Inspiration for the August 2023 Honey Do List

2023 marks the eighth 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's picture is another of the many street art pieces we saw in Asheville, NC earlier this summer.  I thought the luna moth would be a cool inspiration for jewelry: either moth beads, or the colors in the art.  Next month I'll do something different!

I've already got some ideas... my big project really should be a gorgeous luna moth pendant from Sarah Candell that I've been holding onto for way to long.  Can't wait to have time to get started!

The reveal date will be Monday, August 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 August 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! 

Art Elements Theme of the Month: Moon

Moon photo by my talented husband, Eric Wentling.

This month, Lindsay Starr chose Moon for the Art Elements Theme of the Month.  I was initially worried that I wouldn't have anything suitable since I used a bunch of moon themed things over the last couple of years.  I shouldn't have worried... I did have a few appropriate things squirreled away!  The problem ending up being finding the time to make things.  January got busier than I had been planning for!

My moon-themed art beads... fine pewter by Green Girl, mixed media resin pendant and ceramics by Gaea, and lampwork by unknown artist.

I had honestly forgotten that the  pendant by Green Girl Studios I had set aside with some coordinating beads had a moon in the design...  I think that I had originally pulled it for the crow.  I figured that this was a good time to revisit the partially thought out design since it fit with the theme and helped me resolve one more UFO from my oh-so-messy workspace.  Win-win!!

Some of the beads that I ended up using were in my original collection of beads for this pendant, some were plucked from an Allegory Gallery bead blend, and some from a gift of Swarovski lovelies from Brenda Schweder from the Adornments Retreat.  I decided to go with an asymmetrical design strung on one side, links and chain on the other.  I kept it all to a palette of black, greys, silvers, and a tiny bit of white... colors of the moon and moonlight as well as the night sky in which it hangs.

I thought I'd share this one too.  It wasn't made for this challenge specifically, but for yesterday's Inspired by Reading Book Club.  I had some fun with riveting.  I made the moon shape with some textured copper scrap left over from the Christmas ornaments I made last year and used some little spacers underneath to give it some dimensionality.  If you're curious about my full book club post, you can read it HERE.

As you can see, I didn't get around to some of the more colorful moon options that I had pulled out.  Tomorrow's another day!

This is a blog hop... please check out what the other participants have been inspired to make this month!

Guests:

Jenny

Melissa

Kathy

Sarajo (you are here!)

Hope

Sarah

Rebecca

Divya

Anita

Rosantia

Cat 

Evia

Alysen

Beth

Tammy

Art Elements Crew:

Claire

Laney

Caroline

Cathy

Sue 

Niky

Jenny

Jen

Inspired by Reading: A Discovery of Witches

I actually read the November selection for the Inspired by Reading Book Club but never got around to making anything, so I'm happy to be back in the swing of things this month!  This month's book was A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  I remember ages ago picking this up as an ARC at an American Library Association conference and happily handing it over to one of the adult services librarians.  I remember this book having a pretty big buzz when it came out so I was mildly interested in seeing what all the fuss was about.

Overall, I didn't love this novel, but I did stick it out to the bitter end, which clocks in at 579 pages if you're curious.  I thought that the premise was intriguing, but it devolved into way too much romance for my taste.  I also thought that Diana as a main character needed way too much saving by a man... or a male vampire, whatever.  Anyway, I did preserver and finish the book, but I'm not going to run out to grab the sequels. (Although if someone wants to tell me what happens, that's cool.)

I decided to to try and make a pendant based on the de Clermont seal featuring a crescent moon and star.  I used a scrap of copper left over from my Christmas ornament making frenzy.  I had used a couple of different Fretz texturing hammers on the scrap before I used my disc cutter to cut the moon shape out.  I used some spacers under the moon to give it a 3D effect when I riveted it to an Arte Metal circle blank that I went around the edges with my ball peen hammer.  I then riveted a brass star beside the moon and wrapped a brass filigree around the pendant.  I have to say that it was fun to do some riveting.  I want to do more metal work!

I could have left it here and just put on a jump ring and plain chain, but I wanted to do a little more than that.  I made some Czech glass links in metallics and black and finished the design with Vintaj natural brass chain.

When I was putting some unused beads back in their proper place, I discovered a few brass beads with star and moon designs.  I just had to make something with them!  I paired them with some fun purple druzy barrels that I've been holding onto for a bit.

I'd better go pick up the February book from the library and get started soon... or maybe I'll wait until we're back in the positive numbers for temperatures!  If you're interested in joining the book club fun, check out our Facebook group HERE.

We're All Ears: October 2017

The inspiration for this month's We're All Ears challenge over on the Earrings Everyday blog is all about the moon.  Ok, it was actually supposed to be the Harvest Moon but I used some creative license and went with the moon in general... mostly because I didn't have anything that felt harvest-y.

Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash

I started out looking for art beads to use... not feeling confident that I had anything at all.  Surprise, surprise!  I actually found a set of moon and star charms from Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio.  I paired them with some chunky faceted chalcedony, Czech glass, and, for sparkle, crystal studded rondelles.

Never satisfied with making just one pair for this challenge, I put on my thinking cap and came up with a second design.  I had a pretty tiny scrap of etched copper left over from a past project... just enough to cut two very small crescent moons from it.  At first I was thinking that I would rivet the crescents to a larger "full moon" made from hammered Arte Metal circle blanks.  (I used two different sizes of my ball peen hammers to get the "craters.")  With how tiny the copper pieces were, I felt like I'd end up covering up most of the shape.  Plan B to the rescue!  I ended up just punching one hole in each copper crescent and then using jump rings to hang them in front of the circles.  Above my dual moons I wire wrapped some moonstone beads with matte bronze Czech glass spacers.

Don't forget to stop by the Earrings Everyday blog to see what everyone else was inspired to make HERE.