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!

As soon as I saw Eric's photo for us this month I knew I had a few luna moth art beads that just had to come out to play!  Beyond the true lunas, I do have a fondness for moths and butterflies in general... so there was plenty for me to choose from for this challenge.

The first thing that I unearthed from my stash were these sweet faux tin charms from Humblebeads.  I'm 99% sure that I'll keep these for myself, but we shall see.  I made some little floral dangles with some pale green and yellow toned Czech glass and green crystals.  A quick, cute design to kick things off!

Not quite ready to tackle my statement necklace, I turned first to another set of earring charms, this time by Cathleen Zaring of Blue Hare.  Clearly these aren't luna moths, but still fun and fluttery creatures.  I grabbed some little vintage metal teardrops to dangle from the enameled charms along with some Swarovski crystals.

Having stalled long enough, it was time to tackle my necklace!  I love the matte glazes that Sarah Kandell of Slate Studios Supply used on this lovely, large luna moth.  She's just dreamy!  I didn't want supporting beads to be so shiny as to overshadow or compete with the focal.  Luckily I had some nice matte options in both Czech glass and vintage German resin in my stash.  My one real concession to shine are the cranberry colored moon glow lucite rounds.  They are a perfect match to the red in the dress and add a nice pop of color to the design.  I snuck in a little bit of blue fluorite and a Swarovski pearl as well.

To my great sadness, when trying to determine the correct length of the necklace for the dress, I discovered what I had already suspected... the dress is a little bit too small for my current weight.  Hopefully having this delightful new necklace will inspire me to get back to my fighting weight!  I can't wait to wear this necklace!

I thought I was done, but then I uncovered a delightful teapot and teacup pendant set from Jade Scott.  Again, not actually a luna moth, but the colors of the moth were perfect!  It was super fun looking for a fun mix of beads that pulled the various colors out of the resin pieces.  I ended up with a mix of Czech glass, German resin, and a single prehnite round.

One last necklace here... I really was productive this month!  The Vintaj brass pendant that I painted is technically a butterfly, but I feel like the colors worked so I'll take some creative license.  Since the pendant is fairly dainty, I wanted to keep things pretty simple.  Also, I like to be able to offer designs at a variety of price points when I have sales (and I have a big one coming up next month!)  I alternated peridot and blue fluorite rounds with little metallic seed beads in between and delicate (but sturdy!) brass chain at the back.

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 September 1st (or maybe the 2nd since the 1st is our 22nd wedding anniversary!) to see what Eric dreams up for us next.

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Art Bead Scene Challenge: January 2019

After a few months hiatus, the Art Bead Scene Studio blog and monthly challenge is back in action!  I was so excited to see the announcement from my friend, and queen of the ABS, Heather Powers and then totally over the moon when I realized that she's chosen to use on of her gorgeous pieces of artwork to start off the year.  (If you love this piece as much as I do, you're in luck!  Heather sells prints of her original art over on her Humblebeads website HERE.)

I actually have a gorgeous faux tin piece from Heather that I'd planned to use for this challenge (and still may go back to for a round two) but I couldn't find one of the supplies that I wanted for it easily and got frustrated.  (If you saw my mess of a workspace you'd totally understand!)  Anyways... I had the bits and bobs handy for a couple of earring ideas, so I started there instead.

First up I grabbed some fun purple and white ceramic tube beads from Golem Design Studio that fit nicely with the colors in Heather's artwork.  I added a couple of different Czech glass flower shades in various shades of purple to match that lovely moth on the right side.  I thought the cute Arte Metal butterfly charms from Vintaj could also work as moths!

Clearly in an earring making mood... I whipped up another pair with some super fun Ghost Moth wing pieces from Twinkiedinky!  These are pretty long, but oh so lightweight!  I paired them with some Mercury finish Czech glass and plated hematite.

Hopefully I'll find my missing supplies as I continue to try to get my studio somewhat under control.  If I'm really lucky it will be before the end of the month and I can make my necklace design with one of Heather's lovely faux tin pieces.  Fingers crossed!  Until then, I'm going to flutter off and try to make a dent in my to-do list.

