I grew up in so I was surrounded by beautiful little objects used for decorative purposes and costuming and many of those are incorporated here here's a cameo from my grandma that was probably broken from a bezel that I'll figure out how to use in a finished piece and you were showing us earlier a great little you have about how you're able to incorporate some of these vintage elements that maybe have a more dimensional back or hollow back you're telling us how you were able to work them into these pieces and what was your what was your trick well you have the product here at Butte a holy Christian satu part clay so you need to fast and on the back of an uneven button this happened to have been a pendant made out of a shell let it harden and now you have a flat base with which to then attach to your backing I see you also have Lacy's stiff stuff so typically I would now attach this with some holding a 6000 glue that's another one of your products and then start my pallet of bead design this is an example of a very crooked uneven doughnut shell so I only have to use a little bit of the epoxy that's quick these are brass stampings these are reproduced from I believe 1920s or thirty molds they can be purchased I think you have some it being a Holly but also using the epoxy clay two-part to make the strong backing that allows you now one thing I will mention about the two-part epoxy which is great is you don't have to bake it so it is an air dry clay you mix it up which is great because you wouldn't want to necessarily bake an old vintage piece you want to be able to have it just air hardened so I think that's a great tip to be able to use some of these irregular shaped objects so what are some of the other techniques you've used in your pieces we started to talk about materials a tip i have for lacy stiff stuff which is the best I mean it's not felt it's a polyester bound materials I dip it in teeth and then I have a nice light brown color oh well I buy another product from Nicole's backing she's online sells at Etsy comes in colors or I dye it myself with a easy rich dye because I do want the backing not to show through the bright white of any of my pieces that's one tip another tip is what do you use on the back I'd like the back of my piece to look as good as the front so I want the color of either suede or ultra suede you have this pattern here and I've used this material which I believe is one of your products on the back this piece it's just a different pattern that's very lightweight that's the lillypilly patterned ultra suede yes yes that's what it is and it's worth it to get it gorgeous again with this piece of artwork you want to have the whole piece lightweight so your choice of materials and you'll notice in this piece this is heavy your leather this is not ultra suede that's quite sturdy yeah this is a little portrait I have and I make beat embroidery pictures for people of a baby picture they have or a favorite button like a belt buckle and then you could just put in on a little easel so this would require a stronger backing which is a scrap of leather I had versus the ultra suede so that the piece is more comfortable to wear all my pieces are designed to be very lightweight even a substantial piece that is really light and that's that's some painted show this is gorgeous so how would you go about designing this so do you start with the centerpiece how do you come up with like it well our palate and your design choices well that's a great question that's one of my favorite what are these beads like you are using so each piece is different let's talk about maybe these three four okay my husband is a miniature artist and because I spend so much time beating he would get a little resentful audience may know that so I in encouraged him to sculpt some feature pieces for me which are the center pieces I have four here today one this is a Medusa that he hand sculpted and handed to moons and this piece and Art Nouveau gal I like the period of art jewelry from probably the late 1800s Victorian through about our deco so what it what did he sculpt they uses sculpey okay may or may not make a mold this is made with a mold after a mold allows you to reproduce the piece but I only want one of a kind so typically it's one piece sculpted these are a little bit more my pricier pieces and he also did the snakes on the Medusa once I take the feature piece and I decide what I want he and I discussed the color my criteria is keep it simple I've seen a lot of beautiful bead embroidery tends to go overboard it looks a little confusing chaotic three to five colors and different values and tints mostly the muted goldtone renaissance color palettes or what i like now here's one that's a monotone color we want to look over at the moon and I've kept it all in the various values intensive auth whites and beiges by the way my grandmother's buttons are all surrounding that moon they're called bullet buttons and they would have been fastened on her children's linen undergarments in the nineteen hundred's so those are 1900 buttons thrown in there what was I gonna do with them they turned out to be a very nice circular bead enhancing the moon well becomes really an heirloom piece right so many people who stopped by my booth or whenever I'm at a show or an exhibit I've done a few galleries I was fortunate to be in Tucson Arizona doing a show and people want to have their pieces incorporated so I do do some workshops and I have some handouts and instructions and with the technique of adding the clay to the back and learning the basic three stitches for bead embroidery are the back stitch which is a simple stitch the brick stitch and maybe a stack stitch so those are three stitches there in the back of most of the beaten button journals that you can get