Honey Do List January 2020

2020 marks the fifth 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... it's the Honey Do List 2020!  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 past New Years holiday we spent some time up north at some friends' cabin.  The last day of the trip we spent the whole day up in the frozen bogs of the northland looking for owls to photograph.  This hawk owl is the only success!  Show me your owliness this month!

I have a fair amount of owl themed beads in my stash... but most of them are colorful and not really realistic looking.  For this month's inspiration from my hubby, I wanted to stick with more neutral colors.  Never fear... I found a few likely suspects in my stash.  With a big trip to Walt Disney World this month, I was a bit crunched for time but after our trip I got down to business to make a couple of necklaces to show you!

First up, amid the lovely blue and teal owls from Cathleen at Blue Hare Art Wear, I did have one more realistic little hoot owl!  I loved the mix of grey, brown, and mustardy yellow on him!  I went for a strung design that is a mix of Czech glass, Smoky quartz, and Mookaite with a couple of tiny faceted Ocean Jaspers near the front.  As I was gathering bead possibilities for this and my other necklace I found a little container with some orphaned beads including the Smoky Quartz... this necklace used all those up!  (Now to fill that little container with some new beads!!)

Next up is one I may decide to keep for myself... a long necklace with a lovely polymer clay owl pendant that I bought from Jenny Davies-Reazor last year at Bead & Button.  I fell in love with this little guy when I saw him and had to bring him home with me!  To complement his little spotted chest, I chose a Montana Moss Agate with some little speckles in it to dangle from the pendant.  Apparently I was in a stringing mood still, and I went with a mix of Czech glass, Dalmatian Jasper, and Pyrite for this long design.

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 on February 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month!  Here's to the start of what I hope will be a happy and creative year!

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Inspiration for the January 2020 Honey Do List

Happy New Year, Everyone!  Sorry for the delayed start to this first challenge of 2020... We've been busier than normal and actually took a little mini retreat to ring in the new year.  

2020 marks the fifth 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... it's the Honey Do List 2020!  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 past New Years holiday we spent some time up north at some friends' cabin.  The last day of the trip we spent the whole day up in the frozen bogs of the northland looking for owls to photograph.  This hawk owl is the only success!  Show me your owliness this month!

The reveal date will be Monday, January 27th.  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 as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog starting on December 30th 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!

Art Elements Theme of the Month: Birds of Prey

I love all things raptors, so I was super excited when ? announced that the February Art Elements Theme of the Month was raptors.  As I started digging through my art bead stash, I discovered that there was a shocking lack of biodiversity in my raptor bead collection.  In fact, I only had owls... but what a lot of owls I had to choose from!  Dare I say that I have a parliament of owls??

My initial idea was to use just a bit of some of my favorite leafy chain at the front of a necklace with an owl pendant centered on that length.  I eventually settled on a little grey-blue owlie from Gaea that I got from her a while back in a destash bundle.  The loop on the top just sat the best with the leaves on the chain without getting lost.  Playing on the colors of the pendant, I chose some Amazonite and plated druzy beads.

Next up, I just had to do something with one of my friend Erin Prais-Hintz's sweet polymer clay owls.  This one is called Minerva.  There are a few different shapes and colors of plated druzy beads in this one to go with her metallic finishes.  I also mixed in some Czech glass beads and plated hematite (boy, do I wish I'd grabbed a few more strands of that since I've pretty much used them all.)  I love the overall neutral look of this one but the druzies give it a bit of pizazz!

As I looked at this fun multicolored owl face pendant and rounds set that I bought from Michelle McCarthy of Firefly Design Studio, I knew that I wanted to play with the glaze colors and use some colored leather.  Leather means I needed large holed beads... luckily, I had some faceted Amazonite beads and some wooden saucers that worked nicely.  I also grabbed a few vintage Miriam Haskell Japanese glass beads that I bought from Allegory Gallery a month or so ago.  I finished the back off with brass chain.  I thought the leafy bead and filigree shape added to the woodland feel of this piece.