We're All Ears: August 2017 :: Moths

This month for the We're All Ears challenge over on the Earrings Everyday blog, Erin has challenged us to use the inspiration of moths for our earring creations.  I've always been amazed by the infinite and amazing variety of moths out there.  I still remember the first time I saw a Luna Moth in person... love at first sight!  Here's a lovely photo collage that Erin shared with just some of the moth species out there:

As much as I love moths, I quickly realized that most of my moth beads are more of the pendant or focal variety... not really earring appropriate in size.  (I do have a good number of lovely butterfly wing charms and beads... but those will have to be for another day/challenge!)

I did turn up a few sets of disk beads from Heather Powers of Humblebeads that I'm pretty certain are moth inspired.  I picked out a pair that sort of reminded me of the Luna Moth and then realized that they would play nicely with some colored bronze charms from Lesley Watt that I bought a while back and hadn't yet put away.  Added bonus:  one less thing needing to be put away!  ;)  I mixed in some Czech glass flowers, crystal rondelles, and tiny crystal beads.  Just for fun, I also added some tiny coordinating seed beads to jump rings in front of the flower charms.

This next pair I may be cheating a tiny bit as I think the Humblebeads are probably more butterfly than moth.  This time I was also thinking about cocoons and paired the discs with some wire wrapped silk "cocoon" beads from Anna Pierson of Saga Hus.

I really wanted to try my hand at making my own moth wings too.  I decided to try and adapt some techniques from Heather Powers' "Wings & Dreams" class that I took at the Adornments Retreat last month and even extrapolate a bit from there.  I also used some of the slices I created in Julie Picarello's class at Bead & Button as a veneer over a plain wing shape (the colorful pair on the left middle of the picture).  The pair in the bottom right is actually colored with some old eye shadow that I had in the back of my bathroom drawer!  After waiting (not so) patiently for my little wings to come out of the oven and cool I could finally get to work on more earrings.

Oh, and full disclosure, of course I waited until the morning of reveal to make the wings!  Oops.  I think procrastination ended up working out ok for me this time.  My favorite pair of earrings was made today and I'm super happy with my hand made moth wings.  They aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but not too shabby for a first try at making wings.

First up, a pair where I was trying for sort of luna moth coloring.  I chose the light green partially because I love it and partially because I was also painting a pair of leaves I made and I was too lazy to change colors!  I hammered the ever loving snot out of some little copper blanks from Vintaj to go behind the wings and then added some faceted prehnite rounds and copper bead caps.

Next, I went for a black and white scheme.  I used pearl polymer clay as the base for all the wings I made.  Originally, I was thinking I'd use a single bright colored alcohol ink for this pair of wings so you'd see the sparkle of the pearl a little bit.  For whatever reason, I had a change of heart and decided to use some of the Onyx patina paint from Vintaj instead.  I knew that I could paint it on and then wipe it from the high points of the textured design I created with a texture sheet.  (I textured a bigger section of the clay and then used a butterfly cookie cutter to cut out a full butterfly shape.  I played around a bit trimming down the wings until I got a shape that I liked and still felt wing-like.)  I lightly buffed the edges of the Arte Metal blanks from Vintaj so you could see the hint of silver and then just layered the wings on top of them.  The gemstones are a faceted tourmalinated quartz.

I saved my favorite pair for the very last today.  These may not look super "wing-y," but seeing as they (like my luna wings) started out with an oval cookie cutter, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!  This time I used part of a texture pattern sheet by Christi Friesen.  It was actually part of a dragonfly wing.  After I cut out and shaped the wings, I got to work with the eye shadow that I mentioned earlier.  Between the shimmer of the make up and the underlying pearl clay, the wings have a lovely soft shimmer to them that my photo doesn't do justice to.  I had fun stacking and layering Czech glass and brass bead caps... and through in some crystal rondelles for a little extra bling.

