We're All Ears: March 2018: Black & White

For this month's We're All Ears challenge over on the Earrings Everyday blog, Erin Prais-Hintz has encouraged us to go monochromatic and work in black and white.  Challenge accepted!

I started out with a couple of pretty simple pairs that are kind of variations on a theme.  The pair on the right features some melon style beads from Golem Design Studio and recycled glass teardrops.  The pair on the left has ceramic beads by Earthenwood Studio with black crystal teardrops and earwires decorated with Swarovski crystals for a little extra bling.

I wasn't sure that I'd manage to make more than those initial pairs, but my husband's renewed interest in miniature painting (for which he uses part of my bead table!) has encouraged me to spend a little more time working on jewelry making in the evenings.  While he was busing painting a couple of ??, I managed to whip up a third pair.  This one is more cream and black, but I'm going consider it close enough for government work!  I've had these cool little links from Earthenwood Studio for quite some time now... always assuming that they would eventually become earrings.  I added dangles with some of my much coveted (and hoarded!) fluted ? rounds fancied up with some brass bead caps.

Again, I thought I was done making for this month's challenge but I was wrong!  I spent the better part of two days working on getting beads and supplies put away and organized.  While I was putting some of my newer goodies away I spotted a few more possibilities and rewarded my hard work with a little jewelry making play time!

I'm glad that I kept going since this next pair is one of my favorites of the bunch!  These are all about polka dots... although the spots on the onyx rounds are tough to see in the photo.  The tube shaped beads make me seriously happy with their happy spots.  I'm not sure if they are bone or horn, but I love the effect!

At the Twin Cities Bead Bazaar a couple of weeks ago I snagged a handful of gemstone links and charms... including a little pairs of black rutilated quartz charms.  I paired them with some faceted rutilated quartz rounds and silver plated spacers.  I like the elegant look of these!

Last but not least, I played with some vintage black and white beads that I bought from Vintage Bead Vault on Facebook.  I snatched these beads up because they were shapes I'd never seen before and I thought they'd play nicely together.  I have to laugh, because I was totally thinking flowers when I made these earrings, but when I took this photo I realized that they totally look like little mushrooms.  Now I can't un-see them!  LOL.

This is a blog hop... stop by the Earrings Everyday blog HERE to see what everyone else was inspired to make!  Have a great weekend!

The Honey Do List: March 2016

This year, my husband Eric has decided to issue me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... we're calling it the Honey Do List.  This month's challenge posed by my sweet husband is all about working in black and white.  He wanted me to move away from my typically colorful creations and focus on using only black, white, and shades of grey.

Here's the inspiration photo Eric gave us to work with and what he had to say about it:

Something I've discovered as I take more pictures is that some are all about the colors, while others are about structure or shadow and light.  As I watched Sarajo creating colorful jewelry with glass, crystals, stones, and textiles, I decided to make this month a little more challenging.  This month I want you to create a piece in black and white (including shades of grey)!  Feel free to take inspiration from the photos, or ignore them completely and just work with monochrome. 

The first thing that popped into my brain was to make a black and white (and shades of grey!) version of the macrame bracelet I learned in Erin Siegel's class on my first Bead Cruise.  I had just ordered some zebra jasper rounds and black waxed Irish linen, so I had everything I needed to get going!  These bracelets are super fun to make and kind of addictive... so I had to make two!  For my second one, I used some pyrite rounds I had in my stash for a version that's all different shades of silver.  In an odd way I made a nod to each of the photos Eric chose with the buttons I used.  The zebra jasper version has a geometric pattern to it while the pyrite one is a leafy design, perfect to pair with the flower.

Not content to stop there, I also made a necklace.  I may have cheated a tiny bit by choosing a flower shaped pendant with a little bit of yellow in the center.  Everything else in the design plays by the rules so I'm pretending that the center of Eric's flower picture was colorized!  I kept this strung design pretty simple... just using black Czech glass, onyx rounds, black seed beads, with some flower shaped pewter beads to break up all that black!  

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March 2016 Inspiration for the Honey Do List

Welcome to March!  I don't know how you're feeling, but this new year is already flying by for me!  This year, my husband Eric has decided to issue me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... we're calling it the Honey Do List.

Eric and I were so inspired by the response to last month's Honey Do List challenge that we decided to do a blog post to announce the inspiration for the March challenge in hopes of getting folks excited about playing along!  Once again, Eric has offered up some of his photography as a jumping off place.

Without further ado, here are his photos and what he has to say about this month's challenge:

Something I've discovered as I take more pictures is that some are all about the colors, while others are about structure or shadow and light.  As I watched Sarajo creating colorful jewelry with glass, crystals, stones, and textiles, I decided to make this month a little more challenging.  This month I want you to create a piece in black and white (including shades of grey)!  Feel free to take inspiration from the photos, or ignore them completely and just work with monochrome.  Good luck!  

The reveal date will be Monday, March 21.  To make it super easy for you to participate and share your blog links, I'll set up an Inlinkz link up so folks can add their blogs as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog on March 21st and join the fun!  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!