Last but not least, another necklace featuring one of Michelle's pendants.  I just love the glazing on this little guy and it was fun pulling beads to go with it!  I wrapped a little bit of copper Parawire around the loop on the pendant.  I was apparently in a stringing mood and pulled together a bunch of Czech glass that I separated with some copper colored seed beads.

Thanks for stopping by!  This is a blog hop... check out what everyone else was inspired to make this month!

Guests:

Tammy

Beth

Cat

Anita

Kathy

Alysen

Linda

Rozantia

Jennifer

Hope

Sarajo

Melissa

Sarah

Team Members: 

Caroline

Cathy

Claire

Jen

Jenny

Karen

Laney

Lesley

Lindsay

Marsha

Niky

Sue

We're All Ears: March 2017

This month the inspiration for the We're All Ears challenge over on the Earrings Everyday blog is all about one of my favorite birds... owls!!  There are so many amazing and beautiful types of owls and a few of them are pictured below.

Photo credits :: Unsplash :: clockwise from top R
Quentin Dr :: Andy Chilton :: Massimo Mancini :: Paul Morley :: Ray Hennessey :: Andy Chilton :: Cliff Johnson

Unfortunately for me, most of my owl beads are not really earring appropriate.  They are mostly art bead focals and some other beads that are just a little bit to big or heavy for earrings.  But there is a pressed Czech glass owl bead in my stash that I've collected in a variety of colors.  I've been making an owl and oak leaf earring design for a couple of years with these beads (see below) but I didn't want to rest on my laurels.  Instead, I knew that I needed to come up with a new design or two for this challenge.

A rainbow of owl earrings from last fall!

I pulled out a few pairs of the owl beads in various colors and started to play around with some new ideas.  My first thought was to put a little wooden bead under each owl to make it seem like they were sitting on a perch... I then added a little bit of brass plated leafy chain dangling from the bottom.

Even though I thought that this was a pretty cute idea, I still wanted to come up with a design that was a little smaller scale.  Not everyone wants a super long dangly earring after all!  For my other two pairs I matched the owls with some wooden disc beads and coordinating Czech glass at the bottom.

Thanks for stopping by to see my owlish earrings!  Now flap your wings and fly on over to the Earrings Everyday blog to see what the hoot owls inspired other designers to make!

Art Bead Scene: November 2016

I'm kind of smitten with this month's Art Bead Scene challenge inspiration.  Who doesn't love owls?!?  This Art Deco style owl by Lee Lawrie is located on the door to the reading room on the fifth floor of the John Adams Building of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.  You can read more about the artist and the artwork over on the ABS blog HERE.  As a librarian who has travelled to D.C. a number of times, I'm embarrassed to say that I've never visited the Library of Congress... I'm going to have to rectify that situation on my next trip!

Owl above door to center reading room on fifth floor of the 

Library of Congress’s John Adams Building, Washington, D.C., 1930's

by Lee Lawrie

I don't know if anyone else had this response, but this owl immediately made me think of Bubo the Owl from the 1981 classic movie Clash of the Titans.  (Tell me I'm not alone!)

Bubo!

But I digress... Onto what this owl art inspired me to make this month!  I knew I had a number of artisan made owl beads, pendants, and charms in my collection... but since I have things mostly arranged by color, I didn't realize just how many that I had accumulated until I started pulling things out to make some design decisions.  I counted 4 different Green Girl pewter owls alone!  

First up, I had to make use of one of those Green Girl pieces.  (I'm doing something with another one but that will be for a different challenge... stay tuned!)  In keeping with the color palette of the inspiration artwork, I paired it with a lovely lentil bead from Humblebeads that includes a mix of gold, copper, and dark grey-browns.  To give the long chain visual interest, I wire wrapped pyrite and gold colored druzy links.  I think the finished product is perfect for fall!

