Primary Colors

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Art Bead Scene Blog, Linda Landig, Mary Harding, Seraphine Louis

I love the combination of the three primary colors: red, yellow and blue.  They are bold and beautiful together.  Recently, Mary Harding made some leaf pendants inspired by a Séraphine Louis painting featured on the Art Bead Scene Blog.  I fell in love with one featuring the primary colors. 

I got some beautiful red glass beads in one of Linda Landig’s destash sales – along with a matching clasp! I decided they would be perfect together.  I knotted the beads on yellow waxed linen.  Just the three primary colors.  Mary’s pendant can really hold its own with all that red!  I think it turned out great.

 

AJE June Component Reveal

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Art Jewelry Elements, Linda Landig

The Art Jewelry Elements blog is home to a very talented group of artists.  They have a Component of the Month challenge hop, and this month I was the lucky recipient of one of the beautiful components by Linda Landig.  A lovely little flower pendant:

I contemplated this pendant for a while and looked at different things I could use with it.  I considered some crackled brown dyed jade or various pink beads and stones to bring out that touch of pink in the middle.  I considered some rustic browns to bring out the rustic side.  But in the end I really found this pendant to be quite romantic in feeling.  I had some purplish keshi pearls I thought looked lovely with it and added to that romantic look.  But as I was putting the necklace together, I found that the rough nature of the pearls meant that they took up too much space near where the pendant hung.  I did not want to add what I considered a distracting element by having anything too large that would help the pendant hang further away from the strung pearls.

I spied a ribbon on my beading table that was braided with some other fibers I hadn’t ended up using in another project.  The ribbon was the perfect colors.  So many of my creations are the result of that kind of happenstance of what is on my table at the time.  But it was meant to be because the colors are so spot-on! When I put the pendant on the ribbon, I loved how it looked.  It had almost a Victorian feeling of a cameo on a velvet ribbon.

But I thought I can’t just put this on a ribbon and a call it a day!  So I went back to the pearls and thought I’d combine the two.  I added some brown stone beads toward the tops of the pearl strand.  I also recently started experimenting more with wire, and used one of my own copper clasps.  When I wasn’t happy with how much the crimp covers hid, I added some small jump rings, a trick I saw Erin Prais-Hintz write about.

While it was difficult to narrow down which beads to use, and I’m sure I could have made a dozen beautiful pieces based on this lovely pendant, I’m quite pleased with how this necklace came out.  I have some more of Linda’s ceramic pieces, so I will definitely get the chance to make more.

Thank you so much to Linda and Art Jewelry Elements for allowing me to play along this month.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.  Please click on the links below to see what the other participants made with Linda’s beautiful garden-themed ceramic components.

Guests
Ann Schroeder – You are HERE
Mischelle Andrade Fanucchi

Therese Frank

AJE Members

Susan Kennedy

Diana Ptaszynski

Linda Landig

Lesley Watt
Melissa Meman

Caroline Dewison

Francesca Watson

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Rebekah Payne

Kristen Stevens

 

 

 

AJE June Reveal Postponed Until July 3rd

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Art Jewelry Elements, Linda Landig

The Art Jewelry Elements June Component of the Month reveal has been postponed until July 3rd.  Come back then and see what I created with this pendant by Linda Landig:

I Love Art Jewelry Elements!

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Art Jewelry Elements, Linda Landig

Art Jewelry Elements is a fabulous blog with multiple contributors.  I have learned so much since I started following this blog.  The artists post about their processes, share tutorials, and muse about all things jewelry, beads and other components.  Speaking of components, they have a regular Component of the Month giveaway and blog hop.  The contributors and several lucky winners get a component from one of the artists, make something with it and then participate in a blog hop to share their creations.

Linda Landig is the artist generously providing the June Component of the Month.  She has recently begun working in ceramics, and I’m really loving her work.  I already have a couple of her ceramic pieces, and then I was one of the fortunate people chosen for the hop this month.  I got my component in the mail today.  I was very excited to open it and see which one it was, and….

Ta-da!  I love this little nugget of goodness!  It is a gorgeous purpley-blue depending what light you are in.  The flower is a golden-orange color with a little pink in the middle and a beautiful rustic brown around the edges.  Look at all the color packed into one pendant!  Kind of like a real flower – you keep seeing more the longer you look at it.

I’m excited to get to my bead table and start working, but I have to let it swirl around in my head a few days before I will get the chance.  I wish jewelry designs would pop fully formed into my head like term papers used to in college when I let the research ferment in my brain for a week or two.  (I was fermenting, you understand, not procrastinating.)

