Honey Do List December 2020

Wow.  What a year 2020 has been!  It's been long and stressful yet I have much to be thankful for... not the least of those things continued health for myself and my sweet husband.  We are drawing to a close the fifth year of the Honey Do List! Thanks to all of you who continue to follow and play along with this monthly design challenge.

This is a shot from up near International Falls from last year.  This was just after sundown, and I really like the vibrant blues and purples.  This is kind of a strange one for inspiration but I'm curious what people will do with it.

What I mostly remember about this photo shoot was a lot of waiting around and trying not to be eaten alive by mosquitos!  But the end result sure is pretty!  I may have missed an opportunity to play with some of those purple tones, but my muse pulled me more toward the green/teal colors.  Hey, I was just happy to find some energy to create!

I started out with a major necklace this time that started with a lovely ceramic connector from Lisa Peters Russ that I got at Bead & Button last year.  My photo doesn't do it justice (thanks, crappy winter light) but it's a rich mix of greens and turquoise with a green crystal at it's center.  I balanced the weight of the ceramic focal with a nice slab of chrysocolla on the opposite side.  I strung a chunky mix of fluorite and turquoise nuggets with some interesting Czech glass square pillows, matte Czech glass melons, and vintage corrugated steel mesh beads.

Next up, earrings!  I snagged these fabulous ceramic earrings charms from Artisan Clay during a benefit for one of my good friends.  Always happy to buy beads for a great cause!  The crackle glass in the middle made me think of the water and the blue was a nice compliment to the photo.  I paired the charms with moon glow lucite, Swarovski crystal spacers and silvery Czech glass.  

Next up another pair that feels "watery" to me.  I combined some fun Czech glass melon drops with super fun swirled glitter confetti acrylic rounds.  There's an extra touch of bling with the crystal spacers tucked in there.

One more pair of earrings celebrating the green tones as well as the wavy patterns of the grass and water.  I managed to snag these awesome colored pewter charms by Inviciti and while working on putting them away I saw that they went really well with some new green glass drops with a wonderful sheen to them.  A simple but cool design I think!

Last up, another quick necklace I whipped up at the last minute.  I made a chain tassel with Czech glass and crystal bead dangles to hang below the lovely teal ceramic bead by Golem Design Studio.  I added a few faceted Czech glass rounds and a pair of Apatite ovals along the long brass chain for extra interest.  

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 January 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month!  Until then, wishing you all a joyous holiday season and a happy and healthy New Year!

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Art Elements Theme of the Month :: All Things Christmas

 

It's been a while since I have made enough for one of the Art Elements themed challenges to warrant a blog post, but I've actually been fairly busy with holiday themed items lately for a series of online shows I've been a part of over in my friend Anna Pierson's Sagahus Components Facebook Group.  Yay!  

I made a little collection of earrings using upcycled tins pairing them with snowflake charms and really fun Italian glitter resin.  I think my favorites are the ones with the embossed silver snowflakes that I cut from some small storage/gift tins that I snatched up last year at Michael's after the holidays.  

I also made a few more wintery versions of my etched copper earrings that use the leftovers from my Christmas ornaments.  I like the combination of the copper evergreen patterns with pewter charms and luckily I had the perfect niobium ear wires in grey with copper accents.  

I don't always buy a ton of holiday specific artisan beads, but this year maybe I just felt the need for a little extra Christmas cheer.  I snagged some fun enameled charms from Lindy's Designs (left and right below) that I paired with more of the Italian glitter resin.  The middle pair of earrings below are some adorable, slightly mismatched poinsettia ceramic charms by Golem Design Studio paired with vintage German marbled resin and Czech glass.

