Fridays After 5 Featuring Judy Beebe
SDA’s member spotlight Fridays After 5 showcases the varied creative, fun, adventurous, or interesting achievements our members accomplish after business hours.
This week’s Fridays After 5 features Judy Beebe, FSDA. Judy is an administrator at the Seattle, Washington office of WSP and president of the Seattle chapter of SDA. She’s also a jewelry designer!
Judy’s workplace can actually be credited for her passion. At the firm’s 2016 Secret Santa exchange, she received a bead board and a few beads. Back home, she relied on YouTube videos for instruction. “The first piece I made was a necklace,” she explains, “I had to watch YouTube videos to learn how to finish the ends of the necklace.”
After mastering those early techniques, Judy continues to learn new skills and ways of fabricating her designs. More recently, she’s focused on improving her wire-wrap stones proficiency.
Judy initially crafted from the dining room table. Today she uses a home office / desk setup she added. When she’s ready to create, pushes aside her electronics and begins crafting from her work-from-home desk.
Judy finds jewelry design a great way to unwind. In Judy’s words, “It's very relaxing to sit by myself and play with beads and pendants, seeing what design I can come up with.” After getting any necessary errands and housework done, she tries to spend some time crafting on Saturdays or Sundays. While her schedule may not always allow the time, Judy expresses, “If I can squeeze in a couple of hours either day, I'm happy dancing!”
Her favorite medium of the moment is polymer clay and gemstones. Once she discovered polymer clay, she really found “claying” incredibly calming. So, she admits, “I’ve been making a lot of clay jewelry!” Her favorite online store for gemstones is Magpie Gemstones.
Color plays a large role in her design inspiration. Judy reveals, “When I'm buying gemstones, I tend to go by color first. I love the deep jewel-tone colors - blue, purple, red, black. Same thing with polymer clay - I'll pick colors I like and start messing around with them. I do a little happy dance when I realize that what I made in clay, will pair nicely with the stash of gemstones I have.”
Lately, she also started drilling rocks that she then tumbles, polishes and turns into pendants. For this new skill, Judy gives an enthusiastic “Shout-out to SDA Seattle chapter 2020 board for giving me a gift certificate that I used to buy a bench drill press (another tool I can use), so I can drill the rocks I've been polishing!”
In her hubby’s eyes, “He would prefer if I could recoup some or all of the money I've invested in supplies by selling all of the pieces I am making.” But, for Judy, sharing her creations brings her tremendous satisfaction. She points out that “giving my items away, especially to people who don't know they're getting it - it just shows up in their mail.” She’s not naming names, but there are a number of SDA members who have benefitted! She also likes to donate jewelry to causes she supports including women’s shelters and even SDA’s PPC (Past national President Council).
People who have purchased some of her designs did so through word of mouth or from inquiries by fans of her Pinterest board.
For anyone who wants to try jewelry making, Judy suggests, “start with inexpensive items first (e.g., hobby store beads) to see if you enjoy doing it, and if you're reasonably good at it. Then invest in better quality beads and findings, and tools.”
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