beads from the art: About Beads From The Art

About Beads From The Art

Beads From The Art make "Art Beads", which are inspired by Art, Nature, the world around us, the Universe and everything.

Art beads are incredible, tiny works of art made by hand.

The beads and pendants are handmade using polymer clay which is light, durable and extremely versatile. A variety of techniques are used from simple embossing with stamps and textures to the construction of elaborate canes which are thinly sliced and layered onto a core bead.

They are sometimes mixed with other types of beads and components such as metal, glass, crystal, wood or fibre to make one of a kind or limited edition pieces of jewellery and accessories.

About The Artist

Andrea Hartley Banks, an Artisan Bead and Jewellery Designer, mixed media artist and avid crafter. She was born and bred in Rochdale, Lancashire in the UK and still resides there with her three almost grown up children.

She was greatly influenced by her family who are all very creative and can't remember a time when she wasn't making something. She has been making beads and jewellery from polymer clay for 30 years.

Her jewellery has been sold at many Craft Fairs and Events around the UK and has found homes all across the world, particularly the USA.

Growing up on the edge of the beautiful Healey Dell Nature Reserve, she is inspired by the shapes, colours and textures of the world around us, especially trees, flowers and layers of rock. She's a natural born doodler, always has a notebook and pencil at hand and many of her designs are based on these doodles.

Her doodles have led her to mixed media art where Art Journalling in particular, has become a passion as it is, in her own words, "so very therapeutic".

Andrea has been running a Craft Group and Workshops for a number of years and enjoys teaching and sharing her skills with others. She believes that everyone has a creative side and one of her favourite sayings is "everyone has the ability, it's just confidence they lack"! She prides herself that anyone who has ever come to her craft group, regardless of their skills, go away with something they've made by themselves and can be proud of.

As well as Beads From The Art, Andrea also has another business The Little Craft Box Company.

About The Little Craft Box Company

The Little Craft Box Company was founded in September 2010 following successfully providing workshop packages for a number of years. We then produced a number of Little Craft Kits in the form of hand sewing kits to make a brooch or hanging decoration. We provide Jewellery Parties/Mixed Craft Workshops for Children and Hen-type Parties.

We currently run a craft group for adults in the Rochdale area teaching a variety of crafts such as book making, sewing, weaving, paper crafting, mixed media and much more.

Please click on the relevant link at the top of the page for details.