Earrings Everyday: Dotty

Tags

BuliBeads, Earrings Everyday, Erin Prais-Hintz, We're All Ears Challenge

It’s been some time since I’ve participated in an Earrings Everyday: We’re All Ears challenge, but I couldn’t pass up the September inspiration. Dotty! I love polka dots and dots of all kinds. There is something so fun about them. I didn’t even look around much in my stash before I found three great specimens. So here we go!

For this pair, I went a little elegant by adding the dotty lampworks beads to some sterling silver jump rings. These are perfect for, well, every day! (Artist unknown; I got these in a destash.)

Next I decided to try a funky take. These feature anodized aluminum scales along with polka dot lampwork by BuliBeads. 

And last but not least, a mod look. These fun polka dot vintage lucite dangles go big and bold with large faux pearls. I could see these on Minnie Mouse herself.

Dots look good in any style! Thanks to Erin Prais-Hintz and Earrings Everyday for this fun inspiration. Go see what dotty creations other people were inspired to make.

Maker Blogs 8.25.18

Tags

Allegory Gallery, Allegory Gallery Design Challenges, Andrew Thornton, Beading Arts, Earrings Everyday, SJ Designs Jewelry, We're All Ears Challenge

Hello! Let’s look at some maker blogs for this week.

First up, Cyndi remakes a bead embroidered pendant to great effect over on Beading Arts. What a difference! Both before and after are beautiful, but the remake is more versatile. I’m reluctant to remake things, but this encourages me. Here is the remade pendant. Check out her blog to see how it started.

Sarajo of SJ Designs Jewelry, makes beautiful jewelry and has wonderful adventures. She also has a monthly Honey Do List Challenge on her blog. Hers is a fun blog to follow. Check out her most recent blog for the August We’re All Ears Challenge. The We’re All Ears Challenge takes place on the Earrings Everyday blog. That is a great blog as well.

Do you like sugar skulls? Andrew Thornton has taken Czech glass sugar skull beads and bezel set them in sterling silver. Gorgeous! Take a look.

I’m currently working on jewelry for the Allegory Gallery Coral Coast Design Challenge. I’m super inspired by this challenge and hope you will come back to see my reveal on August 30th. The next kit is available as well: Ancient Kingdom.

As always, thank you for visiting!

 

Happy Bracelet: A Glimpse Into My Design Mind (and Giveaway Winner)

Tags

Earrings Everyday, Malin de Koning, Trinket Foundary

I made a new bracelet, and I thought I would talk a little about how my pieces come about. I had drawn a design for a bracelet inspired by a random bracelet on Pinterest, where I had also seen some of my Malin de Koning pins. I love the way she puts things together. It’s like every bead she uses is elevated by every other bead she uses with it.

I was in my studio looking for beads I had in mind for the design I had drawn. Instead, I came upon some beautiful vintage glass “lemon” beads. I thought they’d be good in a bracelet, so I switched off the one I had drawn, and had Malin in the back of my mind. In the same box as the lemons were taupe German glass beads, which caught my eye because I have more German glass in that color, but it is in my Czech glass box (? I know) and I thought I should unite them. But as long as I had them out, I thought how well they went with the lemons. Then I started considering focals, even though I only went upstairs for a minute to put something in the studio and then get ready for bed. So I got out some lampwork and spotted a baggie of the most fabulous glass beads from Trinket Foundry. They were smaller than I’d been thinking for a focal….

At this point, the cat wandered into the studio where she is no longer allowed after ingesting a non-food item. I had left the door open slightly since I was only going to be in there “for a second”.  I decided to go to bed as long as I had to get up to shoo the cat out, so of course I went downstairs and hopped on the computer to get sucked into Pinterest looking at turquoise, yellow and taupe color combinations based on the beads on my table.

The next morning I saw Malin’s latest post on Earrings Everyday.  Yep, her stuff is still great.  Later, I went upstairs to take a shower and thought I’d quick look at those beads I’d gotten out.  I realized they were really just perfect together and, even though I wasn’t wearing my glasses since I’d just gone up for a shower, I’d quick make the bracelet. I found a stray piece of beading wire on my bead table, and some nearby seed beads in a an approximate color from the focal and a couple of larger seed beads (that had spilled on my table) for the larger lampwork holes. When I picked the clasp, I had to resize my original design. I removed a German glass bead and substituted a square Swarovski crystal sitting on my bead table.  Because I was making this quickly and without my glasses, I left a little too much slack in the wire when crimping, so I covered up that “happy accident” (Bob Ross) with some gold jump rings in a nod to the gold stripes in the lemon beads. Ta-da!

I really love the bracelet. I have come to embrace my casual design style. I think it even works in my favor because if I didn’t get distracted from my original idea, I wouldn’t have this bracelet! The lampwork bead is so happy, as are the lemons. I love German glass, but I normally wouldn’t have put taupe with yellow, thinking it is not colorful enough. But with Malin in the back of my mind, I decided to just use things I really love, and it worked for me.

Ok, now on to the winner of my Bits and Bobs giveaway: Ann Morgan

Congrats!  Please contact me with your mailing address.

