We're All Ears May 2020 :: May Flowers

For this month's We're All Ears challenge, Erin chose the theme of May Day for us.  I'd never heard of the idea of flowers in cones or baskets for May Day... May Poles... yes, cones... no.  Either way, I can totally get on board with the idea of flowery earrings.  For someone who doesn't consider herself super flowery or girly, I do love flower beads!

I started with a fun pair of pressed pansy flower charms in resin from Twinkiedinky that I've had for a while.  The purple and yellow combination is not always an easy one for me, but how can I argue with Mother Nature?  I added some purple Czech glass flowers and little yellow rondelles for some fun and lightweight earrings.

Next up, I finally made something with some pretty yellow rose charms made by our hostess Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  These have been languishing in my stash since 2016 (hangs head in shame) but they are finally getting their day in the sun!  I used some faceted citrines and little turquoise Czech glass beads to bring an extra pop of color into the design.

I also couldn't resist playing with some cool components from Artisticaos.  The colors were just so yummy, and the shape with it's wire "handle" does remind me a bit of a flower basket.  Once again I picked some coordinating Czech glass flowers as well as some little dyed agate rondelles.

After playing with a bunch of of my flowery art beads I decide to try my hand with a more May Day specific idea that came to me in the shower of all places, lol.  I thought it would be fun to have some little Czech glass flowers coming out of a cone shaped bead cap.  I had to play around with the lengths of the headpins until I was happy with how they behaved, but I think the end result is pretty cute!

Before I was done creating for this challenge, I managed to get in some play time with some new patterned cork that Heather Powers of Humblebeads turned me onto.  Here are a few variations on an earring idea using a thicker version of a floral cork sheet.  All are paired with brass charms from Vintaj, Czech glass flowers, and plated hematite beads.

This is a blog hop.  You can check out what other folks were inspired to make over on the Earrings Everyday blog HERE.

Art Elements Theme of the Month: Flowers

I had a lot of fun with July's Theme of the Month from the Art Elements blog!  Marsha Neal challenged us to be inspired by flowers... an easy task especially this time of year when things are actually blooming in Minnesota.  It didn't hurt that I had just visited some lovely gardens during our tour of Great Britain last month either!

Not totally a new idea for me, but this month I did get the chance to play with some new colors as well as a slightly different spin on some branch components wire wrapped with Czech glass flower beads.  This first one was a special order for a friend.  I had made a similar one with copper plated components but she wasn't a fan of copper.  Once I got my hand on some silver colored branch components, I was able to whip this up for her!

For this next necklace, I clipped off one of the branch connectors and turned the piece on it's end as a fun floral dangle from one of Heather Power's larger scale polymer clay birds.  A fun way to give flight to this little Humblebeads creation!!

Next up, I finally made a necklace with the floral pendant that I made in last year's instructor make & take round robin at the Adornments Mixed Media Jewelry Retreat.  This was Erin Prias-Hintz's project and was made with two part epoxy clay and some fun Pearl Ex powders.  The pendant was fun to create and I'm glad that I've finally made something with it.  It's a pretty simple design... just strung with tons of great metallic Czech glass beads.  Maybe I'll add some of those powders to my Amazon shopping cart... hmmm.

Since earrings are my favorite thing to make, I had to include at least one pair for this reveal.  I picked out a gorgeous pair of copper and resin charms by Twinkiedinky with a blue and golden yellow floral pattern.  To keep them from getting too heavy, I used some chunky amber colored lucite beads framed by copper plated bead caps.

For some time I've been looking at a tube of some fun green-yellow tube beads with white stripes that I got in a goody bag from Candie Cooper at a Twin Cities Bead Bazaar event this spring.  I had cut them off the strand and got them into a box... but that box has been hanging out off to the side on my bead table ever since.  I was toying with the idea of doing a multi-strand bracelet with them (and I still may) but this amazing daisy pendant from Golem Design Studio jumped out at me.  This is one of the thicker pendants I have from Golem (it's domed rather than flat) so I thought that using some heavier weight waxed linen

There are still a bunch of flower pieces on my bead board... we'll see how many more become something now and what gets put away for another day.

P.S.  I did manage to make something else for this challenge!  I had a couple of floral pendants from the super talented Ashley Bonney of Summer Wind Art on my bead table but in the end it was this sweet and subtly colored piece that had to be made into a necklace.  I had a lot of fun picking out a variety of Czech glass beads in pale hues to match the pendant.  There are also a couple of rose quartz rounds in there.

Please take some time and look at the wonderful things people are creating and contributing to this theme by visiting these artists blogs (if you are having issues leaving comments, please try using google chrome as your browser).

You can also see and participate yourself via social media by using the hashtags: #AEThemeChallengeand #AEFlowers

Here is a list Visiting Artists:
Alysen
Cat
Divya
Evie and Beth
Jill
Hope
Kathy
Linda
Louise
Martha
Melissa
Michelle
Rozantia
Sarah
Sarajo (you are here)
Tammy

Art Elements Blog Contributors:
Caroline
Cathy
Claire
Jenny
Laney
Lesley
Marsha
Susan

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.

Art Elements Theme of the Month: Stars

This month Laney Mead over at the Art Elements blog chose the theme of "Stars" for the theme of the month.  At first glance, the theme seems pretty specific, but she left it open for a broader approach.

My first design plays on the star of the ocean... the starfish!  I had gotten the idea to put a bunch of Unicorn Beads drops along my bracelet chain (instead of a different type of bead I've been using) from one of my fellow Inspired by Nature retreat goers.  I thought that these turquoise with white, cream, and black had a beach feel and coordinated nicely with the two-holed starfish bead from Heather Powers of Humblebeads.  I added a fun shell charm and some Czech glass beads to the clasp side of the bracelet to finish things off.

I remembered that I had some Twinkiedinky charms that I bought a while back.  They have a quote on them from Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers...  "You can't expect two stars to drop in the same field in the same lifetime."  So the star theme plays out here in words instead of shapes or images, but I've been waiting for an excuse to play with these!

Lastly, I ended up making one Christmas ornament with a star pattern across a heart shape.  I used a borrowed rubber stamped image as the resist for this salt water etched copper.  I added the little dots around the border by hand with a Sharpie.  That one sold at last Sunday's Holiday Market but the other 4 are still available.  :)  I plan to work on another round of these ornaments this week.

This is a blog hop!  Take some time to see what starry creations that everyone else created!

Guest Artists

Jill

Divya

Alysen 

Kathy 

Tammy 

Cat 

Samantha

Anita

Karin

Sarajo - you are here

Rosantia

Kimberly

Art Elements Team

Jen 

Jenny  

Niky 

Laney 

Claire 

Cathy 

Marsha 

Caroline

Susan

Lesley