Inspired By Reading: The Forgotten Garden

It's been a little while since I've actually made something for the Inspired By Reading Book Club even though I've done some of the reading.  Suddenly the world has been turned on its head and I have much more time for reading and creating (in theory anyway.) 

The March selection for book club was Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden.  I had a good feeling about this book as soon as I saw the endpapers which featured one of Arthur Rackham's illustrations from an edition of Peter Pan.  (We actually bought a print of this very illustration when we were in York last summer.)  This novel involves a family mystery that spans three generations and two continents.  There's a foundling, a book of dark fairy tales, a secret walled garden, and more.  The story switches between the three time periods as the story and the mystery slowly unfold.  Things may tie up a little too neatly in the end but I certainly enjoyed the journey of getting there.  I'm curious about Kate Morton's other books... when the libraries are safe to reopen I'll have to see if I can check them out.

I honestly didn't think I'd manage to make anything this month... but, miraculously, I did!  I spent a good amount of time this past weekend trying to get at least a tiny amount of my insane bead mess organized and put away.  In the process of doing that, I unearthed a wonderful pair of faux tin charms by Heather Powers of Humblebeads that I snagged during one of Andrew Thornton's destash events.  These little fairies were perfect for a novel that featured an Authoress and her fairy tales so prominently! 

As luck would have it, at the same time I found the charms, I also had one of my boxes of dark blue beads was also out on my table.  Some medium sized English cut Czech glass in a nice dark blue with Picasso finish jumped right out at me!  I then grabbed some small caramel colored rondelles that are great match for the tones in the fairy wings.

Ok,  I'm going to go curl up with the kitties and return to reading my current book, The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine.  Even though I have plenty of books on my shelves, I do wish that I had checked out a few more books the last time I was at the library. 

We're All Ears January 2020: Pantone Color of the Year

Each January, my friend Erin Prais-Hintz challenges us to make earrings using the recently announced color of the year for the We're All Ears challenge over on the Earrings Everyday blog.  I don't know about you, but this is the first time in ages that I've actually liked the Pantone Color of the Year!  Happy days are here again!  Not that I normally pay much attention to color trends and whatnot... I tend to just make what I want to make. 

I had a surprising amount of earring-appropriate blue beads in my stash to potentially play with this month... this picture doesn't even capture all the art beads!  As is often the case I had more options than I had time.

I have to admit that I wasn't really considering the different color palettes featuring Classic Blue.  Probably because I have a strong tendency toward more monochromatic designs!  I did pull together a couple of things that I think fit with specific color groupings though so I'll start there.

First up, a little take on the Ponder color palette.  I had some fun abstract enameled moth shapes from Gardanne that just needed to fly into a earring design.  The picture doesn't do them full justice, but there is some great color and texture on the solid side of the moths from the silver she used.  I decided to go for a slightly larger bead dangle than I might normally, but these faceted labradorite teardrops were too perfect to pass up.  The stone has some nice flashes of blue fire that was difficult to capture.

My next pair features some fabulous polymer clay charms by our gracious hostess Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  With the fun metallic foil accents and the super dark blue, these were perfect to go with the Desert Twilight palette.  I chose metallic coppery English cut Czech glass beads and some bright blue dyed agate for the dangles.

The last two pairs that I made for this month focus just on the Classic Blue itself!  I had a couple of fun spiral swirl beads from Marsha Neal that decided to come out to play.  I just added some small dark navy Czech glass beads and a bead cap at the bottom and a little silver toned bead at the top.  These are on sterling ear wires.

Next up, I salvaged some faux tin pieces from this past fall's Inspired by Nature Retreat.  The colors were perfect, but the original rectangles were a little flawed on one end.  No problem!  I just trimmed them down smaller and then got busy filing the edges down.  After punching holes at top and bottom I just wire wrapped some adorable little Czech glass flowers with crystal centers on the bottom.  Tiny, simple, and cute!

Not made specifically for this challenge, but still celebrating the 2020 Color of the Year, here's a few more.  These were all made at the end of December for the Art Bead Scene Art Journey #9 challenge.