Earrings Everyday Reveal: Use Your Leftovers Challenge 2016

Tags

Earrings Everyday, Erin Prais-Hintz, Use Your Leftovers Challenge

I was catching up on my blog reading when I saw the 2nd Annual Earrings Everyday Use Your Leftover Challenge.  I had so much fun joining this challenge last year with Erin Prais-Hintz that I was excited to see it and join in again.  I immediately went and took a picture of my craftermath.  This table has been clean at times in the intervening year, but here it is again in a very similar state.

So I look at the silver lining: much to choose from for my earring bonanza! Here is what I quickly put in my tray.

Because last year’s challenge re-started my earring making, I already had some nice bead pairs on the table from earrings I’d tried during the year that did not work out.  Now those beads are getting a second earring chance!  How nice.

I made a few pairs right away.  I’m not someone who enjoys working under pressure, so I didn’t want to wait to until the last minute and have nothing. I chose some of the easy earring supplies for these – charms and connectors.  If I wore earrings, the pearl and crystals would be my favorite of this lot.

I really love this next group. The middle ones with the Herkimer “diamonds” are my favs, but it’s not easy to pick.  All three pairs of these are very me.

I made all of the above earrings on the first day in two different sessions. Once I get going, it’s just so fun!  The middle earrings didn’t photograph very well – the black beads are lovely faceted numbers.

I found that once I got in the earring making mode, I wanted to continue.  So the next morning I made these two pairs soon after I woke up.  Using leftovers actually makes it easier to create; I’m not overwhelmed with choice.  In fact, when designing I often default to what is on my bead table.  There is more than one good design for any material, and why not use what is right in front of me? For example, I love these color shell stack earrings.  So easy!

Here is a different kind of leftover.  I didn’t make these with leftover materials (that I remember) but these are leftover earrings that were sitting on my bead table (already on a card!) I made these in January 2014 for myself based on a design by Erin Siegel. Almost three years these have been rattling around my house!  Ridiculous.  So I added them to the group.  I stopped wearing earrings soon after I made them due to sensitive ears and never wore them.  Let someone else enjoy these.

I like that it is easy to make so many different styles. I feel like I have a nice selection for a variety of people with different tastes which is good because I will be donating these to Ears to You.  They provide earrings to girls and women of all ages fighting cancer and accept donations of new handmade or store bought earrings.  (They have also branched out to helping boys and men with cancer too.)

My guess is that I spent less than two hours making all of the earrings you see here.  Great way to use leftovers and have something to show for it!  Thanks Erin and Earrings Everyday!  Go to the Earrings Everyday website to see what other people made with their craftermath, and subscribe to the blog if you want to see great earrings all year long!

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Hidden Cove Challenge Reveal

Tags

Allegory Gallery, Andrew Thornton, Earrings Everyday, Erin Prais-Hintz, Hidden Cove Challenge, Miss Fickle Media, My Elements

Allegory Gallery hosts challenges with beautiful and inspiring kits curated by artist Andrew Thornton.  Today is the reveal for the Hidden Cove Challenge. Here is a picture of the kit from the blog post because I never remember any more to take my own.

There are so many beads I love in this kit! I used some of them, but I didn’t get to use the three wooden half rounds.  They are gorgeous and certain to be bound for a special project.  My first idea was to use the Mystery Component, a beautiful mermaid pendant handmade by Andrew, with lots of dangling blue beads to look like water, but nothing I tried in that vein worked out.  Instead, I used one of the beads I loved, the Czech glass square, to highlight the pendant along with chain from My Elements in that same bright, beautiful turquoise.

I feel I’ve almost got the look I was going for anyway with the way Andrew’s mermaid is floating up toward that blue.

Next, I used some fabulous sea glass beads. They didn’t seem like glass to me. Were they really faux glass made from polymer? They are absolutely beautiful and have a wonderful texture.  I built a little cairn with them.  I don’t think I knew that word before seeing the image and explanation of it on Erin Prais-Hintz’s Treasures Found blog post a few years ago. I love that image of the stacked stones and the fact that it means something, whether to mark a memory, site or parts of one’s life.

I used a few of the dangles I had originally thought of for the Mystery Component and put it on the wonderful cotton cord.  I wanted to show this full picture because I used a favorite swirl clasp from Miss Fickle Media. I wanted to also show a better close up of the pendant.

I also wanted to use the fabulous large vintage acrylic bead. I found a vintage pendant bar in my stash that I thought would help highlight it nicely.  I added a few more favorite beads from the kit as dangles and some vintage chain.

And last but not least, there were two blue organic rounds that seem like polymer that I loved and decided to make a rare pair of earrings with them.  A challenge over on Earrings Everyday got me making earrings again, so I might as well continue. I also used up the last two dangles I had already made.  I hate to waste a headpin!

I feel like the theme of this challenge influenced the style – simple for warm weather fun by the water.  I still have so many wonderful beads left to use in the future!  Thanks you Andrew and William of Allegory Gallery for another great challenge.  Visit the Facebook page to see what other people made with their kits.