I was reading a discussion recently where jewelry designers were talking about waking up from dreams with jewelry designs in their heads.  That never happens to me!  Luckily this beautiful pendant provides plenty of inspiration.  I love the colors and the rustic, glossy beauty of it.  I’m not a gardener by any means, but I think this flower looks like a pansy.  The colors definitely fit with that assessment.

Please come join me on June 30th for the reveal and see what I make with my lovely component and hop around to see what everyone else makes with theirs. It will be lots of fun.  Also, don’t miss out on the Art Jewelry Elements 1000 likes celebration.  To celebrate hitting 1000 likes on their Facebook page, they are having seven (count ’em, seven) giveaways starting on Monday, June 16th. Don’t miss it!  Subscribe to their blog and like their Facebook page to be sure you get to join in the fun.

Summer Necklace

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Linda Landig

I bought this pretty polymer clay pendant by Linda Landig.  I fell in love with the bright burst of color.  It said summer to me, so I wanted to make it into a necklace right away and not hoard it.  That way I can start wearing it the moment summer shows itself, which I keep telling myself will happen…soonish. You can check out Linda’s jewelry and components in her etsy store and her Artfire shop.

As soon as I ordered the pendant, I had some blue beads in mind to use with it. I’ve had them for a long time, and I knew the color would be perfect.  I thought I had some bright orange beads as well.  When I looked at them, I decided they weren’t quite right, but they were in a box of things to be taken apart along with a necklace that had some furnace glass.  I thought the orange and blue tones of furnace glass might work with the blue beads.  I had originally thought about wirework, but with these beads I decided to use a nice blue waxed linen.

As I worked on it, I wasn’t convinced this was what I wanted.  The blue beads are a bit of an odd shape and weren’t really laying right knotted on the linen.  It also seemed too busy.  But there were things I like about it, so I kept going. About 80% of the way done, I decided it just wasn’t going to suit me.  I went back to the bright hyacinth beads I originally thought to pair with the blue.

Although the light today, or lack thereof, is not allowing me to take very good pictures, I’m really pleased with how it turned out.  This was the vision I originally had that uses a few complementary beads but really lets the pendant shine.  I should have trusted my original instinct!

Do you ever find yourself going back to your original design idea after trying something else?

 

Welcome Home

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Linda Landig, Nancy Adams, Round Rabbit

When I get new beads, particularly art beads, it’s like having an anticipated guest come to stay.  Welcome to my home I think when I open the package. Because I know they are going to be staying a while.  Once they are made into a piece of jewelry, they are part of something larger.  But when they first arrive, just their beautiful selves with no other distractions, I feel like welcoming them. I got two such pendants recently.

This first one is by Linda Landig.  She has been making polymer clay pieces, and I fell in love with this pendant.  Don’t you just love the burst of color? I’m going to try to convince myself to make this into a necklace soonish because I think it will be a great go-to necklace for summer.

Another pendant I got is by Nancy Adams of Round Rabbit.  I love the modern look of this earthy piece.  

I’m very glad these two pendants have come to live with me.  I’m generous that way.  New beads are always welcomed here.  

Clean-up Follow Up: Recycling Jewelry

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Clean-Up, Fix-Up Challenge, Fusion Beads, Linda Landig, organizing beads, Sharyl's Jewelry

A little while ago, Sharyl of Sharyl’s Jewelry hosted a wonderful Clean-up, Fix-up Challenge.  I participated, and it was a great motivator.  I have been able to create more with my cleaner more organized space, and I have kept it clean.  I also intend to continue to organize, and want to provide updates as I go.

I had an epiphany that in addition to organizing my beads, I could organize other things messing up my space.  One of the participants from the challenge, Linda Landig, wrote about wanting to clean up visual as well as physical clutter. That is part of the problem in my space.  Two things causing that sort of clutter were old jewelry I wanted to take apart and things that need to be fixed.  I threw them willy-nilly into a couple of baskets, and it looked a total, unappealing mess I did not want to deal with.

I used my box method and put things that need to be taken apart and things that need to be fixed into separate boxes.  They are neatly stacked and covered while they are waiting.  They are also very portable.  This weekend while I wasn’t feeling well, I brought the things that needed taking apart with me to the couch and took them apart while watching old episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and drinking tea.

I would not have gotten this done so soon if it hadn’t been pre-organized like this.  In addition, I had my little baggies all together and my “dish method” for garbage and beads that need to be put away that I got from Fusion Beads.

I continue to be thrilled to have a nicer working space.  Thanks again, Sharyl!