From left to right:  polymer clay charms by Humblebeads and cocoon beads by Saga Hus; ceramic charms by Artisticaos, polymer clay discs by Humblebeads, and dyed agate; porcelain charms by Kiyoi Design.

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!  As this posts, I'm at the tail end of what I hope will be another fabulous Disney World vacation.  I'll catch you on the flip side!  For now, pop on over to the Earrings Everyday blog to see what everyone else was inspired to make HERE. 

Honey Do List December 2019

This is 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 decided to get a little arty with this month's shot.  I like the deep colors in it as well as the statue and architecture.  I took this in our hotel in Milwaukee this past summer for Bead and Button.  Good luck with this one...I'm looking forward to seeing some fun interpretations!

I'm going to be real honest here... this one had me kind of stumped for a while.  I'm hoping some of you guys had quicker flashes of inspiration!  Luckily, some of my leftovers from the faux tin portion of Heather Powers' Inspired by Nature Retreat from this November were still floating near the surface of my beady mess and I realized that some of the William Morris patterns reminded me of the rug that is reflected in the crystal ball in Eric's photo.

Whenever I go to a jewelry making class or retreat, I always end up coming home with extra bits and bobs and unfinished projects.  I had several pieces of faux tin that I hadn't yet cut into or filed that were going to be great for some earrings.  First up, some little faux tin rectangles to which I added brass filigree teardrops.  The ear wires on these are niobium in a nice bronze finish that plays nicely with brass.

Next up, I punched some circles out of our practice sheet of faux tin that is actually an aluminum product.  Because of that, these are super lightweight!  This first pair combines my faux tin discs with some hammered brass rings from Vintaj for some fun and flirty dangles.

For the second pair I used some fun charms from Anna Bronze that I had sort of forgotten I had.  (Amazing things happen when you start trying to clean up!)  The ear wires on these are the bright Vintaj Vogue brass.   

Another thing that I brought back from the fall retreat was a not quite finished faux tin pendant in the same William Morris pattern.  I had cut and filed the piece but hadn't yet attached it to the hammered wire frame that I had made using the Now That's a Jig!  There's no time like the present, so I finished the pendant up and started to plot my necklace design.

I had several different shapes of Czech glass in ivory with a Mercury glass finish to choose from that have a nice creamy, pale yellow color perfect for the faux tin.  I chose some English cut grey/brown beads to round out the design.  There's a subtle mix of copper and brass in this one that I really love.

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 3rd (slight delay since we're taking a mini trip for New Year's Eve) to see what Eric has in store for us next month!  Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year!!

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Adornments Retreat 2019

I'm sorry it's been so quiet on my blog so far this summer.  Since June1st, I've only been at home three weekends and one of those was spent with serious jet lag!  We're on the run again this coming weekend too.  Wowza.  No wonder our summers just fly by!

Anyway, I digress.  This past week and weekend was filled with travel to and tons of fun and learning at the Adornments Mixed Media Jewelry Retreat.  While it's all still fresh in my mind, I wanted to share my experiences and my projects with you all!

2019 marks the third year of Adornments and I've been lucky enough to attend every year so far.  Since it falls around my birthday (it's tomorrow!), I look at this as my birthday present to me.  Each year the schedule has worked out a bit differently.  Our instructors were Jess Lincoln from Vintaj, Heather Powers of Humblebeads fame, Erin Prais-Hintz our mad scientist, and Candie Cooper who is the queen of sparkle and special sauce!  This year participants could take four different half day classes over two days (Thursday and Friday).  We also had a round robin make and take session on Saturday where we got to a little project with each of the four instructors... so great if you didn't have a class with everyone!!

Our fabulous instructors: Candie, Jess, Heather, and Erin

My friend Alexa that I met through Heather's oh so awesome Bead Cruise flew into Minneapolis and rode with me this year.  It's always better to have a buddy to keep you company on a long drive!  Plus we'll be rooming together on the 2020 Bead Cruise so this was a great opportunity to get to know each other better before we room together for 8 nights!  We had a nice dinner in downtown Galena before settling into the Chestnut Mountain Resort for the week.

