Friday, June 26, 2020

Art Elements Theme of the Month June 2020 :: Summer Solstice


The Art Elements Theme of the Month is appropriately the Summer Solstice.  I do so love the long days of summer... although since the Solstice has come and gone I know that they will be getting shorter from here.  Sigh.  Anyway, I focused on the sun for my two designs this month.  Looking on the bright side of life and all that!

For my first design I revisited the idea of doing a bead embroidered bezel around a bottle cap.  Bell's Oberon is a summer seasonal...  a great patio beer that I've been known to enjoy in the warmer months.  


I had one another sunny, summery pendant in my stash so it was time for some stringing!  I paired a lovely hand painted wooden pendant by Ashley Bonney of Summer Wind Art with a fun mix of beads.  It's hard to tell in my photos, but the sun itself is a lovely gold paint... thus my decision to use raw brass chain and findings.  I started pulling beads with the blue tones... I used a mix of Czech glass, faceted Angelite, and Aquamarine.  I pulled in a tiny bit of green with a trio of green lampwork glass beads (artists unknown) and wood tones with some coconut discs.



Here's hoping that the humidity here breaks and I get some patio time this weekend... in the shade of the umbrella.  This summer is going to be a little different than past years but I'm going to embrace it all for what it is.  Who knows, maybe it's time to pick up a new six pack of Oberon!

Monday, June 22, 2020

Honey Do List June 2020

Good Monday morning to all my beady friends!  I hope that you all had a lovely weekend... we sure did.  Lots of cooking, creativity, board games, and just relaxing.  For once I didn't leave my Honey Do List projects to the very last second, so that helped!!

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:



I struggled a little picking a photo for this month, but ended up deciding on this one.  While not incredibly colorful, I like all the icons and symbols present on this amazing bronze door in Prague.  Good luck on this one!  I promise some color next month!

Even though there isn't really color to speak of in Eric's inspiration photo, there were a lot of thematic possibilities.  The first thing that jumped out at me were the Comedy and Tragedy masks at the top of the doors.  I immediately thought of some vintage brass stampings that I picked up at last fall's Inspired by Nature Retreat when we did a giveaway table.  For some reason I have a ton of the comedy ones, but only one tragedy... so I'm not sure what I'll do with the others.  At least I had a set perfect for earrings!  I didn't buy them for these earrings, but I just happened to pick up these really cool West German resin beads at the perfect time.  I added gold plated spacer beads and raw brass ear wires to complete this look perfect for any thespian!  



A lot of my time went into this next piece.  My sweet friend Alexa had gifted me an amazing polymer clay cabochon by Sherri Kellberg of Beadazzle Me last July in hopes of getting me excited about doing more bead embroidery.  It took me a little bit, but after the Bead Cruise this year I was finally hooked!  With the kitty sitting in the left bottom corner of the doors and the metallic patinated look of the cat face, I felt like this was a good time to tackle this fun piece!  I decided to try something new with this one due to it's size... I learned how to add a pin back underneath the Ultra Suede backing.  


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 July 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter


Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Inspiration for the June 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:



I struggled a little picking a photo for this month, but ended up deciding on this one.  While not incredibly colorful, I like all the icons and symbols present on this amazing bronze door in Prague.  Good luck on this one!  I promise some color next month!

The reveal date will be Monday, June 22nd.  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 June 22nd 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!

Monday, June 1, 2020

Art Elements Theme of the Month May 2020 :: Butterflies

I love me some butterflies and moths so I was a happy girl when I saw the Art Elements Theme of the Month challenge was all about butterflies!  I may have an embarrassing amount of butterfly art beads... so the biggest problem for this challenge was deciding what to use.

I had to start with some beautiful faux tin butterfly charms from Humblebeads that came with cute decorative copper charms attached.  The just seemed perfect for Springtime!  Of course I had to dig around for the perfect Humblebeads discs to coordinate with the charms.  Instead of going with a super matchy bead on the top, I picked a Czech glass flower in a bolder coral color to make it pop.


I had also just snagged a few pairs of enameled butterfly and moth charms from Blue Hare Art Wear in a recent show so of course I had to whip up a sweet little pair of earrings with some of those!


Next up, I made a long necklace with a gorgeous butterfly wing pendant by Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  This was a special edition piece that she made only for her Simple Truths Sampler Club.  Pictures really don't do this little treasure justice (especially mine since lighting was iffy when I took them.)  There is a lovely iridescence to it that I wish you could see.  I strung the pendant with tons of yummy Czech glass and Swarovski Pearls with gold plated chain at the back.




Even though I had tons of other butterfly charms and pendants, I turned my focus toward my newest obsession, bead embroidery!!  Even though I took some classes on the Bead Cruise a few years ago, for some reason this year really got me excited about doing more with it.  (I'm hoping to share a little post soon sharing a bit of my bead embroidery journey.)  Anyway, the rest of my designs took a little more time as I learn and play with this new medium.

First up is my very first totally original design... this is the piece I'm most proud of this month.  The idea started with a butterfly shaped porcelain button from Round Rabbit that I've had lingering for years.  When I started plotting it out I thought I could keep it to a nice rounded square shape.  As I worked on it though it continued to grow and morph into a more organic shape.  Here's a little peak at the progression this pendant took in its shape and orientation. 


And drumroll please.... here's the finished pendant!  I'm so happy with the texture and movement I managed to get in the background.  I think it feels really rich.  I'm currently wearing this one on some simple brass chain.  The pendant makes enough of a statement all on its own!


I wanted to let you see the back of this one too.  I used some cork for the backing instead of the more traditional ultra suede. 


My last completed piece is a pendant with a gorgeous ceramic cab by Lisa Peters Russ that I got in another recent Facebook sale.  I'm still pretty new to doing peyote bezels, so every time I successfully bezel something I'm over the moon!  I had fun picking out different bead colors and textures for this one trying to echo the colors in the cab.  I used a navy blue ultra suede for the back of this pendant and plan to just hang it from chain.  I can assure you it was unintentional, but I like the way the top loop echoes the shape of the flower detail at the bottom.  Happy accident!


I didn't quite get my last piece done, but it's ready to trim and get it's backing now.  This is another fabulous cab by Lisa Peters Russ.  This one has a nice matte finish.  Wanting to add a pop of the red and corals from the cab's flower, I gave this one a little crown of flowers to match.  I feel like being a seed bead hoarder is finally paying off since I have tons to choose from for bead embroidery projects!  I need to decide if I'll do a simple brick stitch edge or go for a pretty picot.  If you have opinions on that, I'd love to hear them!


Thanks so much for stopping by to see my little collection of butterfly designs!