January Challenge at ABS

There's a new Challenge going on over at Art Bead Scene! I just love the colors in this month's inspiration picture. 

You'll find all the info here, if you want to join in the fun. I can imagine lots of ways to capture the spirit of this picture, so it'll be fun to see what you all come up with, too.

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Do you make New Year's Resolutions?

Now that the holidays are past, I really want to get back into creativity mode.

I think the best way is to have a sort of schedule or plan.

So that I maximize the use of the limited amount of "open" time I find myself with now.

I have lots of ideas for things I want to do and try this year.

It's also good to keep things flexible, so it's fun and not a chore.

I was thinking of some sort of bead swap or round robin project, to keep things interesting, and give a goal.  If any of you are interested in playing along, or have ideas you've been mulling, post here and let's come up with a 

New Year Swap Design Inspiration!

Gifted Artfriends

As you might already know, I'm one of several editors on the Art Bead Scene blog, and another editor is Melanie Brooks at Earthenwood Studio. I've admired her work for a long time, and I've been hoarding a pair of her clockwork beads for some time.


She and I did an exchange, I sent her some of my pewter headpins, the ones with bow ties on them, along with a few other fun goodies, and she sent me some of her fantastic beads.

It's been like Christmas all over again here, I've been admiring them and thinking about how to use them.


I didn't know she glazed the backs of all her beads too, In that way they are even reversible, if I decided to use with a collage soldered piece the reverse would also be visible. Neat!


I can't wait to see what she makes with the pewter. She was too generous with the beads, there are wonderful little hearts and locks, those will be fun with some of my pewter keys and keyhole pieces.


And a dragonfly bead in a gorgeous oxblood color. I really love ceramics! And Melanie's packaging is so gorgeous I didn't want to open them at first - but I got over that pretty quickly.


Thanks, Melanie! I can't wait to start adding these beauties to some pewter and making some lovelies.

Beach Theme Bead Swap at ABS

I promised that the results of the goodies from the beach-themed bead swap would be over at the Art Bead Scene blog, I posted photos on Friday. Pop over there if you want to see all the participants and their lovely, wonderful beach inspired beads. It's beautiful!

Mailbox Goodness

A few beadmakers got together recently on a beach themed bead swap. I'll be unveiling the goodies inside the organza bags at the Art Bead Scene so you can see what we all came up with. Fun Stuff!


They are a talented group of folks who participated, and the insides are just beautiful.


And shipped out in these handmade boxes ...


More soon about additional mailbox goodies!

Mossy Green Boxes

These handmade boxes, using some of my collage papers, are headed out to some fun friends, for a special project. More about it soon!

The decoration on the boxes looks like they've been brought up from an ancient shipwreck, underwater for centuries.


On Monday I'll post a photo of the giveaway for my BIG-EIGHT-DOUBLE-ZERO celebration.

Charity and Jewelry - A Perfect Match

A while back several of us worked on a jewelry exchange necklace, hosted by Gaea, and she's having a silent auction for charity to raise money. You can post your bid on her blog for a chance to win.

It's a lovely necklace, you'll feel good about contributing to charity, and great for obtaining a beautiful piece with many hands of creativity in it. Go to her blog if you want more details.

Memorium

This necklace is a special memorial piece, the photos is of my mother's sister when she was a little girl, it's her dress, legs and feet, and her hand in the upper left corner of the photo.

I made most of the unusual components on the necklace, the large fleur-de-lys and the filigree-capped beads on the chain. The faux ivory game piece die and the faux vintage cameo, as though from a family necklace handed down. To see the story and see more photos, go to the Art Bead Scene for my Studio Saturday post yesterday.

A friend gave me the large skeleton key in this photo and made me a challenge to use it in a design - so here's where it ended up! As part of this chain in the necklace ...

A while back last fall I sponsored a charm / bead / clasp exchange, and I've been promising to show the necklace I made using some of the charms. Mary Harding made a gorgeous necklace, putting all the charms on it together. I've been making pieces individually but put several on this one necklace.

The focal is called "Medici Gate" and I made it from glass and metal, it's hanging from the large skeleton key. Suspended from the bottom of the focal from soldered wire loops are three of the charms from the swap.


One is Gaea's ceramic heart charm, looks like it might be raku with the crackle design, suspended from my stamped brass link with the numbers "1-2" on it. Counting, like the old child's game of one-two-buckle my shoe rhyme.