Necklaces featuring artisan beads with some holiday flair were also on my creative docket.  I bought a set of partridge and pear ceramic lentils from Golem Design Studio at Bead & Button last year and I knew I wanted to make a tree for the little bird!  I used the general idea from one of Heather Power's tutorials to shape the tree out of copper wire and then hammered the whole frame to work harden it.  I then filled in the tree with a mix of seed beads, Czech glass, and Swarovski crystal pearls in colors to coordinate with the ceramic bead.  The middle necklace features a whimsical reindeer enameled pendant by Lindy's Designs strung with tons of Czech glass and some lavender candy jade.  The necklace on the right is a stack of polymer clay goodies from Humblebeads.  Love the the little red bird, it's sweet nest, and the snow kissed pinecone she made.  I added a few elements including some copper plated branches and Czech glass beads.    

If you've been following my creative journey on Instagram or Facebook you know that I've been having lots of fun with beer bottle caps and bead embroidery.  Bell's Brewery has some of the best bottle caps around for their seasonal beers.  They had a holiday ale with a cute Christmas tree on it that has become a couple of pins so far... and I'm still hoping to make one more as a gift but it will probably be late.  The middle pin below is the Fulton Brewing logo but it kind of made me think snowflake surrounded by silver.

Last but not least, I made another batch of saltwater etched Christmas ornaments this year.  It's a fun but sometimes frustrating process as you don't always get a clean or deep etch.  I only had one true failure this year... so that's good!  I really should do some non holiday, non ornament etching at some point... or at least start using some of those things I've done in the past.  New Year's resolution maybe??  

I hope you've enjoyed my little tour through this year's holiday makes!  Wishing you all a joyful holiday season!

Inspiration for the December 2020 Honey Do List

Sorry for the delay (again) this month.  We've been a little preoccupied with other things here.  We'll just chalk it up to 2020.  Better late than never!

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!

This is a shot from up near International Falls from last year.  This was just after sundown, and I really like the vibrant blues and purples.  This is kind of a strange one for inspiration but I'm curious what people will do with it.

The reveal date will be Monday, December 28th.  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 December 28th 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 and end 2020 with a bang!

Honey Do List November 2020

Sorry to be posting this so late in the day, but at least I got it done on the due date!  I got a little caught up in our Five Friends Holiday Sale on Facebook that extended through today, Cyber Monday.  And I'll apologize in advance for my photos... the light hasn't been on my side lately.

Anyway, as most of you know, 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 went a little surrealistic on this one.  I took this from a moving car in England: a field with a bunch of wild poppies.  I like the blur and the pop of color here.  Good luck!

As soon as I opened the picture file from Eric I knew one of the art beads that I just had to use this time!  But I'll get to that design in a bit.  As always, I started by gathering all the possible beads that I might want to use for this challenge.  I had a nice selection of art bead options!

As is my normal habit, I started with a pair of earrings.  I snagged these pretty poppy enameled charms by Lindy's Designs in a Facebook sale before Eric chose this month's artwork and they came just in time!  As luck would have it, I also had just gotten some fun new acrylic that were sitting out on my bead table when inspiration struck.  I love the acrylic for being bold without being heavy.  The black and white floral pattern really was the perfect addition to this design!

Next up, I had to play with at least some of my extensive collection of Golem Design Studio poppy pieces!  For this first necklace I strung a collection of Czech glass beads in colors to coordinate with the pendant.  I even threw in some red flowers for fun.  I just love the mix of teal or turquoise and red!

While I was noodling on what to do with some of the other pieces, I whipped up a multi-strand bracelet using Lorelei Hill Eurto's design from back in the day of beading magazines being plentiful.  I used several different colors and sizes of seed beads, Czech glass, and bamboo for the strands.  Wood and a ceramic round round out the focal section of the bracelet.  

My next necklace was inspired by a series that my friend Erin Prais-Hintz made a couple of years ago.  I got my Now That's a Jig set back up on the end of my table and whipped up a little teardrop pendant frame that I could hang another Golem lentil bead off of.  A few coordinating rows of beads wire wrapped to the frame completed the look.  I just strung the pedant off of a long brass chain.

