We’re All Ears January Challenge – Colour of the Year

I am happy to participate in the Earrings Everyday blog hop this month. This month’s challenge is built around the Pantone colour of the year, Ultra Violet. You can read all about it here

Pantone Colour of the Year

Purple is one of my favourite colours. I was cleaning up my supply of storage tins lately and found the perfect one for this challenge. To my eye it looks like a combination of Ultra Violet and Hyacinth Violet from the Drama Queen colour harmony in the inspiration post

Tin Cover – Ready for Repurposing

The combination of the purple shades with the pale grey of the swirls, flowers and snowflakes, along with the touches of green, red and black appealed to me. From the pieces of the tin container I made these

Dream

Along with the pretty tin circles I used freshwater pearls dyed peacock plus chain, jump rings and head pins with an antiqued brass finish. The ear wires are sterling silver that I used gun blue to add a patina to. They are available in my online shop

Come check out what everyone else made. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day

An Unplanned Absence

Wow. That was a long silence. I didn’t expect to be away from everything for so long but I was busy with a massive gardening project that I worked on until the end of October. And the worst part is it still isn’t finished. I just couldn’t do anymore. I needed a break

All that work caused new injuries to both of the rotator cuffs in my shoulders. I had injured them years ago when doing a lot of home renovations and painting.  With the new damage I couldn’t spend a lot of time doing anything

All that forced idleness just totally destroyed my design mojo. My muse took a long protracted vacation. I wanted to join in several fun blog challenges and group exchanges but could not muster up any ideas or enthusiasm

Finally, in mid-November, I started to feel the itch to create again, but not for creating jewellery. Since Christmas was coming I decided to put that spark to use and made this wreath for the dining room. The odd shape of the chandelier always made this an impossible task before. This time I came up with the idea to use the outside of an embroidery hoop for the top wreath and essentially hung everything from the top of the chain instead of trying to use the arms of the chandelier.

My homemade and extremely light chandelier decor

After Christmas was over and after putting away all the wreaths and outdoor décor everything felt too empty. The wall beside the door was a big blank beige slab of ugly bricks. So I had fun and made this winter wreath. The inspiration for it is not mine but the interpretation is. Here’s the link to the wreath that jump started mine, Two Junk Chix: Snowball Wreath

Snowball Wreath

Looking around inside again, I was missing the cheerfulness of the Christmas decorations and decided to bring some winter décor back inside. This very fun, but very roughly made, star wall hanging is an interpretation of the one from the book “Scandinavian Gatherings, From Afternoon Fika to Midsummer Feast”, from author Melissa Bahen, the creator of Lulu The Baker. The photo is dark because I couldn't get good lighting

Fun little wall hanging

I am working towards participating in a few blog challenges this month, perhaps a slow start and we’ll see how things go

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day

We’re All Ears Design Challenge - July

"So by visualizing this piece of music we are all of a sudden open to a number ofthings we might not notice when just hearing it. We can see patterns andsequences more easily. We can see which instruments are playing and where andhow. We can see when harmony becomes melody. And we can see when there's onenote versus when there's many notes."

The above quote comes from a TEDx talk that sparked the inspiration for July’s We’re All Ears Challenge. You can read about it here

The screen shot below is taken from an interpretation of Bohemian Rhapsody 2. It happens at approx. 1:40 – 1:50 in the video. 

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody 2, Andy Fillebrown

The image reminded me of the charms used in these earrings. I had originally selected them because they reminded me of the music my relatives played when we wanted to celebrate our French Canadian heritage. There were heavy Atlantic coast, Northern Canadian and European influences in the family and I have never been able to pin down the exact origin but I don’t have much of a musical ear so that doesn’t help

Hungarian Rhapsody

The charms are antiqued brass stamped with a mandala like pattern. I am quite taken by the flowers in the centre. A healthy coating of gilders paste was applied to bring out the details. Tiny glass beads in a lighter green and brass colour help to tie the charms to the antiqued brass ear wires

You can find the earrings in my shop.

Please visit the Earrings Everyday site for the blog reveal to see what everyone else made

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day

Art Bead Scene June Challenge

For June’s Art Bead Scene challenge this very bright and colourful pastel drawing by Odelin Redon is the star of the show

Profile on Red Meanders, Odelin Redon, 1900, Pastel

Although the colours are extremely bright and colourful there are many images hidden within the artwork that point to darker influences. You can read about these on the inspiration challenge post

This month I have made several necklaces and a few bracelets for different purposes and decided I wanted to go with something less elaborate. I made these 2 pair of earrings, with a charm all their own

Galaxies and Night Glow

The first pair that I made are the Galaxies earrings. The polymer clay charms were created by Sue Lin Tarnowski. Though I think she was channeling a cross cut in a tree limb, I saw galaxies. The bright pink background reminds me of bubblegum that was popular in my much younger days and to my eye works well with the colour palette of the artwork. I added some translucent rose quartz ovals and used sterling silver for the final touch