Wednesday:  Day 1 of the retreat was all about registration, housekeeping for the event, digging into our goody bags from all the generous sponsors, and the ever popular pendant exchange.  Each attendee is encouraged to make a pendant for the exchange and then it's a blind choice... you get called up one table at a time and just grab the package that speaks to you!  Here's what I made for the exchange with etched copper and the cute dragonfly that I received from Tammy N.

Another fun part of the first day is creating and dividing out a bead soup to be used for the design challenge.  How that works is each participant is asked to bring a 16 inch strand of beads (or it's equivalent).  Each table has it's own bowl and the folks sitting at that table throw their respective strands in, mix it around, and then divide it out.  On the last day of the retreat we reveal and vote on our favorite designs made from the bead soups.  More on that later!  Sadly, we were so eager to get started that we forgot to take a before picture of our table's bead soup.  Oops!!  At least you can see the palette below.  After dinner, we reconvened for a night of shopping with the instructors, beading, and socializing.  I came away with some nice goodies as always!

Thursday:  Day 2 dawned and we were all excited to get started with our first classes.  For me it was Heather's Faux Tin Charming Affair.  Yes, I know I've taken this a few times before, but it's always different images and projects... plus she and her awesome husband Jesse have tweaked and perfected the process over time, so you get the most up to date and best technique to take home!  This time we were more focused on charms and earring components... right in my happy place!  I'm often a little pokey in class but I did manage to get one pair of earrings completed and some textured copper pieces cut out.  Eventually I'll get the faux tin pieces cut out and everything filed and put together!

My afternoon class was Erin's Petri Dish Pendants.  I really enjoyed each and every one of my classes, but if I had to pick a favorite, this would totally be it!  Unlike many techniques, this one feels a bit like mad science.  You really have no idea exactly how the resin and alcohol inks will react with each other... it's just a leap of faith.  The only bad part is that you have to wait 24 hours for the resin to cure before you get to see how things turned out.  This is not a technique for those of you who want a reliable and repeatable design.  If you're willing to take a chance the results can be amazing.  Not everything turned out how I expected/hoped, but I still think that they are all attractive and fun!

On the left you can see how things looked from the back... this is the pre-cured picture.  The right is how they looked right after I peeled them off the tape.  So exciting to see the results!

Here's the glamor shot of my finished components.  One of my maple leaf pendants still needs a tiny bit of clean up, but it's way better than it was!

Thursday night after dinner we had two fun presentations and a make and take hosted by Ron Rock from Swarovski and Jess from Vintaj.  Ron brought each of us a gorgeous (and hefty!) orchid pendant that we wire wrapped with a lovely Vintaj brass piece.  Heather shared an inspiring presentation all about the elements of design.  Lots of sparkly and art bead inspiration for sure!

My finished make and take pendant!  Isn't it amazing?

A couple of pages from one of the Swarovski inspiration books that they come out with twice a year when they announce new products.  These pages are hand crafted and just GORGEOUS!

Friday:  My morning class was Adding Images to EVERYTHING with Candie and it was super fun!  We did a quick project with an image under a glass dome and then got down to business with some fun translucent image transfer material.  Unfortunately it's not on the market anymore but I did buy a few sheets for future play!  I have some fun new pendants to create with plus more images to use when I get a chance to experiment some more.

For the afternoon I was back in Erin's classroom for her Quick Cure Clay Components class and more mad science!  Quick Cure Clay is a super new product on the scene from Ranger and the class was all about exploration and experimentation.  It's a really interesting material that cures quickly with just a heat gun as the catalyst.  It's strong and the cured product feels more like a ceramic than anything else that I can compare it to.  Even though Erin had a ton of different options for adding color to our creations, I chose to focus on making pieces since I had access to lots of textures and molds that I don't have at home.  I still have more clay in my package so after I do some more with this first batch color-wise I can expand on my experiments!

