Monday, August 29, 2022

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

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

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!

Friday, August 5, 2022

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!