February 2022 Honey Do List

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:

I would love to post a spring picture, but we in MN are still in the depths of subzero temps right now.  To commemorate that frigid cold, here is a Bokeh shot of winter lights from the MN Landscape Arboretum.  Hopefully this challenge will keep folks busy until warmer weather arrives!

Boy, I'm wishing Eric could share some real-time spring pictures too!  But MN has way different ideas.  I feel like this winter has been more bitterly cold than it has been in a while, but this too shall pass!  For now, I guess I just have to embrace the snowflakes a little bit longer!  

I've been in a bit of creative slump lately... so I'm grateful to Eric's inspiration to keep me making a bit.  It was also a good kick in the bum to not let some snowflake themed items to languish for another year.  I'll be ahead of the game next winter, right??

First up, a pair of earrings featuring lovely colorized pewter charms by Soul Relica that I snagged in a destash a while back.  Both the color and design of the charms work well with Eric's inspiration photo.  I paired them with some iridescent Czech glass melon drops and a mix of silver plated and blackened findings.  I'm pretty happy with the final effect and they aren't super seasonal feeling either.  

Keeping on the earring theme, since they are my favorite things to make... another fun pair coming right up!  For this one I was focused more on the Bokeh effect of the photo.  The effect reminded me of some charms I've had stashed away from Diana Ptaszynki for a bit.  They are wood shapes that she monoprinted with a gel plate.  I love the layered look of them!  I had some fun vintage lucite melon roundelles that paired nicely and then I added a tiny touch of aqua with some small Czech glass beads.  These are long but super light weight due to the materials used.    

Last but not least, I did manage to make a necklace before time was up!  I've had this ceramic snowflake pendant by my friend Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead forever.  Time for it to see the light of day!  (I'm pretty sure this is the last snowflake I have from her.)  Returning to my stringing roots once again, I used a combination of Czech glass, Vintaj Natural Brass, vintage fluted brass, and moonstone.  

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 soon to see what Eric has in store for us this month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Inspiration for the February 2022 Honey Do List

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:

I would love to post a spring picture, but we in MN are still in the depths of subzero temps right now.  To commemorate that frigid cold, here is a Bokeh shot of winter lights from the MN Landscape Arboretum.  Hopefully this challenge will keep folks busy until warmer weather arrives!

The reveal date will be Monday, February 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 February 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 :: Snowflakes

Fittingly enough for the crazy winter weather that has spread across most of the United States this month, Jennifer Cameron chose the theme of Snowflakes for the February Art Elements Theme of the Month.  Little did she know when she picked it...  While much of the country is getting rocked by the extreme weather, it's mostly just been bone chillingly cold here in Minnesota.  So, basically, business as usual!  

It's pretty hard to design for Spring when you are in the depths of winter (at least for me!) so this theme was perfect for where my head was at this month.  Maybe after this round of designs both me and the weather will have the heavy snow and crazy cold out of our systems!  A girl can dream.

I was lucky enough to snag some gorgeous snowflake cabs from the talented Lisa Peters Russ at the end of last year.  This challenge gave me the excuse to play with a couple of them before the spring thaw... and I'm so happy I did.  I'm also pretty proud of myself for taking on a more ambitious project right out of the gate!  

I started out with the big snowflake shield cab from Lisa (I had already glued that one and two smaller shield shapes down to backing) since I had an inkling of an idea for it.  Since the cab was sizable I wanted to play around with some vintage crystal components that I had picked up for just such an occasion.  It's hard to see in the picture but the large center element has two holes while the smaller side ones have just one center hole.  I used small clear silver lined seed beads to attach the crystal elements.  I played with a new to me technique for filling in the background at the top... a sort of random sewing down of one bead at a time.  As luck would have it, once I got the pendant all finished, I discovered that I had the perfect dyed silk ribbon to compliment it.  Such an easy and elegant solution for finishing the necklace!

Still on a bead embroidery kick, I completed a second smaller snowflake pendant.  I just love Lisa's pieces!  Since this cab was a smaller scale to begin with, I did an extra row of beads around the entire thing.  For a fun, frosty affect I did a picot edge around the pendant with a nice grey pearly colored size 15.  I'm still not sure how I will finish it into a necklace, but that's a problem for another day!

I was in the process of putting some new(ish) purchases away when I realized that the TierraCast charms I had gotten had a snowflake looking pattern on one side (the other is very much floral).  So I went digging through some other homeless supplies hanging out on (i.e. cluttering up) my bead table to whip up these sparkly snowflake earrings.  Hard to tell from the photo, but the bead caps are a snowflake pattern.

I still have some other snowflake goodies hanging out on my bead table, but the sun is out and I may opt for some tropical designs next!

Art Elements Theme of the Month: White

For the December Theme of the Month over on the Art Elements blog Claire Fabian chose "White" to inspire us.  She shared some truly lovely inspiration photos over on the blog HERE that I encourage you to check out.  I honestly have less white beads in my stash than probably any other color making me initially thing that this might be a BIG challenge for me.  (And, yes, rules lawyers, I know that white is technically not a color, but explaining that makes my head pound.) 