I wish these pics were sharper... They look great in my photo editor!

I decided to use a porcelain owl pendant by Andrew Thornton for a second necklace this month.  The colors don't really relate to the inspiration, but the owl was too cute not to use... and the copper and teal color combo just makes me happy.  I loved how this new chain looks with the pendant and wanted to give it a chance to shine so I went asymmetrical this time.  I made wrapped links using turquoise, bronzite, Czech glass, and Swarovski pearls on one side and simply added some Czech glass dangles to the chain on the other.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my newest hoot owls!

The Honey Do List: May 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.  When it comes to challenges I always say the more the merrier, so we've opened it up and invited folks to play along with us!

Here's the inspiration and what Eric had to say about it:

This month's challenge was going to be some kind of spring flower action, but I was lucky enough to take a class on raptor photography at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum this past weekend and found a new muse!  This is Samantha the white morph great horned owl sitting in a flowering crab apple tree.  Our photogenic raptors were brought out by the Minnesota Raptor Center who rescue injured birds and release those who can survive back into the wilds, while keeping the birds like Sam (who has a broken wing) for demonstrations and education opportunities.  So, this month take inspiration from the bird itself, the colors, whatever strikes your fancy!

Eric took a ton of great raptor photos during his photo shoot at the Arboretum but I was super excited to have this lovely owl picture as May's inspiration since this one was among my favorites!  I have quite a few different owl focals and beads in my stash, so I knew that I would have fun creating for this challenge!

The first piece I made was inspired more by the owl herself than the whole photograph.  Eric gave me the perfect polymer clay pendant from Summer Wind Art for Christmas... the owl on the pendant even has the same bright yellow eyes!  I started by choosing a few different pieces of Amazonite to accentuate the pale blue background of the pendant.  I added in some faceted Mookaite pieces in yellow and dark brown and used copper to make wire wrapped links.

Next up I chose a pale green porcelain owl pendant made by Andrew Thornton that I picked up at Allegory Gallery when Eric and I visited Ligonier a couple of years ago.  I just got a selection of colored leather from Tracee Dock (The Classic Bead and Classic Elements) and I've been eager to give it a try... this was the perfect opportunity!  I paired the .5 mm metallic leather in lawn with a selection of brass and Czech glass beads (including some with a cool Mercury glass finish!)  Because the leather is so thin, I added a second strand to the necklace in a fairly fine brass chain from Vintaj.

I had big plans of making a bracelet using an owl bead from Green Girl, but time ran out on me... too much traveling and having fun this month I guess!  This was the one design that I had dreamed up that actually used the color palette from the photo so I'm sad that I wasn't able to pull that one off.  I'm still excited about the idea I have so I'm sure that I'll eventually get back around to that one.

Determined to still have at least three pieces completed for this challenge, I whipped up a pair of earrings at the last minute.  They are a design I've made before and am quite fond of but use a new color of Czech glass owl beads.

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May 2016 Inspiration for the Honey Do List

Happy May Day, everyone!  Spring can be an oh so fickle thing in Minnesota, but it's finally looking like the new season is really here to stay.  Today brings some much needed sunshine and warmer temperatures and I am so happy for both!

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.  I know that I'm not the only one who loves a good design challenge, so I'm inviting folks to play along!

Here is this month's inspiration and what Eric had to say about it:

This month's challenge was going to be some kind of spring flower action, but I was lucky enough to take a class on raptor photography at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum this past weekend and found a new muse!  This is Samantha the white morph great horned owl sitting in a flowering crab apple tree.  Our photogenic raptors were brought out by the Minnesota Raptor Center who rescue injured birds and release those who can survive back into the wilds, while keeping the birds like Sam (who has a broken wing) for demonstrations and education opportunities.  So, this month take inspiration from the bird itself, the colors, whatever strikes your fancy!

The reveal date will be Monday, May 23rd.  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 as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog on May 23rd 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 out 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!