Muffin Tin Design Inspiration: Holiday 2021 Edition

 

From time to time I've participated in a muffin tin challenge or, in this case, a create along.  The idea is basically to get those creative juices going by taking a muffin tin or other container, and putting the elements for a jewelry piece in each cup so that you can easily grab and create!  Above you'll find my muffin tin the way it looked when I started.  I have to admit that in several cases working on one of my legitimate muffin tin projects took me off on tangential projects, but I'm going to keep this post to just what came out of my muffin cups!

As the timing for this was perfect for a holiday gift show that I'm about to do this coming weekend at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, a lot of what I put in my tin have a Christmas-y feel to them... or at least a festive winter theme.  (You can find out more about this December Gift Market HERE.)  This was great to get a nice chunk of new designs ready to go!  If these designs don't find new owners next weekend I'll add them to either Unearthed Arts or the Carver County Arts Consortium gift shop the following week.

This first chunk of designs is clearly all about the upcoming Christmas holiday!  The top three pairs all feature upcycled tin discs from my friend Anna Pierson of SagaHus.  The red and white striped acrylic beads in several of the designs are so much fun and make me think of peppermint candies... and now I want a candy cane!  On the bottom I have some fun holly leaves from Gardanne Beads that I paired with Czech glass "berries."  And then there are some holly leaf and berry ceramic charms from Golem Design Studio with red Italian glitter resin and Czech glass.  I hope that these help make a holly jolly Christmas for someone!

Next up a fun little pin with a gingerbread man charm by Blue Hare with acrylic and Czech glass dangles.  I had two of these little guys so when this first one sold I made a second that I haven't taken a picture of yet... he'll go with me this weekend.  The earrings are made with links from a broken bracelet a friend gave me a while back.  A fun way to repurpose!

This last set is more of a random assortment of earrings.  Half of them had been sitting in my muffin tin since the last time I attempted a muffin tin challenge.  Yay for finally getting something made with languishing components!  The top left pair are more charms from Blue Hare with luscious Czech glass and moon glow lucite.  On the right I've got some lovely moon and star charms from Soul Relica that I paired with faceted labradorite and crystal.  On the bottom I've got some ceramic peacock charms with polymer clay discs from Humblebeads, painted brass bead caps, and Czech glass.  And last but not least my very favorite pair from the whole inspiration challenge.... fabulous enameled charms from Gardanne paired with some amazing corrugated vintage brass beads.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I've been up to the last few weeks!  If you're local, maybe I'll see you Friday or Saturday at the Arboretuem!

New Earrings... Muffin Tin Style!

Taking a page from Heather Powers' Muffin Tin Challenge, I decided to pack up a little container filled with everything I needed to make a collection of earrings to take with me when I worked at Unearthed Arts last week.  I haven't been as focused on making earrings lately and I knew that I could plot out a bunch of designs for portable projects.  (All the necklaces I had on my bead board weren't completely figured out yet... and I like having all my beads at my disposal when working out a design.)  Some of what I gathered was left over from the December use your "craftermath" challenge from Earrings Everyday, some were to complement necklaces I was working on for other challenges, and some made use of newer beads and findings that I hoped to avoid putting away!  Here's a look at what I brought along with me:

Now I didn't manage to finish everything that I carried with me that day, but over the weekend I got the majority finished.  All in all, I made ten pairs of earrings from my little project box.  (I'm sharing nine of them today but saving one for when I finish the coordinating necklace.)  This experiment made me realize how much more of my time is used deciding upon a design than actually executing it!  Without further ado, here's what I made!

First up, two "craftermath" pairs that have been in partial progress since December.  Both feature Vintaj components that I had painted a good while ago.  I selected faceted carnelian and orange Czech glass for the embossed pair on the left and faceted jade, rhinestone rondelles, and purple Czech glass to go with the butterfly charms.

I picked up some fun little enameled charm components from a craft store after Christmas that I thought would make fun earrings... here's what I did combining those with some little Czech glass flower dangles.  I think they are bright, happy, and fun... I just adore the combination of red and turquoise!

