Seasonal colors, or how I love all colors!

I'm a person who is greatly influenced by the seasons.  My clothes, my jewelry, my cooking, my home decor, my creative life, and the colors that all those things entail are dictated by the seasons.    So, when I read about Michelle Ward's newest crusade I had to join in. It's all about changing colors with the season. Well, I couldn't let this one pass by without being a part of the fun!

I love all colors and I always have. I certainly have my favorites.  Lime green and aqua/tuquoise are always popping up in my knitting and beading.  But I also love bright colors like red and orange, bright pink and yellow.  I noticed several years ago that I tend to change color palettes with the seasons.  In Spring and Summer I love to wear light, bright colors.  I can't wait for the day it's warm enough to paint my toenails and put on my sandals.  In Spring I tend to work with beautiful spring greens and lavendars, I call it my lavendar fields period. 

As summer comes on I move to the brighter colors.  Salmon, coral, yellows and brighter greens start showing up, along with a healthy dose of lime and turquoise!



and these...



But, by mid-August I can sense myself moving to the wonderful, warm colors of Fall.  The pumpkins, burgundies, olive greens, and golds of nature start to show up in my projects. 

I have an antique dough bowl that I fill with silk leaves, flowers, pumpkins and gourds come October 1st.  I start to work in these colors and I love making decorations and jewelry for Halloween.  I love the orange and black, but I'm beginning to use purple and lime green too. 

These are witch's hat earrings I made for my daughter and I, and two dear friends.  Because I like great presentations I made tags to go with them, just for fun!!  And, then there is this detail from a jacket I made which really epitomizes my idea of Fall colors.

With the coming of winter I start thinking in terms of icy, cool palettes.  Lately, a lot of gray and pewter has been showing up, often combined with my green and turquoise/aqua palette. 





I think we tend to gravitate toward the same colors, but the seasons cause us to lighten, brighten, darken, or mute the values of those colors.  At least, I think that's how I tend to use color.  Once in a while I'll use a palette of colors that aren't usually ones that I use.  That's fun and stretches me a little.  Blue is a color that I rarely use, but when I do I find I'm really happy with the results.

 
Whew!  What a long post, but this is one of my favorite topics.  Which is why I couldn't let this crusade go by without joining in.  Go on over to Michelle's blog and see all the entries.  The people who participate are all fantastic paper artists or mixed media artists.  Even though my chosen medium is fiber and beads, a love of color and changing palettes with the season transends the materials you use to  create with.  Enjoy the art and maybe you'll be inspired to join in one of Michelle's crusades.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day.

Another closure idea

I've always been a detail person and so I've always looked for interesting ways to finish a project.  When I did a lot of needlepoint I would always look for interesting styles of framing for a hanging or a new way of making a pillow.  Same with my vests and jackets, whether they were fabric or knitted.  I love interesting closures and sleeve/cuff treatments.  Well, now that beads and jewelry making consumes most of my time I'm always thinking of new ideas for closures.  I love to have the closure in the front or on the side of a necklace. This is one idea that I really like.

This is a beaded wire knitted necklace I made a few months ago. The chips are three different strands I found at Michael's and mixed together to make a bead soup.  I used copper wire to knit the necklace and chose filigree rosettes I had gotten from Kabela Designs.  I wired a few of the chips to the center of each rosette and then attached them to the ends of the necklace.  I used jump rings to attach a lobster claw clasp to the rosettes.  I wear the necklace with the closure in the front. 

I start thinking about how I'm going to finish a necklace or bracelet when I begin the project.  Sometimes an idea comes quickly at the start and sometimes I finish the piece and still have no idea what to do.  That's when I go looking through the stash to see if anything presents itself as a good idea.  It's all part of the fun and the challenge of creating.  It really doesn't matter what medium you work in, the challenge of making something unique to you is always the same thrilling adventure. 

Here's the entire necklace, in a not so great picture!

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.





The Bride's Necklace

This is the necklace I made for my daughter to wear for her wedding.  She likes her clothing and jewelry to be simple and not overly embellished.  Early on in the planning process for the wedding we both adopted the mantra "Simple but elegant".  I think we achieved that with every thing that we did for the day.  This necklace was what she wanted me to make for her.  It's not original, but she really liked the clean lines of it.  We decided to add the branch link to the side because her flowers were garden flowers, peonies, roses, muscari, herbs, lamb's ears, things she could have gone and picked in the garden.  So, we thought the branch recalled that idea.  The beads are moonstones.  She loves moonstones and has one in her engagement ring.  The effect was simple but elegant.  I also made a pair of earrings to match with the extra moonstones.  I used silver headpins that had little hearts for the head.  The set looked like this...