or any bead magazine shows those three you can add more stitches and go into peyote and some other more complex off little weave stitches but if you want to start something very simple just take a look at this end piece and pretty much anyone can learn the back stitch and the stack stitch and the brick stitch and about a two-hour session and we do have videos actually on all of those stitches at beadaholique.com and on our youtube channel as well so people can learn it from video format if they like us well I'd like to plug that that yes actually can we rewind a little about right ahead one of the reasons I'm here in on this instead of cat is that Leisha and I have known each other for 20 years twenty years we used to work together in a whole nother industry and the funny thing was I was at that time a dabbler in beads I could barely string three beads together and Leisha was also a beater and she came in my office one day and dropped some copies of bead and button I believe it was beet stream on my desk and I was flabbergasted that there were actually publications and that this was the thing I'm quite naive and I can safely say that Lee should changed my life and I would not be here and having founded b2 Halik if it wasn't for Alisha tossing those magazines on my desk one day you're too kind and then so then years later I called her up and she came in in a technical capacity to advisor and some business operations and then what happened then I took off because I was still doing primarily a little off loom work bead stringing and I'd always been in cabochon beating there was a lovely designer here who gave me some sample cabochons Andrea Andrea and a book by Jamie ikan I believe it's called cabochon beading and I started to teach myself from the book and the inspiration of being around Sara and her design team and I would come in and do some of the other technical work and be re-inspired and now there's this fabulous Enterprise that blows me away I do want to mention to your audience and to reiterate what Julie said the instructional videos on beadaholique are probably the best online I have many of them all of these techniques that I use are in various instructional videos here you just got a Google that beautiful aspect of the website sit down you'll hear Julie's voice you could pick up some of these materials and pretty much there's no technique here that you won't see on one of those videos so I want to plug that because I did learn myself and this is a piece that I was going to say the bezel I did peyote bezel and I did not do back stitch on this piece this is shibori which is the using of silk to incorporate would be embroidery to make a cuff and OH guess what there we go back and again one of the lily products you may Louise lillypilly and this is nice because it's a cuff and if it's very easily around so so this is the silk right here did you do it yourself no I didn't this one I bought this one I redid okay you can see it's simple I've actually these are my old grandma scores I'm gonna dye and bleach you plead it and then twist it and then shibori is a whole nother technique that could be for another topic and artists but I like shibori I've done some soot ash I don't have any soot ash pieces here I use my grandma's ribbons that's another technique on your videos that can go very well with bead embroidery so bead embroidery is to me the most complex of the bead skills because they're requires a lot more creativity in working with your pallet and you're not doing the same stitch over and over again you've really got to stop start think about your pallet put it down I probably spend three to four hours at the most at a piece that I need time to break this piece is that I'm wearing is about 70 hours of work Wow look I see a little bit I see a vintage piece here guess who referred me to Vint I that could have been I don't know unless you spent hours orienting me to some metals and findings that I was not aware I'm seeing Chris just lady carnelian turquoise stick pearls glass let me plug Jaime ikan again she's got a book on how to design tassels and how to design fringe for those of you who do want to do fringe work or tassel work those books they're wonderful and they really teach you how to do a little bit more of the complex worker here if I can mention any more materials I'd like to talk about German glass these are available I don't know if you have them but a lot of these cups your German glass they look like opals we have we did get hold of some German glass I mean it is a vintage material and it's limited it's not something you can find new materials of and when we find it we do get it in and you could do a search on our website for German glass I'm not sure what what has is left everything well one of my tips is and I'm sure many of your customers and our audience today would know that when you go to flea markets or estate sales or garage since you'll find broken jewelry in them you may find some components that you can then repurpose into some of these types of pieces absolutely and we didn't have a question Katz gonna let us know okay so the question is Joe is asking if Leisha has ever tried to make a belt using these techniques and some of these pieces I have I have refurbished other materials on an existing belt and added to it so yes I guess I have so most of them are stretched belts I've made a few hair ties I've made compacts I don't know if you sell these that beat AHA League but this is basically glued on the backing but I still did all the bead embroidery for it using those vintage buttons we talked about earlier II so you could kind of make a bead embroidery piece and glue it onto quite a lot of different things like that vanilla a hair barrette say or if you had a simple brooch backing maybe your first