May 2023 Honey Do List

2023 marks the eighth 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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:   

For this month, I've chosen a cool interior shot of a giant bank vault from the St. Louis City Museum.  I love the details in an area that most people would never see. They just don't make them like they used to!  

Despite the lack of vibrant color this month, there's a lot to love in the photo Eric chose for us.  Gears, the floral etching, bolts, mixed metals...  I had hoped to play with some of the etched copper that I have already cut, or even do some new etching, but I ran out of time for this challenge.  So instead I focused on the gears and more of a steampunk vibe with what I pulled to maybe use.

First up, I grabbed a pair of charms by Melanie Brooks of Earthenwood Studio that I've had since my early days of beading.  It's hard to capture in photos, but the glaze on these has so much metallic depth!  I whipped up an asymmetrical design with some Czech glass in metallics and some black and copper niobium ear wires.  

Next up, a necklace with a lovely polymer clay focal from my friend Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  I had a bit of a struggle figuring out what to dangle from the pendant, but eventually hit on these little brass teardrop charms.  To play off the crystal in the center of the pendant, I paired matte Czech glass rounds with crystal spacers.  

I'm pretty pleased with how both my designs turned out this month and I can't wait to see what you came up with for this challenge!  Please add links to/photos of your own creations below.  I love seeing what everyone else is making too.  Check back on June 1st to see what Eric dreams up for us next!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the May 2023 Honey Do List

2023 marks the eighth 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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:   

For this month, I've chosen a cool interior shot of a giant bank vault from the St. Louis City Museum.  I love the details in an area that most people would never see. They just don't make them like they used to!  

The reveal date will be Monday, May 29th.  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 or links as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog starting on May 29th 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! 

Inspired by Reading: All the Light We Cannot See

 

I took March off from participating in the Inspired by Reading Book Club hosted by my friends Andrew and William at Allegory Gallery, but I'm back in action this month!  

As usual, I'm pretty terrible about describing a book and the inspiration for my jewelry without giving too much away... so if you plan to read this moving novel, just stick to looking at my creations and skip my rambling, lol.

Set during the years leading up to and during World War II in both France and Germany, All the Light We Cannot See weaves the stories of two young people together along with that of a supposedly cursed diamond, the Sea of Flames.  Marie-Laure, a blind girl who begins the book living with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he is the principal locksmith... and Werner, a German orphan who has an amazing affinity for making and fixing radios, a skill that eventually makes him useful to the German war effort.

With all the talk of keys and locks, my mind went first in that direction.  I have a pair of keyhole connectors from Diana Ptaszynski's Suburban Girl ceramic days that I've been hanging onto for some time.  I decided to whip up some simple earrings with black metal key charms.

Next I turned my thoughts to the idea of the model scales of the neighborhoods in which Marie-Laure and her father lived.  Beyond being an accomplished locksmith, her father made amazing models and puzzle boxes for his daughter.  In particular, a model of her great-uncle's tall house by the sea in Saint-Malo that comes out of the neighborhood model and hides the very valuable diamond the Sea of Flames. Another piece that has long lingered in my bead stash is a little 3D house bead from Green Girl Studios.  This seemed like the perfect time to use it!  It's got some heft to it, so I struggled a little with how to best incorporate it into a necklace.  I knew I wanted to use gemstones as a nod to the diamond and the wider collection of the Natural History Museum.  I didn't have anything to approximate the blue of the Sea of Flames, so I had to go with what worked size wise.  In the end I decided on an asymmetrical design with LOTS of my hoarded fluorite beads and little Czech glass beads as spacers..  A large fluorite nugget opposite the house helps balance the weight of the design.

I had a few other lock and key pieces that I wanted to play with as well as another Green Girl pendant, but time ran out.  Story of my life!  This was a fun one to design for!  Next month's book isn't available locally so I'll probably sit it out.  We'll see when I pop up to participate again.  Until then, happy reading and happy creating!

April 2023 Honey Do List

2023 marks the eighth 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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:   

For April Showers (or blizzards if you live in Minnesota,) here is a shot of some amazing umbrellas from the port of Puerta Vallarta from our recent Bead Cruise.  I got a lot of colorful pictures on this trip suitable for Spring, since Minnesota is still covered in layers of ice and snow.  Good luck and happy inspiration everyone!

