Honey Do List: January 2017

Last 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... and we're continuing the Honey Do List for 2017!  I know that I'm not the only one who loves a good design challenge, so I'm hoping folks will continue to play along!  

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

This was one of the first visitors to our newly placed bird feeder this fall, so I ran for my camera and got a few shots while I could.  While I liked the picture, I felt it could use an oil paint look so spent some time tweaking this in Photoshop until it looked how I wanted it.  I like the textures and the bold blue and white color palate (and green if you want to include the background)!  

I love the colors and textures in this handsome blue jay but I didn't immediately know what I might be able to make.  Per usual, I went to my art bead storage and starting digging around for something appropriate.  These aren't the blues I'm normally most drawn to.   Lucky me, I came up with a few options!  Yay!

First up, I made a necklace and coordinating earrings that started with a pretty ceramic focal from Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead that I bought when I visited her in Kansas City a few years ago.  I quickly realized that the colors in the pendant's glaze went really nicely with a strand of vintage German glass beads that I picked up at the last local bead show.  (I used most of the strand and now I'm seriously regretting not buying another strand!).  On their own, these beads seemed a little too light in color so I added in some darker tones with the seed bead spacers, Czech glass, and sunset dumortierite rounds.  I picked a brass plated clasp in a sunburst pattern to mirror the look of the pendant.

I made a pair of earrings to coordinate with this necklace using some lovely light blue dahlia shaped Czech glass from Allegory Gallery.  (They've had some really amazing new Czech glass lately... stuff I've never seen before!)  I had momentarily thought about including the dahlia beads in my necklace design, but changed my mind.  I liked the way the beads echoed the pendant's design a little bit.  I added some little dark blue teardrops with a fun sueded finish to them.

Next, I took a trip in the Way Back Bead Machine for some of the very first art beads I ever purchased... bought long before I had any idea what to do with them!  (This is actually fitting as they were purchased at Disney World from the same artist who made the beads I used in the very first Honey Do List challenge last January!  You can see that HERE if you missed it.)  I thought the cobalt blue and white stripes of the lampwork glass focal bead were perfect for the blue jay inspiration.  I kept things pretty simple and just wire wrapped the focal and added a selection of Czech glass flowers in blue and white and a tiny leaf charm that reminded me of a feather.  The earrings are also pretty no frills... just the lampwork spacers and little flower charms... although I did add a touch of bling by using ear wires that are embellished with Swarovski crystals!

Last but not least, I whipped up a trio of waxed linen and seed bead bracelets that I adapted from a tutorial by Lesley Watt in shades of blue.  These were fun and easy to make and it was a nice project to work on while doing some binge watching of This is Us.  These have been a good seller for me so I  may use that as an excuse to binge watch a few more episodes in the near future while I make more in different colors!

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