Art Elements Theme of the Month: Foliage

For the September Theme of the Month over on the Art Elements blog, Caroline Dewison has challenged us to create art based on foliage.  I'm loving this idea as I have a TON of leafy beads in my stash... art beads, Czech glass, and metal... bright summer colors and muted fall tones are all well represented in my bead collection.  I spent a chunk of time over Labor Day weekend collecting some of my favorite art beads leaves as a starting point for this creative challenge and got to work making some new jewelry!

I got a jump start on creating for this challenge right away... I figure that was a smart idea since I was needing to prep for a big 3 day art show, the Art Wander, the last weekend of the month.  These were all perfect for that!

Thinking more along the fall foliage lines, the first thing that made it to my bead board was a beautiful ceramic leaf pendant by Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead.  I strung this one with a collection of gemstones and Czech glass in an autumnal palette.  The rich colors and patterns of Ocean Jasper and Red Creek Jasper were natural choices for this design.  I added in some Czech glass, mostly in metallics, to round out the necklace and finished it off with a fun brass leaf clasp.

Next up, another fall beauty featuring a polymer clay pendant by my friend Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  This little cutie was from her Simple Truths Sampler Club from last summer.  When I opened my box of brighter green beads, the first thing that jumped out at me were some matte banded agate rounds.  They had a nice mix of the colors from the pendant and I built things out from there.  I chose a few different Czech glass beads along with matte jade, green apple jade rondelles, and a copper plated leaf clasp.

As I was in major show prep mode this month, I decided it was a good time to whip up a mini collection of leafy earrings production line style.  I grabbed a bunch of different colors of Czech glass maple leaf beads and revisited a design from last fall.  I love the look of the leaves dangling inside the brass filigree hoops!  Believe it or not, this isn't all the colors of this leaf bead in my stash.  I stopped myself here instead of continuing down this particular rabbit hole!

Next I grabbed a fun box shaped bead by Green Girl Studios that I love but have been at a loss as to how to best use.  I decided that my best bet was to use it on the side of a necklace balanced by some cool carved stone leaves.  To round out the rest of the necklace, I chose some moss agate rounds that I've had since my early days of beading, copper nugget beads, and some tiny Czech glass rounds in a Picasso finish.

You can see the two sides of the box bead on either side of the complete necklace.

Since I only had a small handful of the moss agate beads left and they were still out on my bead mat, I whipped up a little pair of earrings with some of those and some copper colored metal leaf charms.  Easy peasy!

Not done with all the leafy goodness in my stash, I moved on to a gorgeous two holed pendant with a celadon glaze by Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio.  I fell in love with this design when she first introduced it.  There's something delicate feeling about the pendant with it's sprig of leaves across it.  I didn't like the idea of attaching metal jump rings so I decided to try using loops of tiny seed beads on my stringing material.  I strung a variety of gemstones (including prehnite, faceted aventurine, Burma jade) and some Czech glass.  I had some new leaf beads that were the perfect colors to go with the pendant... those went on one side with some chrysoprase nuggets on the other to balance things out.  Once again I used my favorite leaf clasp at the back.

Switching to a cooler color palette, I made a necklace with one of the pendants I made this summer in Erin Prais-Hintz's Petri Dish class.  The pendant has shades of blue with some tiny touches of silver.  I picked out a few different Czech glass beads in shades of blue as well as some smaller silver colored ones to use as spacers.  I grabbed a few denim lapis rounds and faceted angelite beads and a branch toggle to round out the design.

Next up I switched to a couple of necklaces in summery brights... I guess I'm just not totally ready to move onto Fall!  I bought these cute leaf and ladybug pendants from Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio at Bead & Button this year.  I knew that I had some little Czech glass lady bugs in my stash that would be fun to pair with these.  These two ended up being variations on a theme with similar but different beads in each.  (Don't let the photos fool you, the pendants are the same size, but my pictures wouldn't play nice when I went to make the collage!)

I also bought a handful of leaves and branches from Michelle McCarthy with the intention of pairing at least some of them with Heather Powers' big and beautiful polymer clay birds.  A few of those Humblebeads are getting to spread their little wings and fly in a trio of new necklaces.  All three feature branches by Michelle and the two ceramic leaves are hers as well.  The polymer clay maple leaf is by Erin Prais-Hintz... the colors were just too perfect with the rose gold bird!  These may be more focused on the fowl than the foliage, but I'm sharing them anyway because I just love them!

This is a blog hop!  I hope you'll check out what everyone else made too!!