Galaxies

For the Night Glow earrings I actually used the back of the polymer clay charms, also created by Sue Lin Tarnowski. Although I loved the front with its abstract inlayed pattern and darker versions of the same colours, it was the back side I first saw when sorting through my collection of charms

Night Glow

I used bright green chrysoberyl rounds (cats eyes) to bring the green out even more and again finished the set with sterling silver

Why did I choose to use the reverse of the charms as the focus for these earrings? Just before I started selecting my art beads I had seen this photo from the Astronomy Picture of the Day website. Though the colours are different the scattering of stars is perfect

The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules 

I hope you enjoyed seeing my interpretations. Both pieces will be added to my shop tomorrow

Do go to the reveal on June 30 to see what everyone else made. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day

Pretty Palettes June Design Challenge

For their challenge this month, Molly chose the inspiration from her arms, literally. She loved the colour combo from a library book, her sunglass case and a binder

When she least expected it, June’s Pretty Palette jumped out at her!

Molly chose the brown shades along with aqua, soft white, red and antiqued silver however my eye saw the black, red, soft white and aqua shades so I chose to create with those

Trade Flower

The starting point was the polymer clay flower, purchased in a destash sale from Lesley Watt. Next came the large zebra jasper nuggets, coral shell dyed red and jet black farfalle beads. Looking at the combination sitting on my bench it felt heavy and dark so I added some silver tone tube beads and clasp to brighten it up. Everything is strung on black waxed linen cording

Trade Flower

The necklace is available in my shop.

Please visit the Halcraft site for the blog reveal to see what everyone else made.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day

Art Elements June Challenge - Insects

Usually the Art Elements monthly themed challenge is based on a component created by one of the team members. This month the inspiration is a little more free form. Diana Ptazynski has selected Insects as the theme. Here are all the details on the challenge

Cecropia Moth - Photo by Ashley Fly

This particular challenge is not limited to jewellery and is in fact open to any type of artistic interpretation so long as it is an original creation. As it is the choice of my creative muse, I have stayed with the jewellery theme. Digging through my inventory stash I found 2 dragonfly pendants, one in earthenware clay and one ceramic, and decided to make 2 variations on the dragonfly theme

This first one is centered on the ceramic dragonfly created by Cindy Pack. With its rich earthy green and light brown colours I decided to work with gemstones in complementary colours, selecting green tourmaline in a coin shape and moonstone in the traditional round bead shape. As I was laying out my pattern I realized there were hints of blue in that pendant so I added square shaped durmortierite beads to the necklace. I liked the colour combinations and the way the shapes add variety to the necklace

I used one part of a silver tone clasp as a bail for the pendant, a silver plated lobster clasp and a gunmetal round chain to complete the necklace. Both the bail and clasp were darkened with gilders paste to fit the look of the design better

Dark Dragon

The second dragonfly pendant came from Jenny Davies Reazor and is made of earthenware clay with some lovely glaze colours. I went much lighter with the colour palette on this one with rough citrine nuggets, crystals in brown and green and copper for the bail, clasp and finishing pieces. The citrine beads are tumbled smooth but because of the rough cuts they don’t lie smoothly, giving a bit of a twisted look to the necklace

Twisting Dragonfly

That sweet little pendant was created for the 2014 Beads of Courage auction and is inscribed with the year and the word Soar on the back, which is how this necklace makes me feel

Reverse of Twisting Dragonfly

I have some of each of the gemstones and crystals used in the necklaces and am feeling inspired to make some matching earrings. Hopefully that will get done next week

I hope you enjoyed seeing my creations. They are available in my shop

Do see what everyone else made. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day

Guests

Mona Arnott  - You are here

Melissa Trudinger 

Sarajo Wentling

Divya N

Art Elements Team

Cathy Spivey Mendola

Diana Ptaszynski

Lesley Watt 

Caroline Dewison

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lindsay Starr

Niky Sayers

Claire Fabian

Honey Do List June Challenge

The inspiration photo that Eric Wentling took for the June challenge is of the sweetest little rose breasted grosbeak imaginable

Photo of Rose Breasted Grosbeak courtesy of Eric Wentling

I adore that little bird and its subtle coloration punctuated by that splash of colour. I wasn’t sure I would be able to do justice to it though, until I came across some lovely lampwork glass beads I had purchased from Raven Sky. A single red ceramic bead from Cindy Pack and some natural white freshwater coin pearls with a crusty surface were added to complete the initial strand of the bracelet I chose to make

Much as I loved that one strand it did not feel complete so I added a second strand with more of the coin pearls and some glass farfalle beads. The beads, aka peanut beads, have a translucent colour called Grey Labrador on one side and a shiny silver colour on the second side. Strung randomly they make an interesting pattern

 

Flight Song

I finished the bracelet with sterling silver bead caps, wires and toggle clasp. To help balance how the bracelet sits a single pearl dangles from the toggle side of the clasp

Flight Song

I hope you enjoyed seeing my creation. It is available in my shop

Do go to the reveal and see what everyone else made. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day