Lastly, I've got a little grouping of earrings that I made with some new charms that I ordered online in December and hadn't managed to get put away.   The two on the ends are variations on a theme using some pretty silver plated crystal drops.  The pair on the left is all crystal beads while the one on the right makes use of dyed agate and Czech glass.  Both are on sterling silver ear wires.  The middle pair features some fun charms by Zola Elements and a mix of Czech glass and dyed agate on gold filled ear wires.

Well, that's it for my little earring interlude.  I hope you enjoy seeing what I've been making!  Now I'd better get back to work on the other projects I need to finish before setting sail on this year's Bead Cruise later this week... including the necklace for my Midsummer Night's Dream themed party costume!  Stay tuned...

2017 Muffin Tin Challenge!

In the spirit of getting her followers pumped up and creating in the new year, Heather Powers of Humblebeads fame has once again thrown down the beady gauntlet and challenged us to participate in her Muffin Tin Challenge!  Heather set the reveal date for January 16th but I'm traveling that day, so I'm posting a little early.  The good news is, you may still have time to join in if you wish!!

The idea is pretty simple... grab a muffin tin (or similar container with multiple compartments) and fill each well up with all you need to make one jewelry design.  Then sit down and power through some jewelry making with a goal of finishing at least 6 pieces.  You can read all the details on Heather's blog HERE.  Full disclosure:  I'm not always the best about making sure I've gotten absolutely everything needed in my little muffin cups.  I tend to go with just grabbing the core items and adding to them as I go... that's just how my brain tends to work.  My muffin tin projects include some VERY late Christmas presents for my sister and niece, an even more belated project for my extremely patient friend Kathleen, earrings that have been waiting to be made for varying lengths of time, projects for this month's Honey Do List challenge, and more!

My "muffins" ready to bake!

I started with the lowest hanging fruit... necklaces for my sister and niece that should have been done ages ago!  I found a broken strand of fun orange sodalite pieces at the last Dakota Stones showroom sale and snatched them up immediately.  Most of my family (including these two ladies) went to Auburn University whose colors happen to be orange and blue, so this was a very lucky find!

Next up, a pair of earrings meant to go with the necklace I made for the December Art Bead Scene challenge.  You can see that necklace HERE.  The earrings are the same as the flower dangle off the bottom of the pendant.  Sweet and fairly simple!

Next up, a couple of pairs of earrings that have been UFOs (UnFinished Objects) for quite some time.  I have more earrings that are partially thought out, but at least I've knocked out a couple of them!

Next, in a fit of art bead madness, I made two more long necklaces with Heather's seriously amazing new "Gilded Bramble" bird beads as the main event!  (She has a few of these in her Etsy shop HERE if you are now drooling for one of your own!)  For the coppery one I used a ceramic branch by Diane Hawkey and a ceramic leaf by Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead.  The blue one features a pendant by Gaea and enameled bead cap by C-Koop Beads.  I really couldn't be happier with how these necklaces turned out!

And finally, my 7th "muffin" and 8th project from this challenge: I finally made a bracelet with the beads I picked out to work on during Heather's Inspired by Nature Retreat.  I learned a lesson... I did NOT need to bring extra projects.  I kept plenty busy working on the fun things that Heather had planned for us!

Stop by Heather's blog HERE (starting January 16th) to see what everyone else "baked up" for this year's Muffin Tin Challenge!  Even if you missed out on the official challenge, I recommend this as a great way to get some concentrated creating done!  I didn't finish making everything in my tin yet, but I'm going to keep on trucking with these projects... at least some of them!

Muffin Tin Challenge 2016

I've been a little quiet on my blog and, until the last few days, in my studio.  We've been dealing with some health issues with my sweet little studio kitty that have taken up a lot of time and emotional energy.  The upside is that I've been wanting to keep a pretty close eye on her this past week which means lots of time downstairs in my studio!  She's healing up well from her surgery, but now that the bandages are off we have to keep close watch to make sure she doesn't chew on her stitches. 

