Tag Archives: Kazuri West

Rise to the Challenge!

There is nothing like a design challenge to kickstart your creativity, especially when your creative get up and go feels like it got up and went.  The magnificent Paulette Walther of Kazuri Beads has issued such a challenge on her Many Hands Marketplace website and there are so many wins for those who enter.

sammunat-polymer-bead-leather-braceletFirstly, the sale of Samunnat beads provides an income for my beloved Samunnat ladies.  Secondly, this is a way to spread the word about their beautiful loose beads. (Please send the links about the competition FAR AND WIDE!!) Thirdly, winners can win wonderful prizes and fourthly, it helps to strengthen and nurture this amazing creative connection that exists in our community.  One of the judges, Pearl Blay, is a talented, generous, inspiring lady who has written about the ladies on her fabulous Beading Gem blog and made it possible for them to own a Modahaus Table Top Studio after I loved mine so much.

DSCN5353She has created several designs like the one above to inspire people entering the competition and you can see them here.  Because every bead the ladies make gets sent to Paulette, I don’t have many here in Australia to play with but that is about to change as I am giving myself the challenge of creating one piece a month using Samunnat or Kazuri beads.  Here’s one which does not use our sliders but does use the Bindu beads in Black/ White combined with black ceramic beads from an exotic bead market in Rockdale. I was inspired by the shape of those seeds that have a tail to carry them across vast distances.  You will also see the influence of ethnic and tribal jewellery because that’s what I love!!  Stay tuned as I grow in my role as part of the Kazuri West-Many Hands Marketplace with several other designers. Over the next few weeks, I will introduceDSCN5357 you to them!

La, back to packing a box of Samunnat goodies to take to Canberra. More piccies soon!  Why don’t you respond to Paulette’s call to make a piece of jewellery using Samunnat or Kazuri slider beads? Or tell others who might.

Cross Paulination

10395189_1483692995199479_6509443853660906244_n

In this post I wrote about when Samunnat was contacted by Paulette Walther of Kazuri West about selling loose beads.  We were hesitant, to say the least, but were totally won over by Paulette’s patience, transparency, clarity, and commitment to the well being of the ladies.

The reality was…I was terrified.  We’d had our fingers well and truly burnt in the past and I did not feel anywhere near up to the step that was looming ahead. Paulette’s compassion, coupled with our experience that courage wasn’t not feeling scared but about feeling scared and still doing what needed to be done, meant that we did take that next step.  Albeit falteringly.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  Nearly two years later, the bulk of the ladies’ income, and our capacity to provide legal services, counselling, emergency support and income generation training comes from the money we make from the sale of loose beads.  We love her.

And now, Paulette has established her presence on Facebook!  To celebrate, she’s running a wonderful contest where all you have to do is LIKE the new page andct_paulette_helen make a comment. For this, you are in the running to win one of three prizes:

Helen Breil’s new e-book;

Cynthia Tinapple’s Extruder Disc set; or

5 Samunnat Nepal beads!!!

Hope over to the Facebook page and LIKE and comment and we will have our fingers crossed for you.  Doing this means you are helping us. Tell your friends about the new Facebook page and check in regularly to learn about projects to use our beads, new products, exciting contests and lots more!

The bottom line is that the more beads we sell, the more we can do at Samunnat Nepal.

Jungle Queens

I love the squashed rondelle shape in a bead and use it a lot. I must prefer them to round beads at some deep unconscious level because I rarely use the latter.

imageAt Samunnat, we are working on new designs for the wonderful Paulette Of Kazuri Beads. We are very lucky to have this relationship with her.  In the After the Monsoon cone of silence, I can say that I think Paulette and I share certain characteristics. Like…neither of us are at all driven.  You wouldn’t say that. Not at all.  But we both have pretty busy brains and are the kind of women who like to maximise the moment. I used this romantic phrase with my dear MM when we skyped and I told him I was maximising a spare moment.  How we laughed.

But back to Rondelles.  At Samunnat, we are making some beads for leather and had some small scraps left over. Too small for the slides but enough to play around with on Rondelles. We all loved them and could imagine them as a long necklace on black or chocolate leather cord. I will post more photos of other colours we played with. They might get back to our Galleries in Australia or they might be snaffled up by the Colourful Journeyimage trippers if they get in first!

As well as playing around a bit with some off duty beads, we treated ourselves to some sweets…mithai…very sweet milk based treats sold by the nice young men at the Calacutta Sweet Shop on the main drag. I love these places. This one reminds me of the Blue Bird Cafe at Leeton or the Niagara at Goulburn. But maybe that suggests I have been away too long!

And finally for now, a big Namaste to Mattie in Geelong, my long distance IT guru who taught me, via his cousin, how to get my photos the right way up and how to make more room for photos on my iPad. Mattie, your blood’s worth bottling! Dherai dhanyabad!