Honey Do List May 2020

2020 marks the fifth year that my husband Eric has been giving me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... it's the Honey Do List 2020!  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 with us!

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

This one is from our trip to the Czech Republic two years ago, a little tableau I spotted when wandering the narrow streets of Loket.  This type of thing is exactly what I look for when walking around with my camera!  I like the colors and patterns here, so you folks should have lots of options for inspiration.

There's a lot to love in the quaint charm of the photo that Eric chose for our inspiration this month.  So many colors and patterns to play with from the mugs, the shapes of the window, the warmth of the wood...  I honestly can't wait to see what y'all create this month!

I have to admit that as soon as I saw the photo this month I knew that I had to use some new faux tin pieces from Heather Powers of Humblebeads.  I had snagged one of her super adorable tea cup pendants and coordinating earring charms.  

For the earrings I gathered a little bouquet of small Czech glass flowers to dangle from the bottom of the charms.  I picked beads in some of the colors from the trio of stacked cups on the charms.  Unfortunately, I realized too late that I I'm out of my favorite copper and niobium ear wires.  I popped some different ear wires on for the moment but will likely switch them out.  

I went less literal for my second pair of earrings.  For these I focused on the polka dotted mugs... Who doesn't love a good dot, right?  Some rustic dotted ceramic charms from Slate Studios were just the thing.  The charms are small and lightweight... perfect for earrings.  I paired them with black and red Czech glass beads and blackened findings.

I feel a little bad that I didn't manage to create more, but (full disclosure) I've been more than a bit preoccupied with bead embroidery.  (You'll see more of that soon.)  I've got some beads laid out for the pendant and hope to get that done yet this week.  Here's what I'm playing with for it.

Now it's your turn!  Please add links to/photos of your own creations below.  I love seeing what everyone else is making too!  Check back on June 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

We're All Ears May 2020 :: May Flowers

For this month's We're All Ears challenge, Erin chose the theme of May Day for us.  I'd never heard of the idea of flowers in cones or baskets for May Day... May Poles... yes, cones... no.  Either way, I can totally get on board with the idea of flowery earrings.  For someone who doesn't consider herself super flowery or girly, I do love flower beads!

I started with a fun pair of pressed pansy flower charms in resin from Twinkiedinky that I've had for a while.  The purple and yellow combination is not always an easy one for me, but how can I argue with Mother Nature?  I added some purple Czech glass flowers and little yellow rondelles for some fun and lightweight earrings.

Next up, I finally made something with some pretty yellow rose charms made by our hostess Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  These have been languishing in my stash since 2016 (hangs head in shame) but they are finally getting their day in the sun!  I used some faceted citrines and little turquoise Czech glass beads to bring an extra pop of color into the design.

I also couldn't resist playing with some cool components from Artisticaos.  The colors were just so yummy, and the shape with it's wire "handle" does remind me a bit of a flower basket.  Once again I picked some coordinating Czech glass flowers as well as some little dyed agate rondelles.

After playing with a bunch of of my flowery art beads I decide to try my hand with a more May Day specific idea that came to me in the shower of all places, lol.  I thought it would be fun to have some little Czech glass flowers coming out of a cone shaped bead cap.  I had to play around with the lengths of the headpins until I was happy with how they behaved, but I think the end result is pretty cute!

Before I was done creating for this challenge, I managed to get in some play time with some new patterned cork that Heather Powers of Humblebeads turned me onto.  Here are a few variations on an earring idea using a thicker version of a floral cork sheet.  All are paired with brass charms from Vintaj, Czech glass flowers, and plated hematite beads.

This is a blog hop.  You can check out what other folks were inspired to make over on the Earrings Everyday blog HERE.

Inspiration for the May 2020 Honey Do List

2020 marks the fifth year that my husband Eric has been giving me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... it's the Honey Do List 2020!  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 with us!

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

This one is from our trip to the Czech Republic two years ago, a little tableau I spotted when wandering the narrow streets of Loket.  This type of thing is exactly what I look for when walking around with my camera!  I like the colors and patterns here, so you folks should have lots of options for inspiration.

The reveal date will be Monday, May 18th.  To make it super easy for you to participate and share your creations, I'll set up an Inlinkz link up so folks can add their blogs as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog starting on May 18th and join the fun!  I'll leave the link up open for a while... so you have plenty of time to add your links.  (Last month's is still open... check it our HERE.) No blog?  No worries!  Feel free to send me a picture of your creation and some brief comments and I'll happily share in my blog post.  You can reach me at sjdesignsjewelry@gmail.com  The more the merrier, so I hope you'll play along with me this month!