effort was a small circle and you know well the brass cups I believe you sell some of the brass cups yeah therefore yes so they come in different widths these are probably purchased from alcohol a there's a here's a bit wide in between so here's the beadwork you'd never know and then the back is the leather glued on to the cuff which is sandwiched between the beadwork and the leather outer backing so this is called the foundation the beadwork and then the outer backing this is a thinner cuff this is a collar same idea but this was a collar that I had this one here this one here that one this one is a collar sandwich and this was just a plain metal collar used to wear in the 1980s before I knew I don't think I was born this was Challen ear this is a more of a geometric or Deco pattern and I do use those German glass and here they are again fortunately I'm from New York City - so all I buy materials from old warehouses this is a choker I love the colors on this yeah here's that brass again which I put the clip of foundation my grandmother's little bits of coral I'm an Italian gal so we use coral a lot or in this is both of the button that's the button yeah there's a probably 1930 Czech glass Jan there's a contemporary crystal yeah and I like to use glass seed bead size eight I do use Toho bead size 11 is that an 8 or 6 that's an 8 and then okay and you know that beads even they're from different manufacturers same size may be a little different I have a nice assortment a beautiful assortment which I look at somebody here remembered my birthday somebody gave me a birthday gift of delicas probably a hundred in a little case so I use my palette you know I'm gonna check one quick yeah I should we have another question okay the question is how long does it take to create all these gorgeous pieces well if you look at them they're not easy to assemble because it takes me maybe years to collect the elements for example I had collected this piece of agate in German glass maybe about four years ago about seven years ago I had gone to France and bought this fixture which would have been on a belt buckle I found a button shop in an old flea market so I hold held on to the piece pieces maybe it takes me two three years to have the mosaic the actual design probably I could spend between four to ten hours and laying out a pallet I enjoy that I enjoy playing with colors touching the beads laying them out and then the actual construction could vary depending on the size of the piece this is about a 15 hour piece here's about us what did I get 17 and then this piece might be a six hour piece okay so it depends on obviously the size of the piece can we talk about this piece over here sure I love that piece that's an interesting piece you talked about yes first of all can you tell me what's going on here this piece is a company to companies yeah I love Russian artwork many of you have maybe travel to Russia I have and this is a hand-painted shell from a Russian artist these are German glass cabs these are my grandmother's buttons and these are a combination a more contemporary and quartz tones I entered a contest of bead and button about the value of light Margie Deeb is a famous author and I'm later I love her books about the color they're very good if you're worried about use of color and your work and I'm not that great at it actually I just love her books that to show you examples show you how to use color how to combine color I believe she has three books out now and again if anyone's struggling with color and selection get one of those books Margie Deeb de Bie oh yeah she's probably on every Amazon and she had she had a contest in Bude and button to describe how you work with color because she writes little articles I submitted this piece and this piece was done to support my colleagues and friends who've had cancer like I I'm a cancer survivor pink as you know is the color for breast cancer I did this at the Cancer Support Community here in Pasadena California where I'm inspired to work with women who and men who are diagnosed in treatment or recovering and I teach some basics of beading and sometimes cabochon beading I noticed a difference in their energies and the healing quality and the uplifting that they have when they touch different colors and this was an example of working with pink and how it elevates you a little bit especially if you're suffering with that so I wrote an essay on it submitted to beat a button and I want a contest and I won most of the components in this piece Wow and I made a piece out of this so I teach quarterly at the Cancer Support Community it's a not-for-profit we're and it's in Pasadena California and it's located in the Humane Society so it's a combination of people who are getting healing with animals and people are getting healing with cancer and beating is one of these cats there there's so many cats there and I don't think Sara needs another cat cat so that was a very special piece I feature it quite a bit at my shows and I promote fundraising for the cancer support community as a result of that and you see pink and my brand title and oh this is a very nice we weren't talking with Leisha about the necessity to brand yourself as an artist if you're well if you're publicizing yourself or if you're selling and you made this for your show well I had a friend who worked for Andy Warhol's so what I decided to and for many people turning your hobby into a business is a big decision many of us do beautiful beadwork but to start to sell it and market it handle the financial aspect determine what the best venue is is a challenge so you need to really do a close self-assessment once you was self assess and said gee I'm good at a lot of these things which I felt I had some skills I've been in business for 35 years 15 