The Honey Do List: May 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.  When it comes to challenges I always say the more the merrier, so we've opened it up and invited folks to play along with us!

Here's the inspiration and what Eric had to say about it:

This month's challenge was going to be some kind of spring flower action, but I was lucky enough to take a class on raptor photography at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum this past weekend and found a new muse!  This is Samantha the white morph great horned owl sitting in a flowering crab apple tree.  Our photogenic raptors were brought out by the Minnesota Raptor Center who rescue injured birds and release those who can survive back into the wilds, while keeping the birds like Sam (who has a broken wing) for demonstrations and education opportunities.  So, this month take inspiration from the bird itself, the colors, whatever strikes your fancy!

Eric took a ton of great raptor photos during his photo shoot at the Arboretum but I was super excited to have this lovely owl picture as May's inspiration since this one was among my favorites!  I have quite a few different owl focals and beads in my stash, so I knew that I would have fun creating for this challenge!

The first piece I made was inspired more by the owl herself than the whole photograph.  Eric gave me the perfect polymer clay pendant from Summer Wind Art for Christmas... the owl on the pendant even has the same bright yellow eyes!  I started by choosing a few different pieces of Amazonite to accentuate the pale blue background of the pendant.  I added in some faceted Mookaite pieces in yellow and dark brown and used copper to make wire wrapped links.

Next up I chose a pale green porcelain owl pendant made by Andrew Thornton that I picked up at Allegory Gallery when Eric and I visited Ligonier a couple of years ago.  I just got a selection of colored leather from Tracee Dock (The Classic Bead and Classic Elements) and I've been eager to give it a try... this was the perfect opportunity!  I paired the .5 mm metallic leather in lawn with a selection of brass and Czech glass beads (including some with a cool Mercury glass finish!)  Because the leather is so thin, I added a second strand to the necklace in a fairly fine brass chain from Vintaj.

I had big plans of making a bracelet using an owl bead from Green Girl, but time ran out on me... too much traveling and having fun this month I guess!  This was the one design that I had dreamed up that actually used the color palette from the photo so I'm sad that I wasn't able to pull that one off.  I'm still excited about the idea I have so I'm sure that I'll eventually get back around to that one.

Determined to still have at least three pieces completed for this challenge, I whipped up a pair of earrings at the last minute.  They are a design I've made before and am quite fond of but use a new color of Czech glass owl beads.

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