Lastly I've got my favorite piece of the whole bunch... with the art bead most perfectly suited to Eric's photo.  I had snatched up a pair of of fabulous enameled focals by Gardanne Beads a while back that really look like Anne could have taken her inspiration from Eric's picture!  I knew from the first that I wanted to do a multi-strand necklace with a variety of smaller beads pulling the colors from the pendant.  I hid the ends of the strands in brass cones topped with turquoise colored beads.  I added links with red and black flower beads to connect the front part of the necklace to the brass chain in the back.  This one still needs a little bit of tweaking, but you get the general idea! 

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 December 1st (omg, that's tomorrow!) to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the November 2020 Honey Do List

Sorry for the delay (again) this month.  We've been a little preoccupied with other things here.  Better late than never!

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!  (And today marks the our 19th wedding anniversary!) 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 went a little surrealistic on this one.  I took this from a moving car in England: a field with a bunch of wild poppies.  I like the blur and the pop of color here.  Good luck!

The reveal date will be Monday, November 30th.  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 November 30th 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!

Honey Do List October 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!  (And today marks the our 19th wedding anniversary!) 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:

For October I felt like we needed something creepy!  Here is a photo from Kutna Hora, a bizarre bone church we visited in the Czech Republic.  If you don't happen to have any skull or bone beads laying around, you could also just use the goal of something Halloween/spooky for this month's challenge. 

I can't wait to share what I've been up to this month!  I had a ton of fun... I hope you did too!

I honestly don't tend to have too many skulls in my bead stash, but I was totally captivated by the fun enameled sugar skull charms that Anne Gardanne had in a recent sale.  I couldn't resist and grabbed several pairs in different colors.  I started with the black and white pair... I had the fun striped German resin beads that were a perfect complement.  Some fun crystal rondelles and black Czech glass rounded out the design.  

At first I thought I was going to stop with the first pair... but then I got a shipment from Beads to Live By that included some fun new to me vintage German resin that just happened to coordinate with some of the other skulls.  I had no choice but to whip up the other four pairs!  

The top three will be for sale in our next Five Friends Festival sale over in the Sagahus Components Facebook group this coming Friday and Saturday if you're interested in these.  I haven't quite decided if I'm keeping one or both of the bottom pairs for myself.  Sometimes you have to treat yo'self!

Next up, I finally finished a project that I've had partially thought out for a year and a half.  I bought this amazing skull pendant by Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio (along with coordinating earring charms) at Bead & Button last year.  I made the earrings last year and decided to keep them for myself... so it only made sense that I would keep the matching necklace to make it a set.  I think that I just kept stalling on this one because I knew the wire wrapping of the Green Girl Studios skull was going to be a little tricky.  (P.S. I was right about that but it was worth it!)  

Once I got the pendant where I was happy with it I was able to play with the rest of the design.  I knew I wanted to have a pair of black Saga Hus cocoon beads that I had Anna make for me in there.  I didn't have any more of the cool lucite beads that I had used in the earrings but I was able to pull in some of the metal spacers at least.  I added some striped black and white Czech glass and also some star cut matte crystal quartz bead links.  

Lastly, I whipped up one more fun pair of earrings.  I had recently gotten these super fun German resin beads with a bold black and white pattern.  There was something about them that reminded me of all the skulls stacked up at the Bone Church.  The fabulous thing is they pack a huge visual punch yet are ultra lightweight!  Dangling from the bottom are crackle crystal quartz with Swarovski crystal rondelles and Czech glass.  

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 November 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the October 2020 Honey Do List

Sorry for the slight delay... Eric has taken a vacation (staycation?) week and we've been trying to relax, get to some places before it's too cold, and enjoy any stray rays of sunshine even if it's chilly!

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!  (And today marks the our 19th wedding anniversary!) 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:

For October I felt like we needed something creepy!  Here is a photo from Kutna Hora, a bizarre bone church we visited in the Czech Republic.  If you don't happen to have any skull or bone beads laying around, you could also just use the goal of something Halloween/spooky for this month's challenge. 

The reveal date will be Monday, October 26th.  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 October 26th 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!

Art Elements Theme of the Month :: Blue

 

The September Art Elements Theme of the Month is much more wide open than usual... it's all about the color blue!  

