Above is a plate of beads, some of the beads I made teaching class in Turkey It was fun, this was the last day of class I think; I was sad to be leaving, I made a ton of new friends & had a great time…

Corina teaches two awesome classes at our studio.

There they were, quiet and mysterious,  alive and changing with the seasons and the weather. They each had their own distinct qualities and  personalities as we sat underneath their arms and observed the busy universe they held in their branches.

Almost all traditional cultures  have stories of tree spirits.  Some Native Americans refer to trees as “one leggeds” and human as “two leggeds”  Many people believe that trees have spirits or souls. Even the familiar Christmas tree has its origin in the ancient belief of the magical powers of evergreens.

I am fortunate to still live in a neighborhood filled with trees. They are  tall and old with scarred trunks that tell the history of their lives.  They were here long before  the houses  were built  in the 1920s, remnants of old growth forrest  hat stood here before the white people came. It is easy to imagine that these trees  have witnessed things that remain somewhere in their memory.

It started me thinking about tree spirits and the stories that trees could tell.

I began to photograph the trees in the park in my neighborhood.

The growth patterns were eerie.

So like most thoughts I need to explore, it worked its way into may art. Clay seemed the perfect medium for this.

The first tree spirit I made was not a success.  Opening  the kiln keeps me humble on a regular basis. The idea was good, the result however, not so much…

It looks like a turd spirit more then anything else. And you wouldn’t want that looking back at you.

Not everything you do will turn out.

Back to square one.

I will keep the idea bouncing around in my brain and wait until something “clicks” and I try again.

Diane Hawkey creates and blogs from her Detroit area home .

You can visit her ETSY store and website, or read more of her ramblings on her blog.

Or expressive borosilicate glass beads with their characteristic nebula centers….

But sometimes I end up with beads that are darker than I thought they would be, and working with them presents a challenge.  How to make the most of these beads?

Sometimes boro beads have the nebula effect I love, and finding colors to accent them is a snap.  However, some have to be held closer to the eye to appreciate them.  A photograph can show their beauty, but on the table or on a display at a craft show, the colors can look muddy or muted.

In these cases, I try to pull out the light in the beads, to awaken the fire  I know is caught inside.  For this blue bracelet, I played with the green and light blue caught inside the navy blue and burgundy.  I immediately lightened up the entire bracelet visually by wire-linking it to large silver rings instead of stringing it.  I also added one large silver bead as an asymmetric note to break up the strand of blue lampwork.

A photograph flooded with plenty of natural light and a heavy dose of PhotoShop made the bead colors come out even more, but you can see how the glass beads would appear quite dark on a show table or in the hand.  Presented with glittering blue crystal and pale green amazonite charms for movement and silver for more brightness, this piece sold immediately at my last show.

The next set of beads presented a similar problem — the pink was beautiful, but the colors were opaque, with virtually no definition or color striations.  How to make the most of them?

Although the bracelet took a long time to complete, it only took two elements to make it work — a stunning clasp and a ton of pale pink pearls.  I made what felt like a billion small pearl dangles to cluster up and nestle against each of the deep berry-pink glass, added a bit of silver to cap each boro lampwork bead, and added that artful clasp.  Done and done!

Both of those sets of lampwork beads had been languishing at the back of my bead cabinet for a couple of years.  I’d pull them out, and then put them back.  The colors weren’t giving me anything to work with, and my creativity wasn’t helping me.  But I finally decided enough was enough, and I wasn’t getting up from my work bench until those two sets had been transformed.

So I challenge you to do the same.  Go find a set of beads that have been bothering you for some reason.  Sit with them for a while.  And then make something beautiful.

Lori Anderson is a full-time jewelry designer who sells her work online at www.lorianderson.net as well as at craft shows in the Mid-Atlantic.  She also blogs at www.prettythingsblog.com.  She resides in Easton, MD.