years before I met you I thought I had enough of the elements to do that and then I looked at my team of nobody I'm by myself so I looked at all my friends family members whoever had skills as I said my husband a sculptor collectors from my family my girlfriend who was a graphic artist for Andy Warhol she did all my signs and branding I wanted to mention something else since we've been talking about selling as packaging is important yeah that's something I think I do that is actually an again it's more of an heirloom personal I you know I'm gonna stretch actually I think caps gonna come out less behind this yeah I don't want to pull on any wires because you do sell your jewelry I do sell my jewelry this is a just a display case my husband's also a woodworker you want to close it it's a carrying case in the display case all my cases and all my pieces are designed with wood I have my logo in my case and then I wanted a point too so when you display your jewelry especially if you're going to show you to think about that there's many wonderful tips there's books on marketing selling displaying but you need to think it through because your jewelry is gonna be competing with many other artists who do lovely work but your display is a draw absolute and I had the good fortune of actually seeing your display and getting to talk with you a bit at one of your shows in Pasadena and it was great it was wonderful to see you all set up and be there talking to your customers and I know I got a little bit of time with you or busy chatting but it is so important to display your pieces properly and we've talked about this also finding the right fit for your jewelry and your new there's a difference in the types of shows you know you can do everything from you know a craft bazaar to a flea market to a juried show to an art gallery there's such a wide range of selling opportunities to shows out there and I think it's really important to find the one that's a right fit well Julie you help me with that because you and I discuss this there are are you gonna sell online and compete with Etsy eBay and people sellin components like betta Halik that'll make their own jewelry with all the instructional are you gonna go to a gallery and they're gonna take a person are you gonna do a pop-up shop where are you gonna go with this material of home boutique Julie said well cuz she knew me you've got a personality and a sales style that might work with shows stay with it and I took your advice and so far I'm breaking even let's say and I can keep my hobby alive aren't you going to a show B gonna be in a show quite soon yes I have another friend who's a musician I mentioned my family being my father pianist my mother an opera singer well I know it shelest from the LA Philharmonic who does jewelry making and her husband's a bassist and it's very fancy we're gonna open that show for one day on Robertson Boulevard very fancy Beverly Hills actually not that fancy there's actually a a little pop-up shop you know like a Halloween shop is a pop-up shop for one day we'll be there December 2nd so people will be able to come to we will post Oh we'll post the details thank you so much but so people will be able to come on December the 2nd into Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills and they will be able to see leashes work in person you'll be able to purchase her work you can chat to her about her work and and you have your two colleagues got their own display their fascination I have about 70 pieces I got tips from a sales agent who helped me design not just the pieces but the sales points the price points my piece is starting from about 45 that go up to about $2,000 so you can buy gift items I have smaller items I brought some of the larger pieces here just to display for the purposes of showing materials and design technique but I have some very small demure pieces working with metals and metals any D al not metals so and small pieces that might be only as large as this that are cabochon beading that are unique also buttons so if you're interested current clients that collect from me will travel buy something will bring something to me and then I do do some custom work for those who collected I wanted to mention packaging and maybe pull this over if we could these are a little unique there's many ways to do packaging and I think a number of jewelry designers who sell but I had my grandmother's vintage napkins I lived in a nineteen room house a Victorian home can you imagine stuffed with things these were my grandmother's linens she did all this tatting look at this beautiful teddy this is a butterfly even either way well with a certain price point I'll include the beadwork it protects it so I made the pie outside of the old napkin and then just attached my grandmother's linen so that it's a special giveaway gift with certain pieces so I wrapped the jewelry I packaged it you get a little statement piece and that makes it even a little more personal because grandma had hundreds of these she had a large household and I'm able to repurpose her things that she would enjoy you know how much of your your personal possessions some of you may actually have linens and little meta gas scars they're called from your families use them I mean even if I mean I love the idea that yours are heirloom this is heirlooms to wrap heirlooms thank you but even if you don't have old napkins it is a nice idea to think that if you can if you have a little skill with the needle or even with the iron-on you could really make some unique bags out of just some regular napkins or some inexpensive cloth that you could get that way and and make your own no no one will have the packaging that you have and that really I would imagine is you know it's the whole package you've got these lovely