On the left, I'm set up and ready to start.  The right are my cured pieces.  The four flowers along the bottom have jump rings embedded in the back side so that I can use them as button clasps.

The last official night of the retreat is a crowd favorite... the Pajama Beading Party!  We get to be silly and wear fun pj's while we continue to work on projects and chat.  Pretty much eat, drink, bead, and be merry!  Another fun tradition is the Facebook Live beading challenge where Erin and Heather give each other a bead soup mix based on that year's palette and one of the other instructors provides a mystery component that must be included in both designs.  It's fast paced and good, silly fun that always results in some lovely new jewelry designs.  You can watch the replay, hosted by Candie Cooper HERE.

Heather and Erin working under the pressure for the Facebook Live Beading Challenge!

Saturday:  The last day of Adornments is always bittersweet.  I feel sad to be finishing things up and saying good bye to beady friends, yet by that time I'm also ready to be back home with my Sweetie and the kitties.  Similar to last year, the instructors planned a fun progressive make and take where we all got to do one charm project with each of the four instructors.  They divided us into groups and we rotated through all four stations.

Make & take charms:  Clockwise from top left the projects were by Candie Cooper, Heather Powers, Jess Lincoln, and Erin Prais-Hintz.  The pewter piece is from Vintaj and can be shaped in fun ways if you wish.  I haven't decided what I want to do yet so it's in its natural state!

After we did our round robin of charms it was time to vote on your favorite creation for the Bead Soup Design Challenge.  You could have knocked me over with a feather... I won second place and with it a $50 gift certificate to Rustic River Finds.  Jess's sweet mom Trish Italia owns this fabulous bead store right in downtown Galena.  I always find some really unique things that just have to come home with me there.  Trish also stocks a great selection of gifts and home decor items.  So fun to shop there every year!  Here's my winning entry:

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entry was actually two necklaces that can be worn together or separately.  Both focals are polymer clay... the heart is by Erin (and I bought it the first night of the retreat) and the rounded square is by Heather and was in my goody bag.   

After lots of hugs and good byes to the folks hitting the road on Saturday afternoon most of us headed into downtown for lunch and shopping.  Monica, Alexa, and I enjoyed yummy white sangria and frozen fruit with our pizza lunch.

With our bellies now happy, we wandered down to Rustic River Finds to spend my gift certificate and more!!  Trish always provides a little make and take project for all the Adorners.  This year it was a sweet necklace.

Every night Monica and I opened our room for late night shenanigans and socializing.  Just hanging out and catching up with old friends and meeting new ones is one of the best parts of any retreats.  We always have some fun and silly times after hours in the "party room" but what happens in Galena stays in Galena!  ;)  Saturday night was our last hurrah and we probably stayed up a little past our bedtimes, but it was all worth it!  

I've come home with my creative batteries recharged and my heart full of gratitude and love for my beady tribe.  I don't get to see most of these awesome folks nearly often enough but I enjoy every moment when I do get to spend time in their company.  Until next year, Adornments!!

Honey Do List January 2019

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:

On our trip to Prague I took a lot of architectural pictures!  Most of these look great but just didn't grab me for being a good subject for jewelry work.  Then I came a across this interior shot of an Art Nouveau building and had my inspiration!  The color palette is limited but bright, and the shapes and designs should give some good options. 

I loved this particular gallery it's glorious glass skylight was breathtaking!  That being said, Eric had given me a bit of a challenge and I was a little slow to wrap my head around a design direction.  Yellow isn't necessarily a color I create with often... and my design tendencies run more toward the organic than the geometric.

Lucky for me, I did have a pair of black and white geometric patterned lentil beads from Golem Design Studio in my stash.  While they are a more random pattern than the glass of the gallery, I think they still work here.  Plus their round shape echoes the round center of the skylight.  I paired them with some AB finished yellow glass beads and blackened findings.

Another fortuitous beady event was that I got a package from my friends at Allegory Gallery that included some lovely faceted vintage plastic beads in a nice light yellow color.  I added some brass bead caps and small Czech glass beads in a matching color and dangled them on long Vintaj brass ear wires.