Another is the bottle of gold flakes with the word 'LEAF' on the front of the bottle that I made. I like the pun contained in it, 'gold leaf'. Did you get it? I know, it's a bad pun but I couldn't resist it.


The center one is by Lorelei Eurto, with a small key and dangle over her stamped metal component
with the word 'H-O-M-E' on it.

It feels ancient and reminds me of friends, near and far, who made it possible by their gifts and generosity to me.

As a bonus - it jingles when I move!

Springing Forward with Art Companions

I have a collection of things I've gotten from various talented people, creative idea makers. I am putting together some jewelry using the components and beads, combined with some of my own creations. It's like working together with someone, to create something unique.


I've had some glass beads in lovely, frosted and bird-egg colors from StudioRent, but I hadn't yet used them in a design.



I also got a lovely ceramic glazed leaf from Erin at EveryHeartCrafts, and I've admired and enjoyed looking at it, but hadn't used it. It was part of the charm-clasp exchange, and I wanted to do something special with it.



So I created a bird print design pendant and started pulling out things to use with it, and I noticed that the glass beads and Erin's leaf looked perfect with the oval pendant. My pendant even had some of the same markings of a ruddy color that one of her leaves had under the glaze. They were perfect together.

The glass beads remind me of bird's eggs, and Erin's leaf of the nest the birds may be making now as the seasons change and move through their cycles.


The heavy gauge dark patina wire for the hand forged hook is from PatinaQueen. I get many of the beadcaps from a lovely store in Etsy named ArtfulMarket - she has great beads and findings. As much as I can I like to make almost everything on the jewelry I create, but making this necklace felt like a collaboration inspired by the spirit of spring. The robins are hopping in the yard, the weather is warming up.


The little pendant with its dangles can swing around the necklace chain, and sit with the clasp in front and the rosary wrapped glass beads in front, or with the clasp in back and the various green shaded matte seed beads in front.

I patinaed a dark color on the rosary wrapped beads, they have a lovely vintage look. Remember in an earlier post I talked about the chain I made while waiting in the car at the bank ... yup! those are the ones. It's not a long strand, just a hint of green flash.

Welcome, Spring - Come Soon!

Classy Bunny Artists

I'm participating in a swap and I finally finished the jewelry piece yesterday morning. It's in a box and the postal person took it away to its new home. I hope it'll make someone smile when they open the box. The closure is a patinaed brass clasp I got from Artist's Market on Etsy.


I wanted to play off the artist's persona and description, so I made a rabbit bead, and colored it a dark blue-green. I also used one of Gaea's ceramic gray-green beads with some filigree bead caps. The extra length of chain makes adjustable with the brass clasp, to lengthen and shorten for just the right fit.


And I used some vintage pattern pictures of bunnies. With words clipped from a shabby book I've been cutting apart, using the various words. I found the sentence "the artists begin work" and it was just perfect, the message found me at the right time.


It's got a large round decoration at the top, and wire tendrils, like vines clinging to the side, with dangles hanging from them. Like leaves on the vines, crystal glass beads and a patinaed brass key.


The back side has an ornate glass design with art nouveau decorated designs underneath, I wanted it to look very antique and special.


With a long filigree dangle on a paddle end brass headpin, a ceramic pearly bead hanging from the bottom soldered design on the bottom of the soldered glass pendant.

I got the soldering station set up again, I had to take it aside so the repairs to the basement walls and ceiling could be finished. I got my table and soldering equipment all arranged and available again, if I get time from finishing some orders I need to ship out tomorrow, I want to make more soldered glass pendants, with other special messages embedded inside.

Jewelry Exchange - The Great Finish!

Gaea sponsored a jewelry exchange, kind of a round robin where each artist adds something to the finished piece. It was fun to watch its progress and see what each participant added as it grew and took on its personality. I was fortunate to be involved, and here is a photo of the final jewelry piece. What a great clasp and beautiful colors, don't you think?


This is what it looked like when I sent it off to Stephanie, for her to forward to Gaea for the final touches.

The participants were Lorelei Eurto, Joelle Murray, Mary Harding, Jennifer Stumpf, Stef and me!

Gaea is going to auction it off for a charity, so watch her blog for details about when that will happen. Having seen it in person I can tell you, it's beautiful and will be supporting a worthy cause, if you want to bid for being its very happy owner.

