Using the Treasure Trove - How Do You Tame A Tassel?

One of the first things I pulled from the treasure trove of upcycled goodies to experiment with was tassels. There are basically two types: the shorter versions, which are typically more of a cotton fiber and were more often in pairs; and longer tassels, which are a silky-rayon fiber, usually only one of each color or shade in each trim sample.

Some of the shorter tassels are visible in the lower left quadrant, 

while the longer tassels are in the upper right corner.

So, pairs of tassels = earrings! I made beaded bands for some, kind of like belly bands. Others I left unadorned and dangled from larger beads. 

They were fun, they were flirty, and they were MESSY! In the process of dislodging them from the sample books they were glued into when I brought them home, the fibers suffered a bit in the process. There's a difference between boho chic earrings and earrings that look like they've been on three-day benders.

Poor baby. She looks rough.

Moistening individual strands didn't really do the trick to straighten them out. So I took a deep breath one day and full on dunked them. I swirled them in water. I treated them like a donut in a glass of milk. When the fibers were saturated, I hung them all up and worked the tassels straight, and left them to dry.

It worked!

The single tassels seemed destined for pendants, so I combined them with some cabochons made from upcycled upholstery fabric remnants. There are only a couple so far, but these elegant ladies were much better behaved and avoided the dunking. I'm sure part of it has to do with the difference in what the tassels are made of, but it was nice to have them put up less of a fight. The luster of these tassels would work well with a gemstone cabochon, which is what I think I'll use next.

  

Winter Expo Preparations

Over the weekend, I tagged, bagged, and delivered over 70 pieces of jewelry for a month-long show and sale at the Evanston Art Center. Yes, that's 70+ pieces - 39 pairs of earrings, 31 necklaces, and 4 bracelets. Whew!  There's a little bit of everything here - big fancy statement pieces to simple fun pendants.

This is a juried show, and I'm still relatively new to the area, so I'm especially excited to be part of this event. For more information, go here.

If you're in the area, please come see the show!  Below are some of the pieces included:

Earrings, earrings, earrings!

Serious Sparkle, Part 2 - The Earrings

So if you're wearing a fancy evening gown, you need some fancy earrings, right? Of course!

As I wrote about yesterday, we recently had a big formal fundraising event at my job, so may of my colleagues were looking for jewelry to complement their evening wear. You've already seen some of the necklaces and bracelets that I made especially for them to choose from, so as promised, here are a few of the earrings.

Freshwater pearls with some vintage rhinestone and pearl components

Who can resist blue crystal disco balls swinging from their earlobes?

Shoulder dusters

In case your formal tastes run more to the gemstone, these are lapis, forest jasper and freshwater pearl.

These big, bold beauties are vintage marcasite pieces from an old necklace that I found in an antique store.
I took the necklace apart, and used the various component parts in lots of different new creations.
Here, I added just a few crystals at the top and as dangles.

Creative Spark Summer 2015

Once again, I'm thrilled to have been part of the latest issue of Creative Spark, which for the summer issues, highlights the myriad uses of the delicious cultured sea glass beads available from ZNet Shows.

The beads I selected are shown above -- beautiful colors that reminded me of sand, sunsets, and lovely soft shades of the ocean.  As always, I wanted to find ways to incorporate bead weaving into my creations, in addition to some more traditional stringing.  The main idea was to keep the designs light and summery enough to be comfortable if worn on the beach (or in the sweltering heat and humidity of the rest of the country).

First is a lariat using the orange and yellow nuggets, on a piece of leather long enough to wear looped low on the chest or doubled up to fit inside the collar of your shirt.  It makes a lovely tinkling sound as you walk while wearing it.

I set aside three of the orange nuggets and wove bead bezels, along with a St. Petersburg chain neck strap.  A woman tried to purchase this before I'd even gotten a picture. 

Next I played with the green rings, making a pendant and a matching ring.  The ring is a simple peyote band woven long enough to wrap around the sea glass ring on either side - easy peasy!

Finally, I used the red and blue rounds to make a pair of earrings and a matching ring.  Don't know why I seemed to gravitate toward creating rings, but these were so fun to make.

When making the ring above, there was a stage in its creation that was a viable alternative design -- more of a starburst than a puffy urchin shape that I finally decided on.  The starburst is shown below.

Thanks a million to Hope for her hard work on wrangling all the beaders together and editing the final product.  Thanks to Bill at ZNet Shows for providing the inspirational beads to work with.  And thanks to you for going to check out the magazine and seeing the creations of all the designers!

A Pile O' Earrings

Imagine...a weekend with no obligations, free access to all the past seasons of Game of Thrones, and a collection of twins, tilas, rizos, and other fun shaped beads that you've been wanting to play with....What might happen?

Well, if you're anything like me, you'll end up with a pile o' earrings.

This is just a part of what came off the worktable.

In all, I made over thirty pairs of earrings. And I caught up to date on Game of Thrones. Win/win!

Anchors Aweigh - The Reveal

The lovely and wonderfully talented Rita of Toltec Jewels came up with a great opportunity to showcase the talents of artist Diana Ptaszynski of Suburban Girl Studio, challenging a group of us to create jewelry based on her adorable anchor beads.  Cute, cute, cute!