pieces and then you're not just putting them in a plastic bag you're putting them in a beautifully protected package it adds to it I think that's a really nice area yes for someone who's thinking about you know selling their jewelry or thinking about giving gifts is to try to add that little extra touch I mean if you went to Tiffany's are they gonna throw your diamond ring in a paper sack you know it's a matter of respecting the work that you've done and showing your buyers that this is is something valuable and there's a personal connection in a lot of people how could you sell your grandma's things well we have I had hundreds of my Krampus things at my great-grand mean what would we do with all those are sitting in old chests yeah now they gonna be enjoyed by a whole nother group of people exactly so that's hopefully a helpful tip here's what you have and we do have another question Nicole I Nicole how do you decide how much you want to price each piece each piece for okay so the question is from Nicole hi Nicole how do you decide how much you want to price peace for how do you come up with your pricing that's a great question I thought a lot about that one is you know I studied other people selling before I started selling and I always go to designers that did one-of-a-kind art where pieces and got a sense of what their price points were based on similar work there are a couple of bead embroidery artists in loose in Los Angeles that do something akin to my work so I took a look at their pieces at shows and got an idea so that would be what I call price to market what is the market bearing I noticed that that same artist didn't sell much that day I saw her again at another show she saw very little again and she was frustrated so I knew her price points were not to market I had a friend who worked for a number of boutiques actually owned a boutique on her own and got her advice she said you need different price points so that's one thing price to market and varying price points the second tip that I learned was what am i spending for materials I know what I spend for these materials I know what my limit is and since I inherited so much it's a little hard to price but I also look at my labor what would be the minimum per hour charge I would want on my labor so if I did a 60 hour piece let's say $10 an hour $600 is someone going to spend $600 probably not I will have a price to mark it with materials might be half of that so I might cut it in half because I would be doing these pieces anyway since their labors of love fortunately I don't need to support my cell phone might be business I want to make a little profit I want to cover my expenses and I want to do more and more shows and introduce people to beadwork so my sales goals are a combination of my personal financial needs what I feel is fair price to market and how much I spend on my materials so I have one that hadn't got answered that I thought it through and a one last point show prices all of these shows I go into a pricey I will be at the Pasadena bead and Design Show which is probably one of the best in the world I think for creative one-of-a-kind unique art jewelry I want to make about two times the show price so when you say show price do you mean that it the booth the electricity the vendors license the sales perm you pay for all of that upfront and it's up to you to make it better right so let's say for a high-end four-day show you're spending about $250 a day it's three days what is it 750 twice 750 3 times 750 could be a sales goal for what I view as the marketing and availability and access I get to people and it depends on the show so for my price points I have to consider what I'm investing and where with my target audience come from who are the people were gonna buy these these are not people who just want to throw on a pieces of jewelry and go it's probably an already person maybe a little middle-aged or above I'm not selling children's wear so those things are factors that you take into consideration as you price your jewelry who is your target market and what are they willing to spend knowing that's your market which I guess you do hear all the time yeah I'm just gonna give my little tip you kind of touched on it different price point yeah I did when beat Halik was quite small I was still selling at one of the largest swap meets in the country I think is the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and I would sell there once a month and I had a table like this covered with jewelry I made by myself and I would say it was a intermediate beater this was not top-of-the-line stuff but I use high quality materials and and I swap meet people aren't necessarily go there planning to buy new jewelry so to draw people into the table and to the 30 and 50 dollar items I set up some racks with five dollar earrings and ten dollar earrings very prominently signed and very cute displays and I time after time I saw people arrested by these very I used picture frames they were quite nice displays and and the price point they in their mind they went I'm going to investigate this and they would investigate everything on your table not just your I don't know there weren't lost leaders but they were very inexpensive items that were quite easy for me to make that's what I do too is I have the varied price place and varied labor amount so I might make a higher profit on something that's really quick and easy to make like maybe it takes me five minutes to make and I'm charging $15 but then that balances the pieces that take so long labor wise and you couldn't possibly Archer per hour yeah yeah so I learned with price points to is okay so I've done many shows now so I can go back and look I keep a little inventory of what I sold I'd say most of my pieces sell between 