Here's this month's inspiration and what Eric had to say about it:
After returning from our epic UK trip I have something like 8000 pictures to go through. How to pick a challenge piece for this month?! I ended up picking this super cute puffin because seeing these little birds was one of the best parts of our trip. I'm sure actual puffin jewelry components are rare, but the colors should give you some inspiration. And besides... look how cute this puffin is!
I'm feeling like a bit of an underachiever this month for only managing one fairly simple design for this challenge. It's been a crazy summer (even more so than our normal level of chaos) and I've just barely been keeping my head above water. I especially feel bad since seeing the puffins was one of the highlights of the trip for me! Oh well... that's how it goes sometimes.
Eric's awesome picture was just the jumping off point for me this time... part of what inspired me wasn't successfully captured in any of our still photos. As the little puffin parents came out of their burrows they would fly off to fish for dinner for the family. They would swoop back onto the cliff edge with their beaks full of fish and then zip back inside their burrows super fast. It was pretty amazing to watch! I'm so sad that I didn't think to take some video footage.
The only thing that came to mind was to do a charm style necklace. I've been hoarding a really interesting strand of dyed malachite faceted teardrop beads for a couple of years. They have many of the colors from Eric's photo: orange, black, blue, and blue-green. The Swarovski-studded rondelle adds a tiny flash of sparkle. I also have a little collection of German resin fish that I got from an Allegory Gallery de-stash event earlier this year. (These were a set of six so I was originally thinking earring pairs, but one of them just had to go into this necklace!) I rounded out my little charm cluster with a Czech glass leaf with some extra little beads on top to make it a bit longer.
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 August 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month!