Blooming and Blessed

One of my favorite quotations says:

'The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.' --John Ruskin

Last year, around Thanksgiving, I got a wild notion to host a charm swap with the theme 'Counting Your Blessings' with charms, beads and clasps as part of the exchange.

This lovely necklace was made by Mary Harding, one of the charm exchange participants.

She used all the charms, clasps and beads in one long charm necklace.


I really love the way they look, all compiled together.

Wouldn't it be fun to wear - with a black turtleneck, or a white lace summer dress? Now, I think I'd like to do something similar with my charms, to keep them together as a remembrance.

And what did I become by being in the exchange?

Closer to other talented friends, inspired by the results. Enriched by having lots of new lovely charms to create and admire in new works of creativity.

In a word - Blessed.

Home, Heart, Hearth

TREE OF LIFE

The charms from the swap are still finding their places in finished jewelry. I have a pendant I created, but haven't photographed and posted here yet.

I don't want to put my own 'stamp' or coloring on what others do, although it probably wouldn't affect the free flowing thoughts and gentle creative ideas that I've seen recently.

Here's a perfect example, an out-of-this-world look made with items from the charm swap.

Erin at EveryHeartCrafts made this inventive, colorful necklace. Wouldn't you love to slip it over your head and wear it, fingering the little baubles and dangles all day? They remind me of little berries, alongside the leaf that Erin made, and they remind me of the hope of a spring that's coming.

See the little strips of my hand-dyed cloth tied on, and the lengths of hand-dyed silk in the chain? Beauty, beauty.

Charm Swap Beauties

Folks are starting to use their charm swap goodies, and it's so nice to see the variety of creativity!

Lorelei Eurto made this great bracelet using elements from the swap.



Erin at Every Heart Crafts made this great design titled 'Home Address.' Isn't that quaint, it tells a story using several charms and beads from the exchange. She used the stamped number brass link I created, along with the key charm and blue number disk.

Cristi at 2ifbysea put together a story using the heart charm from Gaea, my golden vial with the word 'GOOD' on it and calls it 'The Good Heart' necklace.

I love the lampwork beads she used in the necklace, be sure to pop over to her blog and read the story that goes with it.

When I made the little vial with golden flakes in it, I was thinking of the old phrase - 'as good as gold' - and Cristi has combined it with the heart bead, to make a heart that's good as gold.

Can't wait to see what Gaea will come up with! And Heather! Too much suspense...

Reaching for Stars, Showering Blessings

The Story Behind the Charm / Clasp / Bead Exchange - Counting Your Blessings

This is a fairly long post, with lots of photos and links to the wonderful folks who made the 'Counting Your Blessings' exchange swap such a success and so much fun from start to finish.
I also talk about this exchange in my Studio Saturday post over at the Art Bead Scene, with more photos there, too. I've started creating a necklace and a bracelet using the charms, when I finish I'll share how they turned out.

An outstretched hand, showering the blessings, with a shiny star over an inverted heart on the front of the little cotton amulet bags that bulged with their contents. This was my last image of the charm swap goodies as they headed to their new places before the Thanksgiving holiday.



Since then, I've waited to unveil all the details so every member of the swap could get their package first - not to spoil the surprise.


One definite benefit of hosting the exchange was that I was able to see every charm sent, to think about the receivers and try to assemble a group of charms that they would all enjoy. It was a form of extended friendship, long distance but still very real.




The first to arrive for the swap were these lovely heart charms from Gaea Cannaday, with a beautiful crackle under the glaze that made them very rustic and yet smooth to the touch and luminous.




I love ceramic beads, and have quite a few of Gaea's beads to use in jewelry designs. Her focal pendants are timeless and beautiful, too.



Lorelei Eurto sent a marvelous little charm, a found object skeleton key on a stamped copper sheet with the word 'Home' on it. And lovely gemstone beads as a dangle on each one.



Every key seems different, and I could tell they were authentically old keys. As she knows, I'm very fond of antiques. One of the hard things about hosting an exchange is having to part with all but one of all the beautiful things you receive!



Lorelei is very good at combining things in her designs that are unusual but have an unerring sense of belonging to each other after she works them together.



I thought I started to see a common thread running through the charms when these beautiful ceramic leaves were sent by Erin Siegel at Every Heart Crafts.


We are all thankful for the changing of the seasons, the warmth of our homes and being close to our loved ones.




These little leaf charms spoke to me of the unique quality in each person, the individuality we all contain and should cherish. A symbol of passing time, the natural world moving through the seasons.