Not surprisingly, since I live in MinneSnowta, I chose to focus my creative energies on the idea of snow flakes this month.  It also doesn't hurt that tis the season for selling snowy creations!  :)  I happened to already have a pair of copper clay charms by Kristi Bowman sitting on the corner of my bead mat waiting for attention when this month's theme was announced... serendipity!!  I made little links with copper wire that I had antiqued and lovely matte star cut crystal quartz and some plated hematite for a little flash.  I love how this pair turned out and it's going to be difficult to part with them!

As I mentioned in my recent post for We're All Ears, I've been doing tons of saltwater Christmas ornaments and playing with the leftovers.  Some of them had snowflakes on them... perfect for the white/snow theme I was already working on.  The snowflake is the star of this tiered necklace which mixes the etched copper circles, brass chain and findings, and a small Swarovski crystal bicone.

I made a few different pairs of etched copper earrings featuring snowflakes as well.  I kind of felt like I just couldn't stop myself! 

Not a new creation, but on the same day that I saw the theme announcement, I was also reminded by Facebook of a post from back in 2014 when Erin Prias-Hintz was doing her 30 Word Thurdsays.  The picture I took of snowy drifts totally fit the theme so I thought I'd go ahead and share it with you all!

Snow blown into drifts.  

In the light of setting sun, 

I squint my eyes and can almost believe that 

I’m standing amidst dunes of sand.  

Dreaming of warmer days ahead.

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Art Elements Team

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Susan

Snowflakes: Or My Love/Hate Relationship with Seasonal Jewelry

Every year I have really good intentions of working and designing ahead of the seasons so that I am fully prepared and stocked when each new season arrives.  Have I ever actually accomplished that feat?  or anything even remotely close to it?  Nope.  Not once.

Seriously, I buy things early (sometimes even on sale at the end of that particular season in hopes of being ahead of the game next year).  For instance, I stocked up on a ton of great art beads in yummy autumn colors at Beadfest Philadelphia this summer.  Those gorgeous beads are languishing in my bead box waiting for next year at this point.  Then there was the time I bought a bunch of great ceramic snowflake pendants on sale from Tracee Dock at The Classic Bead in early spring.  Did I use them the next year?  Nope.  The year after?  Maybe one.  Winters have come and gone, and those sweet little snowflakes have just kept sitting.

I honestly don't know what my damage is with seasonal items.  It's like my brain just throws up a road block to creativity saying "I'm not ready for the next season... live in the now!"  I just want to make whatever I want to make all year round!

With my Holiday Open House coming up this weekend, I'm finally setting some of my snowflake collection free!  While I'm still not managing to create ahead of the season, I am at least making some winter-inspired jewelry.  And since winter is just getting started here in Minnesota (and will keep us firmly in its icy grip until the end of March at least) I'm feeling like this is pretty good for me.  Here are all the snowflake designs I've managed to make in the last few days.  All but one of the focals are from The Classic Bead.

Am I the only one with this seasonal design disorder?  I'd love to hear from you... do you successfully design ahead of the new season?  Or are you always playing make up like me?  Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts!

New Earring Monday: Weeks 51 & 52

Here we are at the end of the year... my final New Earring Monday post for 2014.  Part of me is a little amazed that I managed to keep this series going all year long.  I love making earrings and this has been a great way to always keep moving forward at a steady pace.  I plan to keep going with New Earring Monday next year and am going to try to get other folks to play along too.

Since this was my first Minnesota Christmas without snow on the ground (and I've been here since 2000), I thought I'd focus on some snowflake designs for this final reveal of the year.

First up, a pair of subtle snowflake earrings in Vintaj Arte Metal.  The Arte Metal seems to be the hardest of the Vintaj altered blanks (although I haven't tried the pewter).  I attempted to emboss these blanks with a plastic scrap-booking embossing folder meant for paper without annealing the metal first.  The impression ended up being much less distinct than I'd hoped for, but still interesting.

And for my last week of earrings for 2014, I've got another variation on the sets that I shared last time.  These are little aqua colored snowflakes with Swarovski and Chinese crystal dangles.  I liked the mix of opaque and transparent crystals and the sparkle that they add to the design.  Sorry for the picture quality on this one... I accidentally deleted my original photo and had to snap another one last minute in less than great lighting.)

Thanks to all of you who have followed my adventures in earrings this year with my New Earring Monday posts.  I'm looking forward to sharing even more fun earrings with you all next year and hopefully getting some other jewelry makers involved!

If you are reading this and are interested in playing along with me in 2015, the next reveal will be Monday, January 12th.  I plan on doing an InLinkz link up where you can share your creations and link to your blog.  It's super simple to play along... just make one pair of earrings a week and share them on your blog every two weeks.  I try to do something a little different and dip into my art beads with some regularity, but make and share whatever type of earrings you want!

I hope you'll join me in two weeks... until then have a happy and safe New Year!