75 and $250 so you found like a sweet spot over there so I make quite a number of price points in there and then I do give Cole sale discounts of course for people who resell so for example these I can sell mostly between 145 to 150 and I've sold quite a few in this price point race no I'm not getting my labor in but I just sell a lot and then I have plenty to buy more materials and they're there I am keeping on my art form so that's a good break for me and we do have another question so I want to definitely get to that question few questions one is when you sell a piece do you include I'm gonna repeat that we're just real quick cuz with cat behind the camera she's not miked so the question is is you have all these basic you have these wonderful stories about where all these different ingredients come from your grandma's buttons different things you picked up on your travels do you somehow include that information with your pieces when you sell them so as the person is is taking them home with them do they have some of that information yes many do want the Providence called the provenance of the piece and if someone's buying a probably a price point 150 up there's enough interest in the pieces so what I do is I have a little branding card that describes generally the technique and then I write on the back where each piece was sometimes I send them an email with a little more literature for example I love Luca and Klimt the two artists this is a hand painting reproduction of a Alfonse mukha was an artist from the late 1800s in Austria most people don't know muga some do well they think it's Mucha Mucha and Mucha I love his I love his stuff man this is claimed you remember cleaned came out with that movie this is a hand appointment ankle the woman in gold there you go so I descend a little I always collect a business card if someone buys a piece of this size and then I'll send a little internet link or little bio on the artist originally who may have painted this that was reproduced in Russia in contemporary times I've sent many people follow-up emails with further provenance information because it's a little piece of art where and they become super interested so in addition to my notes on a little branding card they may get a follow-up email with more detail that's great okay so the question is are they interest is is Sara can you tell us this story on this backdrop and I actually know it cuz I was with you when you bought this ok yes no the story is I love I love textiles if he went to my house it's like my house is all like this rugs carpets hangings sofas and cats I mean that's my house so I've been there that's true so and I tend toward the red end of the spectrum and I love these kind of I'd say from from the Indian subcontinent I love this colorful embroidery in this style where they bring in the patchwork and you could still see the mirrors and a lot of this fabric is pieces of old sarees that have been over died and I'm sorry I don't know the exact region where they do this exact type of thing but we were at be a Tucson Tucson show a few years ago and we were outside the to be true blue and there was smaller and again I don't know this vendors name and they were just out they just out front of the building and they had all this gorgeous stuff probably from yeah and I went back for three days right and stared at this because it's the exact colors in my bedroom pretty much and I just it was one of things when you're on a trip and you spend a little more yeah and then somehow I never got hung up behind my bed and this because this okay this used to be my office the studio used to be my office so I hung it up in here and we've we've just left it until we we we may change this this may be going home with me I don't know if I can leave this here forever it certainly goes with bead embroidery I mean there's all kinds of work on that the tan stitched and I love you know in the theme of being inspired by other people's work I love when when I find things where I see people have combined colors in ways I wouldn't have thought to and and yet I enjoy it so much like I'm not a purple person but here's this purple with orange and red and it I think it looks great and to be able to pick up on I guess if I was a bead embroider I would maybe go oh I'm gonna try those colors I know that's always been a big tip of yours for color palettes it's like finding a top or a scarf or something that you like well this is the color palette this is a bit much but you know you say you had a top with a pattern on actually one of my most successful necklaces I ever made I had a shirt that was like red and brown flowers and I was going to a party and I threw together necklace with garnets and smoky quartz and la boy and it was just I got multiple strands at the garnets I didn't even take them off the original string that's the one of my dirty little secrets I just like stick them into a cone you know and then I hung this big and like it was one of my best next as I ever made and I would not have put those two colors together if it hadn't been for my shirt yeah well I have an add on take color I travel quite a bit internationally I'm leaving for Australia New Zealand soon and I'll take a little love book with my color crayons and no iPhone and I'll take pictures of any colors that I observe either nature went on the bow when they get off or something someone's wearing something and I keep a little colour diary and then I go huh oh wow you match your colors my eyesight and I carry so I'm always whether I'm doing beating or not it's not always feasible to do this type of beadwork when I travel but at least I'm keeping my eye out for colour palettes and then I'll go back to them if I find a feature piece or something that doesn't have a feature piece and I'll