As I was making the necklace and earrings I realized I wanted to find, or make, a special box for her to keep them in.  I happened to be in our local Paper Source store and found the perfect silk covered box in a sale bin!!  Much that happened in the planning of this special day was serendipitious, finding this box was just one thing that seemed perfect!  Her colors were sage green and a soft French blue, so the blue fabric was perfect.  The box was plain, but since I'm not like the bride, and I like embellishment, I decided to add some ribbon embroidery to the top.  Time became a big issue because I was determined that I wasn't going to working on any projects the week of the wedding.  Family was arriving and there were things that couldn't be done until that week.  So, I gave up on the idea of ribbon embroidery.  I realized I had a corsage of ivory and white ribbon flowers that I had made several years ago and never used.  I have a board of ribbon flowers hanging in my studio and it seemed as though the corsage had been hanging there waiting for this project.  Serendipity again? I don't know,maybe!  When I took the flowers off the board I found that I hadn't finished it.  Everything was pinned together.  So, I sewed it all together and used fabric glue to attach it to the box lid.  I think it looks wonderful!

Not too froufrou, but embellished.  I have to say that she was very pleased!  And, you may have noticed that there was a tag in the box.  I made tags instead of cards for her shower gifts, and so I decided to make a small tag to enclose in the jewelry box.  It fits nicely and has a little note on the back from Mom for remembrance. 

I loved making this for my daughter.  She loves the necklace and the box, and it can become an heirloom for her to keep and wear whenever she wants to remember her special day.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing some of the preparations for the wedding.  I didn't overdo it, but I enjoyed all I did, and it lent a personal touch to what was really a very personal and wonderful wedding day. 

I hope you have a wonderful day.





Wedding Projects

Or, at least some of the things I made for my daughter's wedding.  I tried not to get too carried away with making things.  I wanted to enjoy the journey to the big day, so I limited myself to small projects that were easily done and finished well in advance. Carrie also limited herself to making the guest book.  Yes, she is a fantastic bookbinder!  You can see the process of making the book and the pictures of the finished book if you follow the link above. 

I thought you might like to see some of my handiwork, so without further ado, I'll share some pictures of my contribution to what was a beautiful day!

The bridesmaids' and flower girls' necklaces along with the tags holding the necklaces.

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Packaging for the flower girls.

Packaging for the bridesmaids.

The table favors.  A collaborative effort between the father of the bride (the labels) and the mother of the bride (the bows).  By the way, the favors were jars of strawberry jam!  Yum!!

Well, these are some of the little things I made.  I have some tags and the necklace that the bride wore along with the box to keep it in.  But, they're for another time. 













It's been a while...

...but, our lovely daughter got married Saturday and I've been a little busy!  I've been documenting the projects I took on for the big day with photos, so you may see some of them soon.  I didn't handcraft much for the wedding because I didn't want to be overwhelmed with projects, but I did do a few things.  Just enough, actually, to enjoy the making without overwhelming myself with things that needed to be made. 

But, that being said, all the planning left me little time to blog.  And, I do have a bead crochet necklace I made a few months ago that I wanted to share. 

I found the ceramic rings at a bead show in February and I immediately knew what I wanted to do with them.  I have to apologize to the artist who makes these rings because I had her card so that I could give her a nod when I posted this necklace, but like many things the last few months, the card has been misplaced!  I hope to have my life revert to what is considered normal for me now that the bride and groom are off starting their new life!  But, I digress!  When I found these rings I thought they would look great on a bead crochet rope made from black beads.  I have a large amount of black size 8 beads left over from some project from long ago and I had been looking for the perfect compliment for using them.  Another bonus to making this necklace was that I got to use my bead spinner for the first time.  I've always made ropes with at least three colors of beads, so that requires counting and the bead spinner doesn't work.  Well, this same color rope gave me the opportunity to try my hand at the bead spinner.  It was fun to use, and my husband and I had some laughs as the beads flew out and all over the kitchen floor!  The hazards of being a new bead spinner!  But, the beads do collect on the thread much more quickly than stringing them individually. 



As I worked on this I was trying to decide how to finish the ends.  I really didn't want to use a metal bead cap.  Shortly after I started working on the necklace I ordered Linda Lehman's book on making bead crochet ropes, Bead Crochet Ropes: Tool, Tips and 15 Projects.  It's a great book for anyone interested in learning how to do bead crochet ropes.   In the book are directions for creating a bead cap using herringbone stitched caps.  That was the perfect solution to my problem of how to finish the rope. 

I ended up with a perfect little bead cap without having to use a metal cap.  I know it's unusual for me not to want to make something with different materials incorporated into it, but I really wanted this to have a clean look to it.  Which then brought me to the clasp!  I didn't have a black, or even a gunmetal, clasp that would hold the weight of the necklace, so I made my own out of black art wire.  I was pleased with the results.

This picture isn't the best, but I made a hook and loop out of 18 gauge black art wire.  I used the method described in Linda's book for attaching a clasp, which made finishing the whole thing very easy. 

I've worn this necklace a lot because it's so basic.  Not really flashy, but bold, which the new bride would say was soooo me!!!

Thanks for stopping by to visit.  I'll try to do better with my posting, but for now I hope you have a good day while I go put my feet up and enjoy the lack of things to be done!







Button Swap Day!



Today is the day that we get to see what everyone who participated in Michelle Mach's button swap.  I've been really excited about this, since it's always so inspiring to see what everyone comes up with in a swap.  The pieces are all so different, but so inspiring! 