Apparently once I started playing with yellow earring ideas, I had a hard time stopping!  I made one last pair of earrings, this time using some faux tin charms that I made at the Inspired by Nature Retreat two years ago when Heather Powers first taught her faux tin process.  I won a sheet of Klimt images, and here's the only part of that set that has seen the light of day so far!  I made little dangles with the same yellow teardrop beads from my first pair of earrings and some tiny Czech glass flower beads.  

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Inspired by Nature Retreat 2018

This is the third year that I've attended Heather Powers' amazing fall retreat in South Haven, Michigan... the Inspired by Nature Retreat!  As always, it was a fabulous weekend of friends, creativity, laughter, and fun at the lovely Riverbend Retreat Resort.

Me with my fabulous road trip buddy Anna!

Once again, my friend Anna Pierson and I drove to Chicagoland where the fabulous Monica Peña of Mariposa Originals Jewelry, otherwise known as the hostess with the most-est, invited some of us to stop over for a sleepover at her place the night before the retreat started (as well as on the way home for Anna and myself!)  This year, Erin Prias-Hintz joined the party and Lin Stanke was back too.  We had to get an obligatory selfie before starting our little Chicago to Michigan convoy!

Our little band of naughty monkeys before we hit the road!

Here are some pictures of our weekend home away from home and the lovely fall foliage along the river.  The first picture is the cabin that Anna I and I were bunking in... the smallest of the three buildings at the resort.

Day one was all about salt water etching.  A super fun and non toxic way to etch metals... especially copper and brass.  Heather taught us how to use an image transfer process to apply an image to the copper for etching... I also brought my collection of rubber stamps to play with and share.  I had mixed results with the image transfers... since I think we figured out why some of us had troubles I'll likely give it another shot at home sometime.  Our etched metal would eventually become part of our jewelry projects on Sunday.

Anna's etching set up before we got started; my finished etched pieces, and my "used" salt water solution in the jar that Eric oh-so-helpfully labeled for me!

A retreat tradition is going to Taste in downtown South Haven for a big group dinner.  It's always a fun time to reconnect with beady buddies and get to know new friends.  Here are few shots from around our end of the table!  Miranda and Beth win for most "vibrant" cocktails.

Day two started out with some polymer clay fun... cane making to be more precise.  The inspiration for the technique Heather taught us was fossilized coral or agate.  I feel bad that I didn't do a great job of documenting the process, but I was just too wrapped up in trying to do it right.  Heather is seriously the queen of making polymer clay canes... she makes the process look so amazingly easy, and it so is not!  I did manage to snap one photo of my in progress beads... just not my actual cane.  The bottom blobby thing is a bead that I had applied slices of my cane onto but had not yet smoothed out; the middle pieces are a couple of my beads ready to go into the oven; the top mess is a mix of cane end cast offs and a little pile of my core color for my beads.  While I'm not convinced that I'm going to run out and try this cane again super-soon, I'm extremely happy with how my beads turned out.  The translucent clay is pretty much magic in this application.

The afternoon focused on Heather's amazing faux tin process.  It's a proprietary technique that she's asked us not to share, so no process photos for this.  We used some great Audubon illustrations this year.  Swoon!  Seriously, if you ever get a chance to take this class with her, DO IT!!  You won't be sorry.

Day three was focused on making some finished jewelry and/or components to play with at a later time.  I usually crap out when it comes to cutting and filing my metal pieces... this year I did pretty darn good!  I wasn't feeling in the mood to work with steel wire (plus I didn't bring my heavy duty cutters) so I skipped making a bunch more links like the one on the far left below.  I have the supplies and the jig at home so I can always revisit that later.

The last two years, retreat participants have made charms to give to each other person there.  So, each person comes with 24 of their own charms and leaves with 24 charms... one from each person there.  The necklace on the left was made with three of my precious little charms including the most adorable tiny journal made by Sarah Raines.