I knew that it was finally time to stop hoarding my pair of gorgeous blue jay feather charms from Artisticaos.  What challenge could be more perfect??  At first I thought I'd be able to pair the porcelain feathers wth some new dark blue moonglow lucite... but the two things were just fighting each other too much.  I had to come up with something else lightweight.  A lovely pair of dark blue and grey streaked polymer clay rounds from Humblebeads ended up being just the thing to complete the design.

I had already made up the little moonglow lucite links so I was determined to find something in my stash to pair with them.  Luckily, I had some pretty charms from Golem Design Studio that fit the bill!  (If you aren't familiar with Golem, their ceramic beads and pendants are all carved and glazed by hand.  Amazing!)  

Lastly, a piece that I shared in progress last month for the Mandala theme... but it certainly fits the blue theme perfectly as well!  So here it is all done!  The beautiful cobalt cab is by Jenny Davies-Reazor.  This piece got a little too big for me to be a pendant... so I added a pin back to make it a brooch.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I've been up to.  I hope you like my little foray into the color blue this month.    

Honey Do List September 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!  (And today marks the our 19th wedding anniversary!) 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 flower is from a trip to Florida, ages before the COVID times stopped us from traveling.  I went low key on it to make the flower itself pop.  I like contrast of colors in this one and hopefully it will speak to folks. 

I really think this flower shot turned out pretty cool.  It also reminded me of the mandala-like "Star Flower" enamel pendants that I've been having so much fun making with the last couple of months.  Alas, I didn't have any of those that felt right for this colorway.  No worries, I have plenty of other beads to paw through!  

I was really feeling the earring making love this month and did all my Honey Do making early in the month with three pairs of earrings in one day.  They all focus on the purple, green, and (to some degree) the white from Eric's inspiration photo.

I think I'm proudest of the first pair of earrings which was inspired by a fun tutorial that my friend Cassandra Spicer did for her bead store's Facebook page.  (I haven't had the pleasure of visiting Beads to Live By in person yet, but I've done some serious shopping damage with Cassandra online!!)  Anyway, if you're interested, you can check out her video tutorial HERE.  

I took the idea from Cassandra's project and played around with it using some fun ceramic charms by Lesley Watt.  I had to be pretty careful with my wire wrapping since I was using ceramic instead of metal components, but I got it to all play nice in the end.  (Seriously, the first one was perfect on the first try... the second took 4 tries I think.)  The picture really doesn't do these justice.

Next up, a fun little gathering of beads... a mix of lampwork glass (artist unknown), lucite, and Czech glass on sterling silver.  The bright colors just make me happy here!  And I have to say that I was glad to get to use some new moonglow lucite... it may be my new beady love.  

Last but not least, I did a play on a design I've done a few times with different beads.  I had one last pair of purple, green, and white striped lentils from Golem Design Studio so I figured that I needed to get them out of their drawer!  I used beads from a lovely seed bead mix to decorate the arched ear wires.  

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 October 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Art Elements Theme of the Month :: Mandalas

 

I'm a bit late getting my blog post together, but I still wanted to share what I've been making.  The August Theme of the Month for Art Elements blog and Facebook group was mandalas.  I knew that I had some fun and colorful options in my stash.  I barely scratched the surface, but it just felt good to be creating.

First up, a couple of pairs of earrings featuring fabulous enameled components by Cathleen Zaring of Blue Hare Art Wear.  She calls this style "star flower" but they seemed very mandala like to me!  This first pair may have opened me up to splurging on a bunch of lucite beads.  The beauty of lucite is that you can go chunky without adding much weight.  The enameled charms have some heft to them, so large gemstones or glass would just get too heavy.  But I digress.  This pair has some fun lucite rounds and Czech glass in colors to complement the charms.  

The second pair I made has similar colors but in vastly different proportions.  A much brighter pair for sure!   These have some vintage plastic squared barrels (for lack of a better descriptor) topped with Czech glass.  Turquoise and orange is one of my favorite color combos... so yummy!

