Monday, July 25, 2022

July 2022 Honey Do List

2022 marks the seventh 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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 month I wanted to go back to Washington state.  On our trip, we hijacked two of our friends in Kent and made them take us to Tacoma for a day on the town.  We visited the Chihuly Bridge as part of our day and this is just one of many cool installations on said bridge.  I bet you can all find some inspiration in this chaos of color and shape!

I feel like this photo captures one of the two looks that I think of as quintessential Chihuly.  I'm loving the riot of color in this cool ceiling installation... and yet, as you'll soon see, I tended mostly towards the reds and oranges again.  What is wrong with me?

Anyway, this month was pretty much all about the earrings for me.  You're shocked, right?  In honor and celebration of Chihuly's glass work it's also mostly about glass beads and components too.  It just seemed a fitting material for the inspiration.

First up, I made long, swingy pair of earrings with Firelily lampwork glass and beaded cocoons from the newest Saga Hus Creativity Pack.  A pretty simple design with some blackened findings.

Next up I did manage to mix in something other than red when I found some fun lampwork beads from Jeff Barber with a navy base with cream and red dots.  Not a huge departure color wise, but I was trying!  I feel like the texture of the melon drops is reminiscent of the stripe in some of the Chihuly glass.


Next up I went super wild with some enamels focused on shades of orange, lol.  I felt like the murrini on the charms by Blue Hare Art Wear were a good match for Eric's photo. I didn't want to go too over the top so just added some little brass drops from the bottom of each charm and kept it simple above with some Czech glass and plated hematite.


Oh look... I found some blue beads too!  This last pair of earrings feature another pair of charms from my recent Saga Hus Creativity Pack with some lovely, glowing lucite.  I used melon drops here to reflect the stripes again.


Believe it or not, I did manage to eke out a necklace before I ran out of time!  I love the riot of color in this lovely ceramic focal from Golem Design Studio and felt like it was perfect for the inspiration.  I made a chain tassel with coordinating little glass dangles at the ends and make links along the lower portion of the long chain with Czech glass and moon glow lucite.  I think this is a perfect fun necklace for summer!



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 at the beginning of August to see what Eric has in store for us next month

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Friday, July 1, 2022

Inspiration for the July 2022 Honey Do List

2022 marks the seventh 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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 month I wanted to go back to Washington state.  On our trip, we hijacked two of our friends in Kent and made them take us to Tacoma for a day on the town.  We visited the Chihuly Bridge as part of our day and this is just one of many cool installations on said bridge.  I bet you can all find some inspiration in this chaos of color and shape!

I don't know about you, but I'm excited to be revisiting Chihuly again this month!  Loving the color and pattern here.  I hope you feel inspired too!

The reveal date will be Monday, July 25.  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 or links as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog starting on July 25 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!