Inspiration for the February 2019 Honey Do List

Can you believe that we're starting the fourth 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 2019!  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 took this shot outside our friends Jim and Lori's cabin up north in Minnesota.  At the time I thought it was pretty cold out.  After the past week of -28 degree and up to -60 degree windchill that now seems like shorts weather!  To commemorate this Polar Vortex of Doom I really wanted to get a winter shot for this month, so here you go!  A cute nuthatch on a limb!

The reveal date will be Monday, February 25th.  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 February 25th 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!  

New Fall Jewelry

The creative bug has bitten me hard lately with the desire to make fall-inspired jewelry!  I've been busy playing with beads both new and old... and trying to take some breaks to actually put things away and organize so I don't have so many pretties getting lost in the chaos of my studio!

As I'm gearing up for two holiday shows the first full week of December, I thought this would be a good time to share a few of the goodies I've been working on.  I plan on having all of these at my Holiday Open House on Sunday, December 4th (check out the Facebook Event HERE) and, if they are still around, the Minnesota Women's Art Festival on Saturday, December 10th.

Let me start out with some little birdie necklaces that are just dripping with art bead goodness!  I just got a few of the amazing new bird beads from Heather Powers of Humblebeads and couldn't wait to make something with them.  I've always loved Heather's solid color birds, but these are truly swoon-worthy with the rich and colorful designs she's added in using her magical abilities.  Using some design tips that Heather shared, I sat down to play with my new goodies and make some stacked necklaces.  Both necklaces are on long chain with twigs by Diane Hawkey.  The one on the left features a leaf by Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead and the one on the right has an oak leaf made by Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio.

Next up, let's continue on with the Humblebeads theme.  I whipped up a little pair of owl charms (love these little hoots!!) made by Heather by adding some matte sunset dumortierite, Czech glass, and brass.  The pair on the right features some awesome rusty, crusty polymer clay daggers made by Heather's talented husband Jess Contreras (aka Mr. Humblebeads!)

In the process of trying to get my beads organized and (a little bit more) under control, I found some pairs of little oak leaves made from dyed coconut leaves that I picked up from Allegory Gallery a couple of years ago.  Now I'm wishing that I had grabbed more of them because these earrings turned out so cute!  They are colorful and super light.  I'm so tempted to keep the orange pair, but I'll let them out into the world to find a happy new home!

Thanks for stopping by to check out my newest jewelry designs.  Now I'm going back to my bead table to get back to work creating more designs for my upcoming shows!