Art Elements Use Your Stash 2018

January is a great time to get a fresh start... to get organized... to refocus your energy and direction for a new year.  To help get us all off on the right foot this year, the editors over at the Art Elements blog have brought back their Use Your Stash challenge after taking a year off.  The idea is to dig into your art bead stash and create some new designs.  Well, I certainly have a big ol' stash to rummage through, and plenty of things that have been languishing for way too long.  Challenge accepted!  Here's a picture of some of the goodies that I gathered:

I was one of the lucky recipients of a prize beads from the Art Elements editors, Laney Mead of Izzybeads!  Laney sent me one of her cute little lampwork critters and a pair of carrot beads from her stash with coordinating spacers.  I'll start by sharing what I made with my prize stash.  :)

I initially thought about stringing the critter on leather with some coordinating beads, but I just didn't have the right leather in my stash.  (Memo to self:  get on that leather cord order ASAP!)  I ended up making beaded links instead.  I had some stripy glass beads in my stash that coordinated with the focal and the spacer beads from the carrots that I used here.  Pretty simple design, but I wanted Laney's whimsical critter to be the focus.

For some crazy reason, when I saw that the carrot beads had holes that went top to bottom, the idea of knotting them onto brown waxed linen popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone!  My thought was that this technique would mimic roots at the bottom... like the carrots were pulled right from the garden!  Too weird?  I don't care... I think they are super cute!

I really have been trying to make a dent in my art bead horde... not so much because I think I have too many, but more to make room so I can justify new purchases.  Hey, at least I'm honest!!  As I was digging around for other challenges this month, I had the Use Your Stash idea in the back of my mind and kept pulling things out for possible beady play.  Several oversized beads ended up in that little collection so that's where I started playing with my personal stash!  Why have so many large baubles been languishing in my stash?  My design aesthetic just tends to veer away from big, chunky designs.  How about you... is bigger better?  or just bigger?

First up, a set of big ol' polymer clay beads made by Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati for her Simple Truths Sampler Club.  They were inspired by a Picasso painting that was for the May 2017 Art Bead Scene challenge so they haven't been hanging around all that long in the grand scheme of things.  Something just clicked in my little brain and I went digging for some crazy oversize wooden beads that I've had forever.  (Seriously, I bought them in my first ever online bead order back in February 2008!)  I don't know what I was thinking... except that I wasn't and I had no clue about bead sizes at that point.  These wood beads are GIANT at 31 x 21 mm.  After almost 10 years, I've finally found a design to use them in!  I strung all of these big beads together on blue waxed Irish linen along with some brass spacers to anchor the large holes in the wooden beads.  Brass chain finishes out this chunky design that would feel right at home around the neck of Wilma Flintstone or Betty Rubble!

Next up, a variation on a theme... this time using a set of polymer clay beads from Artybecca that I won as a door prize on the 2014 Bead Cruise.  These guys, and their wooden counterparts, are a MUCH smaller size than the last neckclace!  Once again, I just knotted them on waxed Irish linen with brass chain at the back.

As always seems to be the case with me, I didn't make nearly as much as I'd hoped to for this challenge (if only I'd had one more day!!!), but I am proud that I dug deep and tackled some things that have been gathering dust for too long.  Hopefully I'll keep the momentum going and finish up some more designs that I had envisioned.

This is a blog hop!  Stop by and see what everyone else has been up to this month.  I can't wait to see what goodies everyone found in their personal stashes!

Guests:

Kelly Rodgers

Sarajo Wentling  - You Are Here!  

Samantha Wescott

Kathy Lindemer

Patty Miller

Linda Landig

Renetha Stanziano

Art Elements:

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Jen Cameron

Claire Fabian

Sue Kennedy

Niky Sayers

Lindsay Starr