As much as this picture totally brings my heart joy, I wasn't initially sure how I was going to approach this month's design challenge.  And then Diane Hawkey had a Facebook show with the most adorable umbrella charms!  While this defeats the point of using my stash... I couldn't resist!  Read on and I'm sure you'll agree.  

This month was another busy one for us so I was a bit worried about my timeline for creating for the challenge.  Truth be told, I waited until the very last minute to get something done... both my pieces were made just yesterday.  I've always worked better under pressure!  

Anyway, with the time crunch, I started with a pair of earrings to make sure that I had at least one completed piece.  I whipped up a bright and whimsical pair of earrings with a pair of Diane's umbrella charms paired with moon glow lucite and Czech glass.  I think the colors here really work well with Eric's inspiration photo.

Next up, a necklace!  Diane's umbrella pendant is just so bright and joyful... even on a rainy day, I think I'd be happy if I was wearing all this vibrant color.  All the beads are Czech glass except for the dark blue rounds which are ceramic.  The pendant is pretty light weight so I may need to wear this one to see if I need to add a bead above the umbrella to add more physical weight.... To be determined! 

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 May 1st to see what Eric dreams up for us next!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the April 2023 Honey Do List

Apologies for posting the new challenge a day late... I didn't want anyone thinking it was an April Fools joke!  LOL.

2023 marks the eighth 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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:   

For April Showers (or blizzards if you live in Minnesota,) here is a shot of some amazing umbrellas from the port of Puerta Vallarta from our recent Bead Cruise.  I got a lot of colorful pictures on this trip suitable for Spring, since Minnesota is still covered in layers of ice and snow.  Good luck and happy inspiration everyone!

The reveal date will be Monday, April 24th.  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 or links as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog starting on April 24th 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! 

March 2023 Honey Do List

2023 marks the eighth 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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:   

On our amazing walking food tour of Puerta Vallarta recently, the first restaurant we stopped at had these amazing painted and beaded skulls on the walls.  I thought this would be an interesting design challenge for my beady friends!  I took some jewelry making classes on the Bead Cruise, so now I'm one of you all!  

These skulls were seriously cool!  You can't tell from the photo, but the middle one's design was made from tons of tiny beads attached to the skull while the other two were colorfully painted.  I took inspiration from the idea of the designs more than the actual colors and patterns for my creations this month.

First up, I decided to revisit some fun floral cork from my stash.  Sadly the seller close their shop last year and I haven't found another source with as many options, but I still have some good stuff in my collection to play with.  Anyway, I cut teardrop shapes from the cork as well as tan Ultrasuede for the backing and did some bead embroidery to stitch the two fabrics together and give it a loop at the top.  It makes for a nice finished look.  I then connected some copper plated charms to the brass ear wires for some added interest.  These just sold but I could certainly make more like this or similar.    

As I was thinking about the beaded skull, as well as tons of other beaded little statues and other works of art on our trip, it reminded me of a couple of pendants that I had picked up randomly a few years ago.  I pulled them out and managed to whip up a fun necklace with one of them for this month's challenge.  

Last but not least, I switched gears and moved over to a skull theme.  Since I was fresh out of cattle skulls, I went for a fun sugar skull enameled pendant by Anne Gardanne!  I stayed with gold plated findings to go with the gold accents on the pendant and decided to really focus on the blues as well.  I used a mix of Czech glass, agate, and vintage speckled matte lucite.  Probably not the best time of year for this one to find it's forever home, but I guess I'll be ready for Day of the Dead this year!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspiration for the March 2023 Honey Do List

2023 marks the eighth 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... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  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:   

On our amazing walking food tour of Puerta Vallarta recently, the first restaurant we stopped at had these amazing painted and beaded skulls on the walls.  I thought this would be an interesting design challenge for my beady friends!  I took some jewelry making classes on the Bead Cruise, so now I'm one of you all!  

The reveal date will be Monday, March 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 or links as they are ready.  Just stop by my blog starting on March 27th 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!