use my colour diary because I've been inspired by by trips around the world oh that's such a great idea I've never thought - I know colouring is big now college boys I mean whoa and you could buy your colors and you carry a little box of pencils so coloring is a soothing healing art and you don't even have to be but you'll be working with palettes and colors and and it stimulates you I wonder if someone who's watching is who is perhaps knows Photoshop where it's kind of artistic and knows the digital format you could almost keep a digital color Oh diary in your phone or your iPad as you travel a few segments technological enough to summon up the color on a color pick I mean that would be a great thing to do I thought being embroidery to a group of quilters and they did all their quilting digitally can you believe this all the quilting patterns come across digitally you know those how's a --ax stars and that's how they did it exactly they would know so they would know what it looked good before they write and before they bought the fabric and they would design digital color palettes were quilts and making these fabric appliques and then incorporating some beadwork but all started digitally all the colors and then they'd find the fabrics to coordinate so that's a good example of how to do that do you you sketch your what I do sketch my work sometimes I sketch a piece and I have a I've been let's see embroidering since I was probably 12 so I do have sketches from when I was twelve I haven't used those and it's definitely my 60 hippy days Wow I feel like like I would love to see you put out a book that has like your sketches oh that would be so great and like your color palette and their provenance and that would be so fun that might get me into divorce though any more time with beading is taking me a little further away from my guy so it's a commitment he can be well that's why I'm impressed with the two of you that have made a passion also you're a professional work so for me I'm still just a hobby gal that enjoys this and if I could share with others and keep my hobby alive I'm so grateful well and we are so grateful that you joined us today and shared it because I think one of the best things about the beading community is we all want to help and inspire each other and we want to encourage each other and encourage us passion because it is such a joy and just seeing all your lovely work and it's so unique and you incorporate so many wonderful techniques and different components it's just a joy to see him you know hearing your story and just your tips and you're so open with your tips and we just really appreciate you coming in today well I would share the one personal notes from the healing aspect when I was sick with Kay breast cancer - ten years ago I had my friend who was the graphic artist who worked with Andy Warhol her name is Liz she came down said Lee you got to start embroidering again you need to pick up a needle and she basically pulled me out of my bed and my misery put a needle in my hand gave me my threads and was watched to be and it pushed me to start all over and once I started getting back into my embroidery and beading even though I was feeling pretty miserable it opened up a new world to me and hence the teaching of others because it's a total healing art and I advocate for the therapeutic side of beading in addition to the beauty and the adornments I wanted to just throw that out to your audience because I know many people are at home and beading is a wonderful hobby to take up for those purposes and I know it could be hard when you're in those that's really cool start yes sorry just start small get a needle and thread and it's joyful they do know research showed that I think was more through Stewart that repetitive movements crochet knitting beadwork trigger a positive chemical in the brain that releases the positive chemicals for relaxation and she did some research on that in her magazine wrote an article on it and you know she started also as a seamstress all right there Stewart so that really reinforced for me wow I'm really helping myself heal and now you and you help others and I help others and this was the testamentary to that so I'm grateful that others can experience the joy of color as well as the actual construction and design mind her before we sign off if you want to meet Leisha she is wonderful and see these pieces in person and you're in the los angeles area please do go and visit her at her pop-up shop on December 2nd we have more information on that in the notes to this broadcast as well as in the comment section and then House of the Pasadena beef show she's gonna be out in January I believe that's at the Hilton here in Los Robles in Pasadena California and there's about 300 beautiful vendors there so stop by visit me meet others get inspired and you'll love the day this is a really nice Beach oh it's not some Beach shows are just so overwhelming and they feel very commercial yeah this one is more there's a lot more artists there it's so it's the same exhibitor Caramba dodge you know that ran the two troubied that you mentioned earlier yeah they were the same vendors and they travel around they're pretty artistic people and they love to have people stop by and just get inspired yeah they don't even have to shop you can just get inspired yeah if you're familiar with Pasadena area is near the Paseo and Pasadena it's pretty close to it and it's a really nice show and some nice restaurants around you can make a day of it great so grab some girlfriends and and do that or guy friends am i exactly so well thank you everyone for joining us um please definitely keep leaving comments or questions cat and I'll be checking them in and have a wonderful day and a very very happy Thanksgiving thanks you