Publications Archives - So Sassy By Susan Sassoon

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I am making one that I think I can keep: I plan to release a new tutorial every month of the year 2020! That sounds like a lot of work, yes, but I have a bit of a head start. During my reign as a Beadwork Magazine Designer of the Year for 2019, I created 6 designs that I was not allowed to release in my own shop. Now that enough time has passed, I will be releasing them, one at a time, exactly one year after their original publication.

Why would someone want to purchase a tutorial directly from me after it’s been published in the magazine? Well, I’ve found that many of my customers do not subscribe to the magazines and/or they find the instructions in the magazines a bit difficult to follow. If you’re a regular customer of mine, you know that I break down my instructions into many steps with a large, clear diagram and/or photo directly below the written instructions for each step. I also give tips and hints within the written instructions to make it easier for the beader to have success with the pattern. Unfortunately, the magazine does not have enough space for that, so their words are kept to a minimum and their diagrams are condensed to show many steps in the same drawing. A pattern that is 4 pages in the magazine may be 8-12 pages in my tutorial. If you have not yet seen my tutorials, please sign up for my mailing list (see form on this page) and you will get a free tutorial via email so you can “try before you buy”.

I really loved working with the staff at Beadwork and was so happy that I was chosen to create these 6 new designs. Thanks so much to Tammy Honaman, Meredith Steele and Katie Hacker for this incredible opportunity! I feel I’ve improved a lot as a designer by pushing myself to create better and more exciting designs. My tutorial writing skills have also improved dramatically as a result of this experience. I hope that you will see that in the tutorials that I present this coming year.

The first tutorial is available now! My Kite and Cali Shooting Star tutorial can be purchased here.

If you’ve already made any of my designs from either purchased tutorials or from the magazine, please post pics here or on social media and tag me so I can see them! I really love seeing your work, especially when you vary the design or the colors!

I’m so excited to have been chosen by Beadwork Magazine to be one of three Designers of the Year for 2019! It is a great honor, and one that I did not expect to achieve. I share this with fellow honorees Wendy Ellsworth and Vezsuzsi. I hope you’ll enjoy what we create this year along with Beadwork’s many other talented contributors.

As a Designer of the Year, I will be sharing the instructions to make one of my designs in each of this year’s six issues. The first (Feb/Mar) has already hit the press, and is available for purchase in print form or digital form at publisher Interweave’s website. In it, I present my Thistle Necklace. The design was inspired by the beautiful two-holed Kite beads and three-holed Cali beads that were sent to me by Beadsmith last year. As I played around with the beads, I found that they form very easy to make bezels that can be used to encase Swarovski rivoli crystals of all sizes.

Here’s what the components looked like on my bead mat as I worked on the design. Notice that some of them are open – without a rivoli inside them. Those were the first ones I made. Once I saw how pretty they looked open, I knew they would only be improved by adding some bling. Luckily, I had just the right color rivolis to add!

After making these components, I saw that Beadsmith came out with some new kite beads that had a laser-etched design on them. I fell in love with them and had to design something special with these. I used the same basic bezeled rivoli idea and made this necklace, bracelet and pendant.

The tutorials for the necklace and bracelet are available here: Kite and Cali Necklace Kite and Cali Bracelet

Kite and Cali Poinsetta bracelet tutorial

The design also works well for Christmas as the design looks a lot like a Poinsettia when beaded with red kite beads. The tutorial for the bracelet includes the supplies needed to make it in either the laser-etched beads or the poinsettia beads.

As I just couldn’t get enough of these fun components, I played around with some variations of the open-holed components that I had originally created (I hate letting good beadwork go to waste). Here’s what I created with the open components.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of insight into my design process and I hope I’ve inspired you to create some lovely beadwork! Please share your thoughts and your beadwork in the comments.

Category: Publications

Happy New Year! Ring in 2020 with a new Shooting Star Tutorial!

2019 Beadwork Designer of the Year!