AE Team

Lesley  

Susan  

Marsha  

Claire  

Cathy 

Jenny  

Niky  

Caroline

Guests

Dawn  

Hope  

Alison  

Beth & Evie  

Laurie  

Kathy  

Sarajo  - You are Here!

Michelle 

Tammy  

Divya  

Karen  

Alysen  

Mary  

Cat  

Jill

Sarah

Anita

Feeling Fall! New Autumn Inspired Necklaces

So, true story.  I'm an art bead hoarder.  Certain artists can boast whole drawers in my art bead hoard.  It's like the more beautiful I think a bead or pendant is, the less likely I am to make it into jewelry.  Ok, not really, but I do find myself just opening up drawers and gazing fondly at my pretties.

What does all of this have to do with feeling (and designing) for fall?  Well, I've been guilty of sitting on a ridiculous number of pendants by my talented friend Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  I'm in the throes of getting ready for my biggest show of the year, the Edge of the Big Woods Art Wander, in less than two weeks so I figured now was the time to finally make something with my treasures!  Here's a look at the "before" mess as I was just starting to pull beads...

First up, the oldest pendant in my leafy collection... a two sided piece that Eric bought me that was in an inspiration bundle that Erin had pulled together in her shop several years ago.  The bundle came with the pendant, a string of freshwater pearls, some carnelian rounds (those will make an appearance later) and a couple of Vintaj brass blanks.  I kept this necklace pretty focused on the pearls and just added a few Czech glass leaves and barrels in shades of orange and brown along the way to bring out the colors from the leaf.  A brass plated toggle clasp completes the design.  Erin doesn't really do this style of pendant anymore with it's secret message on the back, but I do love them so!

The next thing that jumped out at me to be finished was the most unique color-wise of this whole little collection... a stick pendant in striking black and gold.  I realized that I had a hook and eye leaf clasp that was a perfect match for the leaf on the pendant.  I chose a mix of Czech glass beads in black and gold plus some vintage German glass flowers for the bulk of the necklace.  To balance out the clasp I used a fluted black agate and some freshwater pearls on the opposite side.  This is the most elegant piece in my opinion.

I had a second stick pendant in my collection... an older design but a newish addition to my stash.  I love the mix of orange and blue in the pendant and enjoyed playing with the color combination.  Lots of Czech glass in this one along with some Sunset Dumortierite and matte Denim Lapis.  The orange maple leaves pop against the blues!

This next pendant is the only one in this batch that has two loops... making it perfect for some fun leafy dangles including an enameled oak leaf by Gardanne.  She sells these charms in pairs so I usually end up making earrings when I buy them, but this singleton was a gift in my goody bag at a retreat.  For some reason, beyond finishing off the pendant and choosing the fun branch toggle clasp, this was the hardest necklace for me to figure out.  I knew that I wanted to go asymmetrical and use a mix of fun Czech glass leaves that looked very much the like the ones on Erin's pendant, but it took me several tries to get things where I wanted them.  The right side is a mix of Czech glass English cut beads and the Carnelian rounds that I mentioned from the inspiration kit.  There are also a couple of vintage glass beads sprinkled into the mix on both sides.  

I'm a little bit in love with this next design and the vibrant pendant that inspired it.  Eric thinks I need to keep this one for myself... we'll see about that.  I will admit that I'm always a sucker for the combination of turquoise (or teal) and orange, so this one makes my heart sing!  Another luscious (if I do say so myself) mix of Czech glass and gemstones.  This time Amazonite, Cuprite, Red Line Agate, and Carnelian all make an appearance.  It's a little tough to tell in this photo but there are some small hints of purple hiding in there to echo the darker tones in the pendant's bright leaf.

Lastly, for this mini collection of fall goodness, I made a necklace that is a pretty similar to one that I made for the Art Bead Scene back in November 2015.  The original was in brass while this one is copper.  I didn't have all the same beads so I made some substitutions while keeping the basic design and balance.  I'm truly not a heart girl, but there's something about this leafy little number that I adore!  I may actually like this version a little more than the original.

I've never been great about designing for the new season early enough.  I think this is finally the year that I've broken the spell with this collection of fall necklaces thanks to tons of inspiration and beady love from my talented friend Erin.  I've got even more fall designs in the works (or already completed!) that I'll have for sale during the Art Wander September 21-23 at my home which happens to be Studio L this year!  If you're local to the Twin Cities I hope you'll wander out and say hello.