My finished pieces as well as the components I have ready to become jewelry.

Here are a few more photos from the weekend... mostly grabbed from other folks because I forget to get pics!

Our very own double trouble twins Rosanne and Beverly "guarding" the goody bags; our table of bead making maniacs; best buds Erin and Heather; silly Monica doing her best vampire impression... good times!!

Another wonderful retreat in the books with this fabulous group!

After lunch and our group photo, it was time to say goodbye and start the journey home.  Monica, Anna, and I weren't in a crazy rush so we stopped by a couple of Monica's favorite antique stores before leaving South Haven... and boy, am I glad we did!  I found a fabulous addition to my basement studio space... an antique dental cabinet!!  I found a label on the bottom that dates this piece to 1913.  So cool!

Monica and Anna were fabulous enablers... as was my super supportive husband (who may just be interested because he wants to put his painted game miniatures in the glass fronted cabinets!).  With some creative re-packing and some help from the vendors "muscle" we got this guy into Monica's vehicle for the ride back to the Chicago suburbs.  Thank goodness we weren't in my car... there's no way we could have fit all three of in there!  I've now got the cabinet in place in its new home and am almost done cleaning out all the drawers.  I can't wait to rearrange my studio storage to better suit my needs! 

I know my little write up doesn't begin to do this retreat full justice.  I mostly post things like this as a reminder to myself... a sort of online diary I guess.  I hope that you've enjoyed this little peek into one of my favorite events of the year.  Much of what makes is special just can't be captured in words... it's the laughs, the one on one conversations, the feeling of the place.  May you go out there and be Inspired by Nature too!

Inspired by Nature Retreat 2017

I meant to write this up sooner, but I feel like I've been running nonstop since I got back from this amazing three day retreat with Heather Powers in South Haven, Michigan earlier this month.  I still wanted to do a little mini wrap up of my weekend reconnecting with my beady friends, learning new things, and just generally getting inspired!

If you haven't heard of the Inspired by Nature Retreat, it's the brain child (love child??) of Heather Powers of Humblebeads.  This was the 7th year of this event that is held in Heather's home town each October and my second year attending.  The last couple of years the whole event has been held at the Riverbend Retreat Resort set on a large piece of property along the Black River.  It's the perfect place to get back in touch with nature and your creativity!

After having some travel glitches last year, I decided to drive to South Haven this year.  Luckily for me, a fellow jewelry maker who lives on the East side of the Twin Cities was interested in road tripping with me!  A long drive is always more fun when you aren't alone!  Anyways, I picked up Anna Pierson of SagaHus and we set out on our adventure.  The first leg of our journey took us as far as the Chicago suburbs where we met up with two other retreat goers for a beady slumber party at Monica Pena's house before making the rest of the journey on Friday morning.  Having our priorities in order, Anna and I did stop for a wine tasting along the way to South Haven!

Day one of the retreat started out with getting settled in, getting our goody bags, and doing our charm exchange (so great to see what everyone came up with!).  Our first project started with making some fun polymer clay molds that we would then use to make polymer clay beads later in the day.  While I found the process fun and interesting, my results were mixed.  I learned some things that I think will make any future attempts go smoother, but mostly it's about practice.  Heather's beads are always so perfectly shaped and even.  Mine turned out a bit more on the lumpy gravy side!  

The top picture shows some of my molds.  The bottom are beads before painting.

We didn't completely finish with this project before it was time for our early dinner reservation in town at Taste... painting would just have to wait!  After dinner it was still a little light out and the weather was mild so we took a little stroll down to the pier and lighthouse.  It was lovely and a little magical to see the sunset over Lake Michigan!  After dinner and our stroll, we kept working on our polymer clay beads.  Some of us actually got painting done, but not this girl.  I work a bit too slowly!

Most of the group after dinner!

What a view!  I'm so glad that we took that walk.

