Monday, October 26, 2020

Honey Do List October 2020

 2020 marks the fifth 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... it's the Honey Do List 2020!  (And today marks the our 19th wedding anniversary!) 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:


For October I felt like we needed something creepy!  Here is a photo from Kutna Hora, a bizarre bone church we visited in the Czech Republic.  If you don't happen to have any skull or bone beads laying around, you could also just use the goal of something Halloween/spooky for this month's challenge. 

I can't wait to share what I've been up to this month!  I had a ton of fun... I hope you did too!

I honestly don't tend to have too many skulls in my bead stash, but I was totally captivated by the fun enameled sugar skull charms that Anne Gardanne had in a recent sale.  I couldn't resist and grabbed several pairs in different colors.  I started with the black and white pair... I had the fun striped German resin beads that were a perfect complement.  Some fun crystal rondelles and black Czech glass rounded out the design.  

At first I thought I was going to stop with the first pair... but then I got a shipment from Beads to Live By that included some fun new to me vintage German resin that just happened to coordinate with some of the other skulls.  I had no choice but to whip up the other four pairs!  


The top three will be for sale in our next Five Friends Festival sale over in the Sagahus Components Facebook group this coming Friday and Saturday if you're interested in these.  I haven't quite decided if I'm keeping one or both of the bottom pairs for myself.  Sometimes you have to treat yo'self!


Next up, I finally finished a project that I've had partially thought out for a year and a half.  I bought this amazing skull pendant by Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio (along with coordinating earring charms) at Bead & Button last year.  I made the earrings last year and decided to keep them for myself... so it only made sense that I would keep the matching necklace to make it a set.  I think that I just kept stalling on this one because I knew the wire wrapping of the Green Girl Studios skull was going to be a little tricky.  (P.S. I was right about that but it was worth it!)  


Once I got the pendant where I was happy with it I was able to play with the rest of the design.  I knew I wanted to have a pair of black Saga Hus cocoon beads that I had Anna make for me in there.  I didn't have any more of the cool lucite beads that I had used in the earrings but I was able to pull in some of the metal spacers at least.  I added some striped black and white Czech glass and also some star cut matte crystal quartz bead links.  


Lastly, I whipped up one more fun pair of earrings.  I had recently gotten these super fun German resin beads with a bold black and white pattern.  There was something about them that reminded me of all the skulls stacked up at the Bone Church.  The fabulous thing is they pack a 
huge visual punch yet are ultra lightweight!  Dangling from the bottom are crackle crystal quartz with Swarovski crystal rondelles and Czech glass.  


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 has in store for us next month! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Friday, October 2, 2020

Inspiration for the October 2020 Honey Do List

Sorry for the slight delay... Eric has taken a vacation (staycation?) week and we've been trying to relax, get to some places before it's too cold, and enjoy any stray rays of sunshine even if it's chilly!

2020 marks the fifth 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... it's the Honey Do List 2020!  (And today marks the our 19th wedding anniversary!) 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:


For October I felt like we needed something creepy!  Here is a photo from Kutna Hora, a bizarre bone church we visited in the Czech Republic.  If you don't happen to have any skull or bone beads laying around, you could also just use the goal of something Halloween/spooky for this month's challenge. 

The reveal date will be Monday, October 26th.  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 as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog starting on October 26th 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!