The Honey Do List: April 2016

This year, my husband Eric has decided to issue me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... we're calling it the Honey Do List.  Eric's two biggest interests are beer and photography (you can see what he's up to over on his blog HERE).  He's given us photography challenges twice now... so this month he decided it was time to bring beer into the mix!

Here's what Eric has to say about this month's challenge and the examples he gave to get folks inspired:

This month we're doing the Beer Challenge!  I'm a huge fan of craft beer and the recent boom of great beers has led to a lot of fantastic label art.  Your challenge (should you choose to accept it) is to take label art as an inspiration for jewelry.  I've posted a couple of examples of cool bottle art as well as corresponding art beads.  You can use these particular examples or use your own beer, wine, or even soda labels as a starting point.  Good luck!

Art Beads from left to right:  Kylie Parry, Golem Design Studio, Gaea, Unknown, Unknown, Staci Louise Smith

Now I am a notorious procrastinator... I mean, I tell myself that I just work better under pressure (and I probably do) but that's not the whole story.  No matter what my time constraints, no matter what it is I'm doing, chances are good that I'm going to push things to the absolute limit and wait until the very last minute to get things done.  Why is this pertinent information?  Because I got so excited about this challenge that I got to work right way... like April 1st right away!  And I've been super busy creating a whole slew of beer (and mead!) label inspired designs. 

I was excited that Eric picked out the label for Wicked Weed Brewing's Medora both because the artwork is super funky and because they are one of my favorite breweries that I've visited in our travels.  The beer itself is a sour ale aged in red wine barrels with one pound of blackberries and raspberries per gallon.  The resulting beer is beautiful to look at with it's fuchsia color and super delicious!

One of the pendants that Eric picked out for this one was a purple glazed heart from Gaea that I picked up in a destash bundle from her a while back.  I love that the glaze goes from a lighter purple to a dark blue shade with a little drip at the bottom.  I decided to use waxed Irish linen in two different purples for the bulk of the necklace.  I used a technique that I learned from one of Erin Siegel's Ornamentea bracelet tutorials and adjusted it for use in a necklace.  (You can find that tutorial HERE... it's a fun and easy project!)

In addition to the beads that Eric picked out, I found another fun pendant from Gaea in my stash.  The pale purple color and bumpy, alien texture work well with the Wicked Weed label.  I had just been working on reorganizing my beads and rediscovered a strand of purple and cream colored Czech glass rondelles.  If I'm honest, I really wasn't wowed by the beads on their own, but when I found the pendant I knew it was a perfect match!  I added in some smaller amethyst beads in between the glass links to pull in some of the darker purples.

While I'm not a big hoppy beer fan, there's something about Ballast Point's Habanero Sculpin IPA that I really enjoy (maybe it's the slow burn) so I was glad that Eric chose this label as one of his inspiration examples.  I've also been itching to design with the orange polymer clay pendant from Staci Louise Originals so I had to get something made with it.  The color and concentric circles in the pendant remind me of the fins of the fish (the sculpin, I presume) on the beer label.  There's also something almost compass like about the pendant's pattern that makes it feel slightly nautical.  If you're familiar with Staci Louise Smith's jewelry designs, you know she makes some amazing, chunky, wire-wrapped necklaces and often uses sari silk ribbon.  While my Czech glass beads aren't chunky, I did finish the back with a rust colored silk ribbon instead of chain as a nod to Staci's design aesthetic.

I didn't start out as a beer (craft or otherwise) lover, so I wanted to at least make a nod to another alcoholic beverage that's near and dear to my heart... mead!  If you aren't familiar with mead, it's basically a honey wine.  We happen to have a friend, Susan Ruud, who has opened a meadery in Fargo, ND called Prairie Rose Meadery and I wanted to make something inspired by her pretty labels.  Here are the results:

I had the sweetest little polymer clay dogwood blossom from Humblebeads that was just perfect.  Since the polymer is so lightweight and a smaller size, I kept things pretty simple.  All I used were some small Czech glass rondelles and these fun little hexagonal plated hematite beads I just picked up at a local bead show with small bronze colored seed beads in between.  I'm drawn to all things bee so I was a little giddy to be able to add a little nod to honeycomb into this mead label inspired design!

Not content to stop there, I made a second Prairie Rose inspired piece with a vintage porcelain pendant that I picked up in Asheville last year.  I went with a mix of Czech glass beaded links paired with brass chain and findings.  I originally wanted to hang a bee charm off of the clasp, but it just didn't behave quite the way I wanted it to.  In the end, that's probably for the best as there is already a lot going on with this necklace.  Sometimes simpler is just better... something I'm forever having to remind myself!

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