After a good night's sleep and a filling breakfast, we were all ready to begin our next big project on Saturday.  Today was the day for the star of the show... Heather's amazing faux tin process!!  For obvious reasons, I can't share the magic of the process, but I did want to show you a few pics from the day.  One thing that I can attest to, is that having a good file made all the difference working on these components.  I have always hated filing... like, hated with a purple passion!  I can't honestly say that it's my favorite thing, but at least I'm now able to file metal edges smooth without wanting to bang my head agains the way!  No more spending stupid amounts of time filing metal only to to find that I've somehow managed to make it sharper!  (Seriously, don't ask me how, but this was apparently my super power in the past.)  Anyway... pictures!!

Are you good with puzzles?  Making the most of the space I had on my copper sheet!

My bracelet bars:  These are the only pieces that I got completely done... filed and sealed.  

We had a decent amount of down time during the faux tin process, so I finally got back to painting my beads from day one.  I didn't finish the process, going back to sand and add more paint is still on my post-retreat to do list.  You may sense a theme here...

These still need sanding and maybe some metallic accents!

Dinner was pizza and salad at the cabin.  We all hung out chatting and continuing to work fairly late into the night.  Several of my cabin mates toddled back to our little cabin for night caps of wine and cappuccino (not at the same time!).  

Sunday funday and we still had more to learn and make before heading home!  First up, Heather taught us how to do some cool braiding with leather and a lucet (i.e. an amazing fork that Jesse, aka Mr. Humblebeads, made for each of us to keep).  Getting this braid started was tricky for this girl who has never known how/been able to braid anything ever!  I'm so glad that I stuck with it through the awkward first stages because the end result is amazing.  I had some issues finishing the braided ends and Heather had to help me.  If I can't figure out how to do it all pretty on my own, I do have a back up plan that involves bead caps.  Stay tuned... I'm going to try it again very soon!   

The beginning stages of my braid on my trusty new lucet fork!

Forks up!  All hail Mr. Humblebeads!!

I'm really very proud of the finished bracelet... and not just because it's the only thing I actually finished at the retreat!  In all seriousness, for me it's not about how many finished pieces I leave with, but about what I learned.  By that standard, this year's Inspired by Nature Retreat was a huge success!  Anyway, back to the bracelet... other than Heather's disk bead and the jump rings, this piece is totally hand made by this girl right here.  This is the first time I've managed to make a toggle bar that I'm completely happy with... and I think I've learned the secret to making more in the future.  

The finished product!

Running behind a little bit, we ended up having lunch and then doing one last quick project before hitting the road.  Heather taught us how to use the Now That's a Jig system to make a really cool focal for a charm necklace.  We all had 20 brand new charms to choose from to decorate the pendant so the hard part was deciding which ones to use since they were all so fun and fabulous!  I'm excited to say that I went home with one of the scratch n' dent jigs that we were using for class so I'm eager to play some more with my new toy.

Full disclosure: I finished this at home after the retreat.

One last item before we all finished loading our cars and headed out... the group photo.  It was cold, windy, and a little rainy so we all huddled (for warmth and to fit!) on the porch while Jesse snapped the picture.  What a fun group of ladies (and one lad) to spend the weekend creating and laughing with!  Thanks to all (especially Heather and Jesse!!) for another wonderful event!

End of retreat group photo:  Can you tell it was a tiny bit windy??

Not wanting to lose momentum after I got back home, I sat down to finish filing and sealing the faux tin earring charms that I had started at the retreat and get the earrings all finished up.  I love how these little cuties all look.  The last pair is a keeper for me since I discovered that they were a great match for a newer top in my closet.  Now I have to get brave and decide what I'm doing with some of the larger "tin" pieces that came home with me.  Hopefully you'll see some necklaces and other goodies from me before too long.  

My keepers.

It's not done yet, but I had a third piece from one of the patterns and I know what I'm going to do with it.  My plan is to rivet the smaller faux tin piece to some of the etched metal that I did at Bead & Button.  Here's a sneak peek:

Thanks for stopping by and following along with my Inspired by Nature Retreat exploits!!  If you have the chance to take a class with or attend a retreat with Heather, you should totally make it happen... you won't regret it.