Inspiration for the January 2022 Honey Do List

Happy Belated New Year my friends.  Sorry for the radio silence over here as well as the lack of new Honey Do List challenges.  We seriously went into hibernation over the holidays.  I'm hoping after some much needed down time to feel more energized as we get 2022 underway!  I hope you all had happy, healthy, peaceful holidays as well.

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:

Sorry we dropped off on challenges there at the end of 2021, but I've been taking more pictures and feeling more motivated already this year! This month's challenge is a cool ice sculpture from the MN Landscape Arboretum's Winter Lights display.  They did a special photographer only night that Sarajo got me into, which let us take tripods in and get high quality pictures.  I thought the juxtaposition of winter and ice along with butterflies and flowers was a pretty evocative challenge piece!  Good luck this month and get making!

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

Inspiration for the Honey Do List: October 2017

Last year, my husband Eric has decided to issue me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... and we're continuing the Honey Do List for 2017!  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!  

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

Last month I took an insect photography class at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum so I figured one of those shots would be a good bet for this challenge.  The day of the course was insanely windy so taking pictures of moving insects atop briskly moving flowers was a challenge!  Luckily I got at least one decent shot of a Painted Lady butterfly...now take the idea and fly with it!

The reveal date will be Monday, October 23rd.  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 25rd 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 out 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 Designs with Polymer Clay!

I've been having tons of fun playing with the pieces and the techniques I learned in Heather Powers' Wings & Dreams class at the Adornments Retreat last month!  I thought I'd do a super quick post sharing some of what I've come up with so far.  I still have a few painted butterflies and a bunch of leaves to play with, but here's what I've completed over the past week.

These posies were supposed to be for earrings, but I decided to go with pendants instead!  If only I could find the cutter for this flower... I want more of these and can't find one.  :(

Only the top leaf in the pendant is my handiwork (and the patina on the brass leaf too!) The "Hope" bead is by Diane Hawkey.  I'm wishing I had picked up more of her word beads.

I had fun with patinas, rivets, and metal stamping for this one!  It's a little more vibrant than my normal work.

I'm so glad my vision worked for this one!  I had to slightly modify the butterfly filigree from Vintaj to attach my polymer clay creation on top, but I made it work!  I wanted to veer away from the monochromatic so I added some pops of turquoise.

This is actually a holdover project from Heather's Inspired by Nature Retreat last year.  I made the fern imprinted polymer clay circle at the retreat (also the beads) and then used her metal sketching technique on a copper blank.  My rivets are a tiny bit off center, but that's ok.