We’re All Ears – December – Use Your Leftovers

Tags

Earrings Everyday, Erin Prais-Hintz, We're All Ears

Erin Prais-Hintz, one of the contributors to the Earrings Everyday blog, had a fabulous idea for her monthly challenge, We’re All Ears, this December.  Usually she shares a visual inspiration, and participants make one or more pairs of earrings based on that and share on the third Friday of the month.  For this month, Erin challenged us to use leftovers hanging out on our work tables (go on, you know you’ve got some) to make earrings.  That sounded really good to me because I’ve had creative block for a while about making earrings. Erin laid out the challenge like this:

1.  Take a picture of the craftermath of your bead fest. I’m not scared to show my mess. I’ve done it before.  I live in my truth (and my mess).  So here it is.

At least I’ve managed to scrape off the front so I have a little work space.  Next step:

2.  Quickly organize sets of coordinated (or not) materials to work with.

I didn’t agonize.  I just picked up things I thought would work well and put them in the sections of this box. (I think it was originally a tea caddy.  But once you start beading, everything starts to look like bead storage.)

3.  CREATE! Erin suggested putting on some music (which I did) and making it fun. That sounds a bit obvious, but sometimes I go into my studio and just sort of stress myself out.  That’s no good!  So I just let it be fun.  I made three pairs of earrings during the first session.  I started to get antsy after that, so I thought I’d better let that be it.  I had a good time.  I only took apart one earring and redesigned because it wasn’t working.  Pretty good.  I’m happy with this first session.

Later the same day, I was writing this post and reviewing Erin’s suggestions. She said set your own pace – set a timer or make one pair a day – whatever works.  So I figured I’m always good for one pair.  I went back to the studio and made one more.

As an additional nicety of this process, I cleaned up a little.  In addition to using up some of the bits of my craftermath, as I dug around my bead table to supplement what I had put in the box, if I found finished pieces of jewelry, or whole, identifiable bunches of beads or art beads, I labeled them as necessary and put them away.  Yay!

Then I started to think, well, I could make one pair each day.  How hard is that? So here is the next day…and the next.

And then I made a few more on the weekend.

I got the hankering to really work on cleaning up my space, so I started to focus on that rather than making earrings, but while I was doing it, of course, I made one more pair with things I unearthed. All together, I made 12 pairs of earrings; I don’t think I’ve made that many in the past year, and here I’ve done it in less than a week.

I am so happy to be making earrings again.  I also loved using up some leftovers which often just languish.  Thank you, Erin and Earrings Everyday! I will donate most of these to Ears To You and save a couple to drop for art abandonment.

Go visit the We’re All Ears December reveal on Earrings Everyday and see what others made.

One Thing Leads to Another

Tags

Claire Lockwood, Earrings Everyday, Golem Studio, Honey from the Bee, Lorelei Eurto, NatureScavenger, Something To Do With Your Hands, You Are Not the Boss of Me

I have said many times (and read on other blogs) that a piece didn’t turn out how I originally intended, even if I like it anyway.  I thought it would be fun to show the evolution of something.  It would be better if I had taken pictures of the things that appeared and disappeared on my work table as I went, but at least I can show my inspiration and the final project.

My inspiration were these earrings by Claire Lockwood of Something To Do With Your Hands.  Aren’t they cute?  They remind me of spring, and I am gravitating toward things that can do that right now.  It’s barely above freezing here, but I won’t get into that.

Claire used some painted driftwood beads by Nature Scavenger.  I have a set, and I thought I would make some earrings.  I chose a couple of light turquoise blue and knew I also wanted to use some metal, yellow, perhaps white and purple.  I got out a variety of beads in the appropriate colors and tried various combinations.  None of them were working for me.  I eventually decided that my driftwood beads were too big for earrings.  However, I liked the stuff on my bead table, so I decided to make something using that.

You can see these earrings bear no resemblance to the inspiration earrings, but they would not exist without that inspiration because these items would not have been on my bead table together today.  I got the turquoise discs out to go on top of the driftwood.  The ball-end wheels were one of several metal pieces I tried.  The pearls were part of a necklace in a box of things to take apart.  I had gotten it out because there was a necklace with a bunch of czech flowers I wanted to dangle from my potential driftwood earrings.

Another thing I was inspired to try today is working with these weird metal pieces I bought a while back from You Are Not The Boss of Me.  I love weird stuff because it is fun to try to figure out what to do with it and gives jewelry a unique flair.

I had seen this beautiful necklace by Lorelei Eurto.  Thinking about it later, the Golem Studio dotted tubes reminded me of the metal tubes.  I thought of wire wrapping beads on them to mimic the dots.  I tried bigger and smaller beads, but don’t like how either turned out.  But I’m glad I tried because now I can mark that idea off my list.

I have another inspiration for these.  I have seen earrings made from bullet casings.  Unfortunately, I cannot reference the first pair I saw.  I had the blog post saved in my RSS feed, but when I updated my operating system, all my RSS feeds disappeared.  It was a blogger who did not blog often, so I can’t remember the name!  But I have also admired beautiful versions by Honey From the Bee.

I had a great time today with my inspiration.  I hope you are finding something inspiring too.