My other pair of wings might not ever fly away as earrings... I'm still not sure how I'm feeling about them.  Nonetheless, I had a productive albeit late flurry of earring making activity inspired by fluttering moths.  You can check out what everyone else was inspired to make over on the Earrings Everyday blog HERE!  Have a great weekend!

Inspired by Reading: A Girl of the Limberlost

It's time for another installment of the Inspired by Reading Book Club!  This month we read Gene Stratton-Porter's novel A Girl of the Limberlost.  This book was recommended by book club member Terri Greenawalt, who happens to be a descendant of the author... how cool is that?

This novel was written in 1909 but I think it really holds up.  In a strange way, it almost felt like something more modern written to feel old fashioned... if that makes sense.  Occasionally the dialect tripped me up a little bit, but overall I found the whole thing quite charming.  Sometimes it's nice to revisit a kinder, simpler time.

The story centers around Elnora Comstock, a teenaged girl living with her spiteful mother along the edges of the Limberlost swamp and her journey into young adulthood.  As usual, I'm kind of terrible at summing up the story without giving too much away.  Suffice it to say, Elnora overcomes the financial obstacles to furthering her education when she discovers that she can sell butterflies and moths and other items from the natural world around her.  The first part of the book follows Elnora's early days in high school and then the story fast forwards to just before her graduation when money troubles once again rear their ugly heads.  The second half of the book picks up there and introduces a slightly star crossed romance into the mix.  You'll just have to read it to see how that all turns out!

While at times I was pretty annoyed at how nasty Elnora's mother could be, she eventually sees the error of her ways toward her daughter and mends their troubled relationship.  I appreciated how determined and plucky Elnora was throughout the book and how pragmatic and even keeled she tended to be.  I would have pitched a purple fit if I found myself in some of the situations she faced!  I loved one Amazon reviewer's description of the book: "Think of it as Midwestern Cinderella story, but with no glass slipper and plenty of moths."  That made me giggle.  But enough about the book... onto jewelry creations!

The ideas started churning around in my brain pretty early in my reading.  I knew I wanted to focus on the moths that were so integral to the story arc... that provided a way for Elnora to follow her dreams.  A couple of beads jumped immediately to mind, but as I started digging through my beads, I soon realized I have amassed a decent sized collection of butterfly and moth beads.

So much to choose from!  Beads from Humblebeads, Vintaj (painted by me), Round Rabbit, Kylie Parry, Green Girl, and Summer Wind Art

The first thing I created was a variation on a design I've made before.  In my last round of painting metal I worked up a couple of the butterfly in profile pieces from Vintaj... one in purple with a bronze-tinted glaze over the top.  I paired the pendant with various Czech glass beads as well as some ametrine rondelles.  I picked beads in shades of purple, amber, and palest yellow to represent the illusive Yellow Emperor moth from the story.  Who knows, maybe this necklace would have complemented Edith's ball gown from that ill-fated soiree!

For this challenge it seemed fitting to finally make something with the contents of one of the destash bundles that I bought from Andrew Thornton a while back.  I snatched this lot up for the wonderful Green Girl pewter moth pendant and the really unusual glass beads that reminded me of ampules, but there was plenty of other good stuff and I decided to keep it all together.  I'm happy that I was able to use so much of Andrew's carefully curated collection of beads together for this necklace and still have plenty of the ampules and the grey glass nugget beads left for future jewelry making!

Last but not least, I managed to pull together a third necklace this month with a cool luna moth pendant from Summer Wind Art that Eric bought me for Christmas.  (I think I'm overcompensating for only making earrings for the last few challenges!)  I love all the rich shades of green and brown in the pendant and tried to capture some of them with my bead choices.  I used a mix of gemstones (including a couple of shapes of bronzite beads... I'm not sure what the green ones are) and Czech glass.  I'm not 100% sure about the jump rings with seed beads on them... I'd love to get your opinion on that part!  

Lack of sun makes for a not so great picture... 

P.S.  While I didn't make it for this challenge, I did make a necklace with a wonderful luna moth bead set from swoonworthy lampwork artist Kerri Fuhr for the Art Bead Scene a while back.  If you missed it you can see it HERE.