What does that have to do with the Muffin Tin Challenge?  Nothing!  Except that I had plenty of time to get the challenge done this weekend.  Heather Powers of Humblebeads issued a challenge on Saturday at the end of a sale she was doing on Facebook.  Get out your muffin tins, fill them up with beady goodness (roughly one project per muffin cup) and make at least six projects by the end of the day today.  Never one to miss a good challenge (or a good prize!) I had to play along.  Here's my muffin tin when I started:

As of mid-day Monday, I've completed 7 projects.  One of those is for another challenge, so you'll have to wait to see that one!  I'm going to keep working my way through the contents of the other cups, but I wanted to share my progress so far.  There is no light to speak of today, so my photos are a little sad...  I'll try to get better pictures if when we see the sun again.

First up, a pair of little hoot owl necklaces that are variations on a theme.  I bought these little ceramic owls on our trip to Asheville, NC last year and had a general idea of what I wanted to do but didn't have all the other elements just yet.  Fast forward to BeadFest in August when I found a ton of great wood beads including these little "logs" that were just the perfect perch.  I grabbed some fun decorative leaf chain to round out the rest of the pendants.  These woodsy necklaces will soon be flying into Unearthed Arts in Waconia!

 Next up, I've got another long necklace with a ceramic pendant.  For this one I made a fun fringed cone dangle with some swingy chain.  I think that the ceramic bead looks like some sort of alien pod... but in a good way!  I have more of these beads so I may play around with some variations on this design.

Of course I had to whip up some earrings to round out the muffin tin challenge... I love me some earrings and they are fast and fun to create.  The first pair reminds me of some big, rough cut rubies but the Czech glass is far more affordable!  I paired the English cut glass with some fun brass charms.  Next is a pair of feather patterned beauties from Humblebeads paired with copper colored filigree drops.  The final pair is meant to accompany a necklace that is still just an idea sitting in one of the remaining muffin cups.  It's a mix of brass and Arte metal with some of my new favorite Czech glass beads.  They are pretty long, but that seemed to be a theme here. 

If you've never tried this method, the Muffin Tin challenge is a fun and easy way to work through a bunch of projects quickly and to get your creative mojo going.  You front load most of the decision making as you fill your muffin cups up so you can just focus on putting your new pretties together!  Give it a try sometime!

Muffin Tin Challenge Reveal: Redux

Think way, way back to January and you may remember that Heather Powers hosted a Muffin Tin Challenge where participants were encouraged to fill a muffin tin with all the goodies needed for a project and get as many as possible completed during the given time frame.  It was a wonderful creative challenge that helped me get my creative mojo going.  I used the challenge as a way to make some pieces to submit to Create Jewelry, a special issue of Stringing magazine and, since they actually wanted to see a number of my submissions in person, I wasn't able to actually show off my finished projects for the Muffin Tin reveal.  Better late than never, I'm finally going to share the rest of my creations!

Here is how my muffin tin looked when I first started.  I finished 7 necklaces and 6 pairs of earrings during the challenge but still had projects left in 4 cups when the challenge ended.  (I'm happy to say that I eventually finished all but one of the intended projects... Jenny Davies-Reazor's pendant is still waiting for some love.)

Moth Collector: This necklace features a resin filled pendant that I made, a mix of silver plated chain, mookaite, rhodonite, and septaria.  I'm always pleased when I can successfully achieve asymmetry!

Seahorse Cove: Andrew Thornton's porcelain pendant was the starting point for this necklace.  I had grabbed this one and several others at his shop Allegory Gallery when we visited Ligonier last fall.  I used a mix of ceramic, glass, and apatite beads with sari silk at the back.  I'm thrilled with the way this one turned out!  I'm still pretty new to mixing fibers into my designs so I'm proud of myself for getting out of my comfort zone.

Proud Peacock: This one started with a set of beads from Gaea.  I added some brass beads and some random gemstones in complementary colors and had fun playing with a mix of waxed Irish linen colors.  This one is BIG... a real statement piece for sure!

Lotus Blossom: My sweet husband bought me this ceramic lotus flower pendant from Diana Ptaszynski of Suburban Girl Studio for Christmas.  I added in a couple of types of jade and some brass beads along the waxed Irish linen.

