2021 marks the sixth 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! 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 went back in time to an amazing trip Sarajo and I took to Portland. This enormous thistle (or artichoke) was in the beautiful yard of our temporary home. I had no idea that artichokes could be so amazing, spiky, and downright ancient looking! So here is a fun challenge for you: colors, shapes, flowers...
These artichoke flowers were truly amazing... and really prehistoric looking. The AirB&B had a cool garden that was so private. I kept wanting to look for the dinosaurs hanging out with these crazy plants!
The colors in Eric's photo were really inspiring for me and were the main focus of this pair of earrings. The green of these polymer clay matchstick charms from Humblebeads as well as their leafy pattern was pretty perfect for this challenge. For the flowers on top of the charms I went with the lightest colors from the bloom... the cream and palest pinks. Copper wire and copper colored niobium ear wires complete the look.
Next up I made a gemstone filled bracelet featuring a lovely flower link in fine pewter by Green Girl Studios. While I know that the link isn't meant to be an artichoke or thistle, it has a similar spiky shape to the petals. I took some liberties with the colors here, going with paler more muted shades. I strung faceted Ametrine, rose quartz, aventurine, and cool prehnite barrels on one side of the focal and amethyst and rose quartz nugget links on the other. I'm pretty happy with the overall effect of this one!
I had a couple of other designs partially thought out but I ran out of time. We'll see if I circle back to them or not, lol.
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 in early June to see what Eric has in store for us next month! (I'm pretty sure we'll be late because we're going up North for a few days... but hopefully that will get Eric super inspired!)
