October 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:   

Hello artists!  This month's photo challenge comes from a discovery of a strange little shrine we discovered on the Seattle coast this summer.  Since summer is officially over, I wanted a little more sun and color before winter is upon us!  

Well, Fall is definitely in the air here in Minnesota (well, except for the last couple of glorious days where we had sunshine and temps in the 70's!) so my first focus for this month's Honey Do List was all about those pinecones!  Plus, I know I need to be creating for my upcoming Fall/Holiday shows both online in the Sagahus Components Facebook Group and in person.  

First up, a pair of earrings featuring some fun enameled pinecone charms by Lindy's Designs that I picked up just before the holidays last year.  I paired them with cool clear acrylic with gold bumpy rounds and Czech glass. 

Next up, two pairs of earrings that are variations on a theme.  I actually pulled out my disc cutter to play with some long neglected etched copper and upcycled tin pieces.  (Seriously, this is a big one on my need to do more of list right now!)  I cut, filed, then domed the metal pieces and then added the ear wires and cute little pinecone charms.  Voila! 

Not wanting to ignore the floral elements from Eric's photo of the little shrine, I made one more pair of earrings to round things out.  For more of an abstract representation of the flowers, I found some cool paper charms in my stash from Mystic Peasant that fit the bill.  I added some cool teal and gold acrylic rounds, Czech glass flowers and rondelles, as well as crystal studded spacers for an eclectic design.  Even though these are fairly long, they are ultra light weight!

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 November 1st to see what Eric dreams up for us next!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the October 2022 Honey Do List

We're back!!!  After a much needed break in September for two art shows and some travel, we're geared up and ready to go again for October!  

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:   

Hello artists!  This month's photo challenge comes from a discovery of a strange little shrine we discovered on the Seattle coast this summer.  Since summer is officially over, I wanted a little more sun and color before winter is upon us!  

The reveal date will be Monday, October 24th.  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 October 24th 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!

August 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:   

Within the dwarfing enormity of the redwood forest, one can find the tiniest of life.  I discovered this little mushroom nestled in the moss below these ancient giants and felt it deserved some screen time.  Good luck with the inspiration this month!

As much as I wanted to play with mushrooms for this challenge, everything I had in my stash was more of the red and white variety.  I just wasn't feeling that was where I wanted to go.  Instead I focused on the mossy greens of the moss and the cream of the mushroom in the photo.

First up, I pulled out the heavy duty memory wire, leather, and some Burma Jade gemstone rounds.  To pull out the darker tones of the moss, I looked to my Czech glass melons, with some Picasso finished Czech glass rounds that fell in between the two in color.  I happened to have a little polymer clay charm from Humblebeads to decorate one of the bracelet ends.

Gemstones really felt like a no brainer for this month's photo inspiration!  What better to represent the beauty of the natural world, than a gorgeous pair of matched gemstones??  I had these rainforest rhyolite in my stash for a while... I even think Eric helped me pick them out once upon a time.  I paired them with some Humblebeads polymer clay wobble beads and creamy Mercury finish Czech glass beads.  

Now it's your turn!  Please add links to/photos of your own creations below.  I love seeing what everyone else is making too.  We'll be taking September off since I've got two three day studio tours back to back.  Check back in early October to see what Eric has in store for us next!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the August 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:   

Within the dwarfing enormity of the redwood forest, one can find the tiniest of life.  I discovered this little mushroom nestled in the moss below these ancient giants and felt it deserved some screen time.  Good luck with the inspiration this month!

The reveal date will be Monday,  August 29th.  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 29th 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!

Humblebeads July 2022 Color Challenge

Oops!  Due to some travel, I didn't get around to posting this before the end of July.  Better late than never!  

Each month, Heather Powers of Humblebeads hosts a color challenge.  She provides a color palette and to inspire our creations... the one rule is that you have to use beads she made or something from her shop.  (She has tons of lovely Czech glass and cool metal findings.)

Lucky for me, I had two Humblebeads focals in my stash that felt like a fit for this challenge.  I've been hoarding them so long that Heather said she'd forgotten about this shape, LOL!  (I'm pretty sure I got them from the 2015 Bead Cruise.)  My first design used the unique "guitar pick" shaped polymer clay piece as a necklace pendant.  I had to gently enlarge the top hole of the pendant to accommodate a jump ring.  Czech glass bead links make up the yoke of the necklace and the dangle from the pendant.  I added a little brass flying bird charm off the back of the chain.

I've been trying to make more bracelets in advance of back to back early fall shows so I figured I'd try one with this unique focal.  I had a tough time deciding between a more symmetrical design and what I ultimately ended up with.  The colors of the purple Czech glass beads was super hard to capture for some reason, but it's truly lovely in person!

 Thanks for stopping by to see what I was inspired to make last month.  Now I'd better buckle down and start on the August challenge!

July 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:  

This month I wanted to go back to Washington state.  On our trip, we hijacked two of our friends in Kent and made them take us to Tacoma for a day on the town.  We visited the Chihuly Bridge as part of our day and this is just one of many cool installations on said bridge.  I bet you can all find some inspiration in this chaos of color and shape!

I feel like this photo captures one of the two looks that I think of as quintessential Chihuly.  I'm loving the riot of color in this cool ceiling installation... and yet, as you'll soon see, I tended mostly towards the reds and oranges again.  What is wrong with me?

Anyway, this month was pretty much all about the earrings for me.  You're shocked, right?  In honor and celebration of Chihuly's glass work it's also mostly about glass beads and components too.  It just seemed a fitting material for the inspiration.

First up, I made long, swingy pair of earrings with Firelily lampwork glass and beaded cocoons from the newest Saga Hus Creativity Pack.  A pretty simple design with some blackened findings.

Next up I did manage to mix in something other than red when I found some fun lampwork beads from Jeff Barber with a navy base with cream and red dots.  Not a huge departure color wise, but I was trying!  I feel like the texture of the melon drops is reminiscent of the stripe in some of the Chihuly glass.

Next up I went super wild with some enamels focused on shades of orange, lol.  I felt like the murrini on the charms by Blue Hare Art Wear were a good match for Eric's photo. I didn't want to go too over the top so just added some little brass drops from the bottom of each charm and kept it simple above with some Czech glass and plated hematite.

Oh look... I found some blue beads too!  This last pair of earrings feature another pair of charms from my recent Saga Hus Creativity Pack with some lovely, glowing lucite.  I used melon drops here to reflect the stripes again.

Believe it or not, I did manage to eke out a necklace before I ran out of time!  I love the riot of color in this lovely ceramic focal from Golem Design Studio and felt like it was perfect for the inspiration.  I made a chain tassel with coordinating little glass dangles at the ends and make links along the lower portion of the long chain with Czech glass and moon glow lucite.  I think this is a perfect fun necklace for summer!

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 at the beginning of August to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the July 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:  

This month I wanted to go back to Washington state.  On our trip, we hijacked two of our friends in Kent and made them take us to Tacoma for a day on the town.  We visited the Chihuly Bridge as part of our day and this is just one of many cool installations on said bridge.  I bet you can all find some inspiration in this chaos of color and shape!

I don't know about you, but I'm excited to be revisiting Chihuly again this month!  Loving the color and pattern here.  I hope you feel inspired too!

The reveal date will be Monday, July 25.  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 July 25 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!