Charity Auctions

Tags

Allegory Gallery, Andrew Thornton, Artists for Animals Auction, Beads of Courage, Belle Armoire Jewelry, Brenda Schweder Jewelry, Kimberly Rogers, Madison Cat Project, Mary Jane Dodd, Stitch Whimsy Market

I have three pieces in a charity auction right now to benefit Beads of Courage, an organization that brings arts-in-medicine programs to children with serious illness. These pieces are the collaborations with Brenda Schweder I wrote about in an earlier blog post. That auction is through the end of the day on Monday 4/12/21, so check that out. There are 70 amazing jewelry pieces (and some ornaments) by 30 artists. Here are my three.

Then, in a week, there is an Artists for Animals Auction. It goes April 19 – 25, 2021. Funds raised from my item sales will be donated to the Madison Cat Project. I won’t be the only person selling. There are always a lot of people selling a variety of handmade items. I’m going to show a few things I’ve made for that. This first one is a favorite.

I knotted a variety of glass beads on waxed linen with the cutest pewter clasp. (I have the clasp artist written down somewhere, but I can’t find it right now.) The toggle is a dog and the bar is a bone that says “arf.” I love it! It can be worn with the clasp at the back or, my favorite way, with the clasp at the side so it shows!

I made a variety of earrings.

I have a necklace that I showed on the blog recently. I think it turned out really well.

I love that metal piece as the backdrop for Kimberly Rogers‘ polymer shards.

I also have a beautiful cat vessel with knotted beads. I think this turned out beautifully as well.

I have a really beautiful necklace I made for an earlier auction, but didn’t feel I could get a great picture of it, so I didn’t include it. I just love it, though, so I’m going to offer it up. I always admired the jewelry that the character Phoebe wore on the show “Friends.” This is a “y” necklace that reminds me of some of her pieces. It has little claret colored glass rosary chain with a bronze heart pendant by Andrew Thornton. I think it would look so good with a low v-neck (if you need me to style it for you – ha!)

I often look through past issues of jewelry magazines. Different project appeal to me at different times. I made two pair of earrings based on a project by Mary Jane Dodd in Belle Armoire Jewelry.

I used fancy fibers from Stitch Whimsy Market with amazonite beads and fiber from Allegory Gallery with tourmaline beads. I used really thin wire to wrap them, which was different than the project. I’ll have to try it with thicker wire too. The forms are from a repurposed necklace. I have more!

Even if you just want to browse, visit both auctions. It’s always fun to see what people make.

Collaboration for Beads of Courage

Tags

Beads of Courage, Brenda Schweder, Mary Harding, Pantone

Brenda Schweder has been doing collaborations to collect items for an auction to raise funds for Beads of Courage, an organization that provides beads to kids with serious illnesses to give them a way to communicate about what they are experiencing, as well as other arts-in-medicine programs. This time, she offered up wonderful components from her collection. Those of us who chose to participate get those, make something with them and send those pieces back to be auctioned off (at a later date – details to come in an upcoming blog post.)

I haven’t been super inspired lately, but Brenda‘s collection got my wheels turning. She had so many pieces I could envision making into something. I got three things: a coin, a billy goat milagro, and an open metal work curved brass piece.

I sketched out ideas for these in my mind while they were winging their way to me. I stuck pretty closely to those ideas for the milagro and the coin, but the brass piece proved a bit more problematic to bring my original vision to life. Brenda had really set my mind at ease by telling participants not to worry about making “a design for the ages” just something with our spin on it.

I made the coin necklace first because it was the most straightforward. I added a Swarovski cyrstal and put it on some mixed metal chain. I really love it. I wanted to make things that I would see and want to purchase in hopes that other people will too in order to raise money for Beads of Courage.

Next I worked with the brass piece. My original vision was to wire wrap tiny gemstones along each side, hang something fun off the bottom and then decide what to use as the necklace part. I got out so many things trying to decide what to dangle from the bottom because that would determine which little stone or bead I used to wire wrap along the side. Nothing I tried matched the vague idea I had in my head of rustic chic, so I decided to move on to something else. This Mary Harding pendant really looked great in color, shape and size, so I let that guide my design.

When I tried to wire wrap along the sides, it just wasn’t working. I think I needed a smaller gauge wire or it was the curve or thickness of the metal or some combination of the three. I didn’t have smaller wire (that I could find!) so I decided to move on to bead dangles. I paired the pendant with vintage chain. I love orange and yellow and have been under the impression that other people don’t. I think I’m wrong because so many people really love Pantone’s colors of 2021 (Illuminating – a yellow – and Ultimate Gray.) In addition, this necklace is right on trend since it would work well with other colors in the Pantone Spring/Summer color report such as Marigold, Rust, Buttercream and Willow.

Last I made a colorful necklace in my favorite knotted style with the milagro billy goat. Milagro means miracle or surprise in Spanish, and these charms are common in Latin America and the southern US. They are used in prayers and religious ceremonies, as well as carried as good luck charms and reminders of gratitude. I like the idea of little tokens of good luck and gratitude, and in that way milagros remind me of the use of worry stones. This project was a bit of a construction challenge to get the small milagros to hang so they didn’t cover too much of the goat. I really love how it turned out. For the small milagros I used a rose, a heart, an ear of corn, a clover, and a car. The necklace is made of a variety of Czech glass knotted on waxed Irish linen.

I’ll be getting these in the mail as soon as I can get to the post office so they can make their end of January deadline. I hope Brenda has many things arriving to make the auction a success. Once I know details, I will post them on the blog. It is an online auction, so I’ll definitely be checking it out to see what people made.