Cracked Earth: This amazing sunflower pendant from Tracee Dock of The Classic Bead was in my wonderful grab bag on my first Bead Cruise.  Yes, it has been languishing in my stash for that long!  Well, the time was right for it to get out of cold storage and into a design mixed with red creek and crazy horse jaspers as well as some petrified green opal nuggets and some metallic peanut beads.

Last, but not least is Secret Sunflower:  This is the one necklace out of the bunch that actually got published!  I used a cheerful shadowbox bead from Round Rabbit and added Czech and recycled glass links in bright pinks and oranges.  This was my first time having a necklace appear in a national magazine so that was pretty exciting.  This is one design that I just can't bear to part with.

I'm very happy to say that all but Lotus Blossom and Cracked Earth found good homes at this past weekend's show, The Edge of the Big Woods Art Wander!  Another huge thank you to everyone who Wandered by over the three day studio tour.  It was wonderful to see old friends and make new ones.
This week finds me tired but happy.  I'm giving myself a couple of days where I'm not pushing too hard but still getting things done before I get back on what passes for a normal schedule around here.  Thanks for stopping by today... have a great week!  

New Year Muffin Tin Challenge

Heather Powers has thrown down the gauntlet and is hosting another great creative challenge.  The idea is pretty straight forward... grab a muffin tin and put everything you need for one project in each of the 12 cups and then complete as many projects as possible as quickly as you can.  The theory is that you should be able to finish your projects speedily since you've already made all (or in my case, most) of your decisions.

Since I had to deal with some major bead reorganization before I could even think about starting to pull things for this challenge...and the holidays, I got off to a slower start than I would have liked.  I'm never one to shirk a good challenge, so I dug in as soon as I was able and got my muffin tin all filled!  Here's the before shot:

Ever the over achiever, I actually set up a baker's dozen projects.  (See that little pile on top of the tin?  That's the makings for a couple of pairs of earrings.)  Actually, since a couple of tins actually hold the makings for more than one piece of jewelry, I had 15 projects more or less ready to go.  Lots of art bead goodness in those little cups... focals by Diana P., Andrew Thornton, Jenny Davies-Reasoner, Tracee Dock, Gaea, Round Rabbit and even a couple of pendants that I made!    

For most of my muffin cups I took an idea that Erin Prais-Hintz put out there and ran with it.  She had mentioned that she planned on using this challenge to work on projects for magazine submission.  I totally copied her and focused on ideas for some upcoming magazines.

In the end, I managed to pull together seven necklaces and six pairs of earrings (one pair that never actually made it into a cup.)  Technically I still have 4 cups left unfinished after that, but I'm going to call it a win!

But enough talk, I should get back to sharing the projects that I completed!  But there's just one small catch... Remember how I said I was mostly working on projects for a magazine?  Well, they do this thing where you can email them pictures before their official deadline and they will let you know which, if any, of your designs they'd like to see in person for further consideration.  I emailed them nine designs, and they have asked me to send in eight of them!  I'm super excited for this opportunity even though there are no guarantees that they will choose to publish any of my pieces.  It's a step in the right direction at any rate!

The bad news is, since most of the projects I finished are under review for the magazine, I can't really share them with you yet.  (Which is really, really difficult since I'm pretty proud of my work and WANT to share.)  So, as a sort of a compromise, I made a PicMonkey collage of my finished project and focused in on some of the details for most of the projects and then did some funky effects to blur them out.  Hopefully you'll get to see at least one of them in focus and full color later this year.  Fingers are crossed!

A huge thanks to Heather for hosting this challenge and giving my creativity a much needed kick start!  I had a lovely holiday season, but it might not have been the most productive couple of weeks from a jewelry making perspective.  Thanks to the muffin tin challenge (and the looming magazine deadline) I had a great week of making some fabulous, if I do say so myself, jewelry.  It's a strong start to what I hope will be an amazing 2015!    

Now it's off to fill out all the paperwork for my submissions and get them safely in the mail!

Be sure to pop on over to Heather's blog to see everyone else's muffin tin creations HERE.