New spring buds of leaves on the trees when the spring is arriving, the long shadows cast in mid-summer to cool us during the heat of the day. The brilliant changes of color in the autumn as the leaves begin to fall. And the wispy trunks of the trees in the winter, lightly coated with snow.




This little house charm, with its heart design and tiny doggie charm dangle, was created by Lisa Harrington.


The reverse side has the quaint old saying, 'Home is Where the Heart is' - which is so true.

It may look like there was a coordinated effort in making the charms match up well with each other, but it just happened that way. As the charms arrived, there was a story forming in the unity and uniqueness of each person's creations.



Mary Harding has a special way with clay, in making her lovely ceramic glazed toggle clasps. I thought she might send those, since the exchange was for beads / clasps / charms.


To my everlasting surprise and delight, she created and sent along a group of pendants and charms.

She sent me an extra little charm for hosting the exchange, so I have a cute little bird and a pretty flower drop bead. Aren't they wonderful?

She told me that being in the swap encouraged her into a new direction with her clay beads.

I think that's super! and I just love the little bird and flower beads, as well as all the other lovely pendants she sent to share with the swap group.



Cristi Clother is known also as 2ifbySea, and she was very generous in her swap items, including a lot of extras!


There were copper charms, links and a clasp, as well as colorful round number charms and a blue stick drop bead with the words 'Be Blessed' - a bonanza!

I plan to use all the components on a charm bracelet with more copper links and some twisted wire links, combined with some of the other pieces from the group's charms.

Right now they are spread out on my desk in a row, to plan out the order and arrangement that may work best together. I fiddle with them, moving them here and there.

Along with the lovely goodies, these creative superstars sent me little letters and notes that were beautifully designed. I'm putting them into a scrapbook to commemorate the exchange, and the nice sentiments that came along with them.



One of those was a card made by Heather Powers at Humblebeads, with the words 'Wisdom is the Beginning of all Blessings. Wear This Little Owl as a Reminder' - such a nice thought, with a wise little white owl in the photograph on the card.

Each owl charm had a different little pendant, I kept one for myself that had a copper disk and a leaf dangle. It will look great with the copper components for the charm bracelet.

I always pictured the owl charms that Heather makes as larger, this is such a teensy little bird! and the round disk bead that came with it has all my favorite colors in it.


I may make a necklace with just the disk bead and some chain, all on it's own and simple. Heather is so creative and very sharing of her knowlege and experience.

I owe Heather a great deal, she encouraged me last spring to go ahead and offer my bead creations to be sold on their own without being in a finished piece of jewelry, and she included me in the Art Bead Scene editors, first as guest editor and now as one of the regulars.



Of course, I do have a few photos of my charms to share, too.


I created some glass vials of gold flakes, putting the flakes into the vials and covering them with resin.


Let me say that if you are going to do this you should put some resin in each bottle right away because the resin starts to thicken up! The resin resists going into the opening in the vial if it's too thick.

I made eight of them and almost waited a bit too long. I created the translucent labels for the bottles and applied them to the glass when the resin had set up, popping the tiny cork into them and wrapping with brass wire for the hanger.

I found a source for more of the small glass vials, I want to make some more. They are so fun!

I must confess that a few of them were puns - 'GOOD' and 'LEAF'. Good As Gold - get it? Gold Leaf?

I know, not such great play on word puns but they tickled me anyway. I love word games and puns, so I kept the one that says 'LEAF' myself and have plans to use it on my charm necklace.

I made a heart connector bead with two wire loops, and star or leaf charm drops from fused glass.


And a round brass connector bead with the numbers '1' and '2' stamped on them. Like the rhyming counting song, 'One, Two, Buckle My Shoe' from childhood memories.

A little word charm stick that said either 'HOPE' or 'LOVE' also went to the charm group.

Do you see the repeating designs that I noticed, icons of things that symbolise blessings to all of us in the charm group?

Leaves. Hearts. Houses. Keys. Numbers. Words. Birds.

Isn't that amazing?

That's what I was thinking to myself as I tucked them all into the little cotton quilted amulet bag, gave them a final pat and sent them to the others.

I hope you enjoyed following along on this charm exchange experience. If you have a chance to participate in one sometime, be sure to do it!

A big 'THANK YOU' to everyone who went along on this journey with me. You are all very loving and extremely talented people - I'm so happy I know you.