Anyway, the idea behind the button swap was the usual formula, Michelle took all the names of the people who signed up and paired them with other people.  You had to send your partner 3 buttons from your stash, so much the better if one or more were vintage or handmade.  Well, I was paired up with Hope of  Craftyhope.blogspot.com.  Well, I was overwhelmed when Hope's package arrived!  It was amazing!  She not only sent the 3 required buttons, which were fabulous, but she sent a whole stash of other buttons!  And, to make it better she made adorable tins and a card to go along with the buttons!!! 

Isn't that fantastic?!!  Well, I love the 3 buttons, especially the carved ivory flowers.  And the were all so vintage looking, that I decided I had to do something that played on the vintage feel of the buttons. So, I went back to my idea of using knitted wire in a mixed media design.  At a bead show I had gotten a new color of art wire, Rose Gold.  It's a lovely old-timey pink with a golden glow.  So, I thought this would be the perfect project to use it.  I knitted a cuff and decided a linen base would keep to the vintage look.  I was going to sew the wire to the linen and then the buttons on top of the wire, fringe the edges of the linen and sew snaps on as a closure.  That was the original plan.  But, as you can see below, that's not exactly how it ended up.

When I laid it all out, I thought the piece looked very flat and uninteresting.  Just layered, linen, wire, buttons, was terribly boring.  So, I took the wire and scrunched it up.  In doing so I creating a ridge which I then maniputlated some more to create little 'cups' to nestle the buttons into.  I loved the dimensional feel of the piece, and an added benefit was the wavy edge that resulted from scrunching the wire.  I knew I had something I liked a lot.  So, I proceeded as I had planned and sewed the wire to the linen and the buttons nestled in the wire.  Of course, my favorite button, the carved flowers, figured prominently, and another of the original 3, a fantastically shabby chic glass button.  But, I also used one from the extra stash Hope sent, the little pink with the flower and rhinestone center.  A pearl button that I had in my stash finished off the set.

I'm really pleased with the cuff.  I wore it yesterday and received compliments on it.   That was nice!  

This was a fun swap.  I love buttons and it allowed me to try another idea for knitted wire.  This cuff has generated another idea for a cuff with a summery seaside theme.   The swap also introduced me to Hope and her great work.  So, a win, win all around! 

Michelle is sponsoring a contest to coordinate with the Button Swap Reveal.  If you comment on all the participants blogs you'll be entered to win a button collection.  So, below you'll find the list of participants in the button swap.   Go check out what everyone did with their buttons and you may win some buttons, and everyone can use more buttons, can't they?  I don't think you can ever have too many!

1. Cat-  http://boobeads.blogspot.com/

2. Cindy- http://www.sweetbeadstudio.com/

3. Cory-  http://art-with-moxie.blogspot.com/

4. Cyndi- http://www.beading-arts.com/

5. Dita- http://www.alankarshilpa.blogspot.com/

6. Donna, Marti, and Michelle- http://www.michellemach.com/blog/

7. Erin- http://treasures-found.blogspot.com/

8. Hope- http://craftyhope.blogspot.com/

9. Inca- http://zerenitydesign.blogspot.com/

10.Katrina- http://armyofsockmonsters.blogspot.com/

11. Krista- http://frenchelegantjewelry.blogspot.com/

12.Kristie- http://www.artisanclay.blogspot.com/

13. Linda D.- http://lutkaandco.com/

14. Linda L.-http://www.lindasbeadblog.com/

15.Lody- http://www.lodysbeadworks.blogspot.com/

16.Lori- http://www.lorianderson.blogspot.com/

17. Loretta- http://www.designsbyloretta.blogspot.com/

18.Malin- http://beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com/

19. Mary- http://mkaymac.blogspot.com/

20. Maryanne- http://zingalasworkshop.com/

21. Melinda- http://orrtec.blogspot.com/

22. Saskia- http://perlendistel.blogspot.com/

23. Shannon-http://www.formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com/

24. Shirley- http://beadsandbread.blogspot.com/

25. Stephanie- http://www.stringaholic.blogspot.com/

Hope you have fun checking out all the participants.  



Bartering

I mentioned a few posts ago that a friend of mine makes beautiful baskets and she and I decided to barter jewelry for a Scottish yarn basket.  Well, she delivered my basket last week.  And, it's gorgeous!!! 

The color looks a little lighter than it actually is, but isn't it gorgeous?!  Judy is meticulous in her workmanship and it shows in the finished basket.  She dyes her own reed and treats the finished basket with linseed oil to prevent it from drying out.  I'm so  thrilled with my basket.  I will have it filled with lovely yarn soon.  After all it is a Scottish yarn basket!!  The funny thing is that Judy has recently become an avid knitter, but she made these baskets before she started knitting.  Now, she'll have some yarn to put in her basket! 


Here's a close up of the God's Eye with which she starts these baskets.  Amazingly beautiful, isn't it?

I'll let you decide who got the best deal out this barter.  I made her a wire and pearl ring and pendant which you can check out in a previous post, which for some reason I can't link to right now!  But, look for Wire Working for a Friend if you want to see what my end of the deal was. 

Enjoy your day.  We're having lovely early spring weather today, so I'll be in the garden.

Thanks for stopping by.