I managed to complete a necklace this month too!  Yay!  I love this amazing double sided polymer clay focal by Staci Louise Smith.  I've been holding onto this baby since 2014 when I went to Bead Fest.  I knew I had to design something with this for the mandala theme... spotting the perfect cocoon beads by my friend Anna Pierson of Sagahus Components sealed the deal.  I added in some Dzi agate rounds in a great green and rusty orange-brown as well as Czech glass in a few different shapes and finishes.  I'm especially smitten with the crusty texture on the green rounds.  It's tough to see in the pictures but, trust me, it's awesome!

Seriously, you have to love a reversible pendant!  Both sides are super cool.  Staci gets a real depth to her colors with her polymer creations.

Last, but not least, a work in progress for you.  I needed some calming zen action, so I pulled out my drawer of cabachons and found this lovely cobalt blue butterfly cab by Jenny Davies-Reazor.  The repeating butterfly motif gave it a mandala feeling that I continued on with the surrounding rows of beads.  I'm going to need a quick trip to the bead store for some seed beads to complete my design, but I'm well on the way to a completed project.  I'm thinking this one is going to grow up to be a brooch just because of the size... but we shall see.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I've been up to!  Have a wonderful long weekend my friends!

Inspiration for the September 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!  (And today marks the our 19th wedding anniversary!) 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 flower is from a trip to Florida, ages before the COVID times stopped us from traveling.  I went low key on it to make the flower itself pop.  I like contrast of colors in this one and hopefully it will speak to folks. 

The reveal date will be Monday, September 21st.  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 September 21st 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!

And to wrap things up, here's one of my favorite pictures from our wedding day.  Love you more today than ever, Eric!

Honey Do List August 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:

So this one is an old picture, but fits the time of year...and the fact that Sarajo is spending her summer days raising a bunch of monarch butterflies from eggs and caterpillars!  So here is some brightness for your jewelry making pleasure.

I never thought I'd be a monarch mama, but here I am.  After my original round of caterpillars I thought I'd be done, but I kept finding more tiny caterpillars and eggs.  So here I am having released 13 butterflies so far with 1 more in chrysalis, and one more decent-sized caterpillar to go!  Guess with our summer plans getting shelved and being at home all the time, I needed something extra to distract me!  

Here are a couple of pictures of two of the six (!!) butterflies that I released this past weekend.  Aren't they just gorgeous?!?

I had the pleasure of meeting up for lunch and some shady bead deals with my good friend Anna Pierson of Saga Hus the other day.  It was so nice to get to hang out and catch up, and get a nice haul of lovely new cocoons to play with at the same time!  You'll see the fruits of that meeting in most of my designs this month.

The first thing that I made focused more on the colors of the flower blooms and stems in Eric's photo than the monarch itself.  I had snagged this pair of butterfly wing charms from Kristi Bowman when she first started making them.  I paired the charms with coordinating Czech glass and some copper plated flower bead caps.  Kristi's components literally have a glow about them that pictures don't do justice.  

Next up, a super quick earring pair that combines a fun dark maroon and gold set of Saga Hus cocoons with amazing faux tin charms by Humblebeads.  These are super duper light weight yet still pack a visual punch!  I love it when components from two talented friends come together like this.

Eric says that I have to keep this next pair.  I think I just might because they are super cute and go nicely with a sundress I have.  The ceramic charms are from the talented Sarah Kandell of Slate Studios.  Again, I've paired the charms with cocoons from Saga Hus but fancied up the design with some seed bead decorated jump rings for extra movement.  

I couldn't wrap up my creating for this month without making a necklace with an amazing monarch pendant from Humblebeads.  I wire wrapped a fun black and orange piece of Nepalese cane glass and some Czech glass rondelles to make a bail for the pendant.  I knew that I wanted to do beaded links for this design since I wanted to use some more great orange cocoons from Saga Hus.  The funky black glass beads were a gift from my friend Monica Pena of Mariposa Originals Jewelry... I'm kind of smitten with their unique shape!

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 September 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter