"Embellishing Your World" show

Maria and Naomi Smith with a printout of the opening slide

It was great sharing my "Embellishing Your World: Beading & Surface Designs" with fellow beadmates on Nov 10th at the Toronto Bead Society. This was an inspirational seminar with beadwork examples and stories from around the world.

What was special that evening was that Naomi, a fellow TBS member, brought her collection of First Nations Beadwork. I featured photographs of her collection in the first five slides of my PowerPoint. We combined the best of two worlds for the benefit of our members. I projected images and pointed out interesting details about the unique artifacts of the Mohawk and Tuscarora Nations. Naomi brought the genuine articles so people could then see them up close. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for TBS members.

For my half of the display, I brought my collection of beaded "Pysanky" eggs. Several were beaded by Vira Pavlova Witkovska plus other bead artists from Ukraine. The beaded "Lilacs" were made by Oksana, a young student of an after-school Craft Program in Kolomyya. They're so life-like it's hard to believe they're just beads on twisted wires! Amazing... Love it!

Maria's collection of beaded 'pysanky' eggs, ornaments and bead wire "Lilacs"

I'll be presenting "Embellishing Your World..." to the new West Toronto Beading Guild on Mar 8, 2011 at their regular monthy meeting. We're going to combine it with a hands-on beading workshop on learning how to do the versatile Diagonal Weave. I'm looking forward to inspiring the new beaders!

If you'd like an inspirational program by a passionate speaker, just let me know.... I'll be happy to share this and other beadwork presentations.

Embellishing Your World

I'm just putting the final touches on this newest inspirational presentation about beading and surface designs (needlework, mixed media, etc.). This seminar will debut this Sat, Oct 22nd, at 3 pm at the Creativ Festival in Toronto. Here's what it's all about:

Transform the mundane into beautiful with an array of technique and design ideas presented by bead artist Maria Rypan. Be inspired to embellish a few things once you see how people in different parts of the world meet the challenge to create beauty with materials on hand. Breathtaking photographs of decorated objects and their stories will motivate you to transform a few of your own.

PS: There is so much eye candy! So many incredible artifacts from First Nations people, Pashtun tribes, Zulu chiefs, Ukrainian artisans, school kids and a former dissident, US crafters and a Canadian bead artist! Plus a chance to visually "meet" some of these talented people with their folk art.

I would love to show this PowerPoint presentation around the world. Just say the word, and I'll be there. Let's talk....

Rypan Designs in Dutch newspaper

What a thrill it was to hear back from Sandra once she returned home to Holland! In her quest to learn everything she possibly could about beadwork, Sandra found the Oasis Bead Show on the internet. She came to Toronto specifically for the show and managed to cram in seven workshops in the space of three days. As her first "teacher", I was proud of her accomplishments in my "Suspended Swags" beadweaving class and gave her a copy of my BEADWORK Oct/Nov 2009 as a souvenir.

After a brief visit to New York City with bags full of tools and beads, Sandra delivered on her promise of getting her story about her beadwork odyssey published in a Dutch newspaper. Here's the intro in translation:

"Sandra's Atelier/Sieradenparadijs has already got a good name on beautifull and her exclusive jewelry, but Sandra is always looking for new posibilities to make the new trends and techniques fit in collection......"

Visit Sieraden Paradijs. Engage the translator. Better still, the eye candy needs no translation.

First reflection

I'm Maria, a beadaholic and designer of Rypan Designs, taking baby steps into the world of blogs to share information about beading, folk art and eye candy.