An Evening with
Karen Crown-Polzin
Lentil Soup!
Friday, January 29, 2021
Karen Crown-Polzin will be sharing how she uses a lentil press to make some of her favorite beads for Beads of Courage. One of her favorite shapes to use when creating Beads….especially for Beads of Courage…is to use a lentil press for the base. She says “once you have that sturdy little shape….the creativity is endless.”
During 2020, the quarantine spurred Karen on to create as many beads as possible for Beads of Courage – she can’t remember the final exact count – but it is a little over 2,020. Most of the beads had the lentil shape as the base, then they morphed into cute little animals and faces. Her demo for us will be about some of those designs.
Karen says “I was fortunate enough to be a high school art teacher for 24 years…what a great career. Dabbled in many forms of art….until discovering glass. Now I am addicted. Retired from teaching at 55 and have been making beads since 2008. This is my 11th year of retirement and am looking forward to traveling again and meeting up with many of my bead buds!”
We look forward to this fun demonstration!
You can find more on Karen and her work as:
Karen Crown – Polzin & LadyCrownGlass on Facebook.
After the demo Update!
(If you missed it, remember that members can watch the recorded demo on the Facebook Members’ Page, check it out! And if you aren’t a member but would like to be, visit the Membership page)
We welcomed our guest speaker Karen Crown-Polzin who was accompanied by her co-presenter, Ruthie, who is her not quite four pound “foster fail” pup. We were happy to have them both. She told us how she got involved in the 1000 Bead Challenge for 2020. Karen was challenged by Tillie Smith O’Kelley, our Director of Education, to make 1000 beads. The challenge was bumped up to 2000 and finally to 2020 to commemorate the year. She ended up making 2309 for the year!
Karen showed us how she makes one of the beads she makes and donates to Beads of Courage. She frequently uses a smaller lentil press to make the base bead because they feel good in the children’s hands. She chose a cute monkey bead to make for us. It had nice big eyes that made you smile just to look at them. When she finished the monkey bead, she showed us another demo of how to make googly eyes because she is often asked to show her method for layering them. She enjoys putting them on her beads because they make the kids smile.
After the demos, we got a look at other beads she makes on the lentil base for Beads of Courage too. She also gave us a few tips for making them sturdy enough so they are safer for the kids to have on their bead strings.
Thank you Karen for showing us how you make this fun bead. The BOC kids are going to benefit from all of those who make and donate your monkey beads. Thank you for your generosity in sharing!
We also got a look at the great boxes she makes to store and display bead collections . Karen had a drawing for one of her bead boxes – Congratulations to the winner – Barbara M!
Visit Karen on Facebook to see more of her work and any classes she may offer.
If you would like to show some appreciation for her generosity in sharing her skills with us, you can send Karen something for her tip jar (any amount, large or small is welcome) or make a bead donation to Beads of Courage.
Click the button to see a gallery of Karen’s critters in our Beads of Courage area.
Dragon members have access to this recorded presentation, found on our Facebook Members Group.