(Caution - bad nautical themed puns may follow.  I apologize in advance.)

Several ideas came, and mercifully sank into the depths of oblivion before they could catch wind and sail too far. But then freeform peyote came to my rescue and gave me a way to add the flavor of waves and water, with lots of oceanic shades of blue ranging from deepest blue to the white/blue of sea froth.

It occurred to me today that the earrings are a good metaphor for the past three months. Lots of things in my life have kind of been at loose ends, drifting as if at sea (if you want to torture the comparison.) With uncertainty on lots of fronts, life has been a bit freeform, turning in unexpected directions and certainly not symmetrical or predictable.

As soon as I finished the earrings, one of major uncertainties in my life was resolved. So I'm going to look at these earrings as a talisman for smoother sailing and calmer seas ahead.

Thanks to Rita for setting up a fun challenge, and thanks to Diana for her artistry, which was a great source of inspiration.  Please sit right back and take a (three hour?!?) cruise through the rest of the creations made by the other participants.  Bon voyage!

Featured & Honored Artist:           Diana Ptaszynski

Diana's Shop:                           Suburban Girl Beads

Diana's Blogs:                          Suburban Girl Studio

                                                  Art Jewelry Elements

Hostess: TJ                               Jewel School Friends

Bobbie Rafferty                        Beadsong Jewelry (you're here!)

Chris Eisenberg                        Wanderware

Heather Richter                        Desert Jewelry Designs

Michelle McCarthy                  Firefly Design Studio

Kathy Lindemer                       Bay Moon Design

Dini Bruinsma                          Angaza by Changes

Cynthia Machata                      Antiquity Travelers

Kathleen Breeding                    99 Bottles of Beads on the Wall

Linda Younkman                      Lindy's Designs

Robin Reed                               Artistry HCBD

Marla Gibson                            Spice Box Designs

Gina Hockett                             Freestyle Elements

Renetha Stanziano                     Lamplight Crafts

Marianne Baxter                        Simply Seablime Jewelry        

Christina Miles                          Wings N Scales

Marybeth Rich                          A Few Words from Within the Pines

Shai Williams                           Shaiha's Ramblings

Cheri Reed                                Creative Designs by Cheri

Monique Urquhart                     A Half-Baked Notion

Jennifer Reno                            Musings of a Crafty Jenny

Shirley Moore                           Beads and Bread

Tammy Adams                          Paisley Lizard

Melissa Trudinger                      Bead Recipes
Jill Bradley                                 JillyBeads

Creative Spark Summer 2014 Reveal

My beads for the Summer Days and Nights ZNet Shows design challenge. Aren't they yummy?

I am so thrilled to be on the design team for ZNet Shows! They have the most delicious cultured sea glass, crystals, and other fun things that are perfect to create your own gorgeous creations.

Several times each year, we are challenged to create pieces from ZNet pieces that are sent to us, sight unseen. This time, the challenge was to create daytime casual looks AND dressier night time looks, both featuring the cultured sea glass.  Here's the link to Creative Spark, the online magazine of all of the designers' creations.  But if you're interested in the thought process (yes, there actually was one!) behind my pieces, read on.

I know the selections were sent at random, but I would almost think some good elf was sitting on the shelf when the packets were doled out, because I am an incurable sucker for this spectacular shade of teal/ocean blue, and the soft lavender reminds me of the inside of a seashell that you might find on a sunset stroll down the beach. I opened the package and made very happy sounds. "Squee" was likely uttered.

I wanted my designs to relate to each other somehow, and decided that the necklaces would involve chain, and the earrings would have some movement.

The cultured sea glass shapes are strung on leather, with ZNet Show chain leftover from another design challenge. I made the toggle from one of the dumbbell shaped beads, which inspired the bracelet:

You can see more clearly here how I used the dumbbell as a toggle.  Even though it's drilled end-to-end, the shape allowed me to tie the leather securely around the middle for a lasting connector. Now if only my torso was shaped like this bead...ah well!

The adorable starfish beads screamed to be the focus of the earrings, and the lentils dangling from the leather provided the casual, swinging mood I was looking for. These got worn the day they were made. Like I said, I am a completely sucker for this color.

Now for the dressier pieces.  First up, the necklace, again with cultured sea glass and chain, this time sterling silver chain from my own stash.

This shade of blue is a little lighter, a little more subtle, and a perfect foil for the delicate purple. I can see this necklace being worn to a romantic picnic on the beachfront or to a candlelit dinner overlooking a beautiful mountain vista (two of my favorite summer destinations -- not that I'm channeling my own vacation wishes here or anything...)

For the bracelet, I used the lovely lavender barrels in a matte finish. This was my opportunity to try making a chain, so what you see is completely fabricated from 18-gauge sterling wire. It is really slinky and sensuous on the arm.

Finally, the earrings.  They're pretty simple, but since there's a fair amount going on with the necklace, I thought simple would be good.  Plus, both beads are suspended from the same headpin, so they swing gently and independently as you move.

 Thanks to ZNet for the opportunity to create with such lovely materials. And thanks to Hope Smitherman for editing Creative Spark and for so kindly nudging each of us to remember the deadlines. Please go check out the online zine, and check out the individual blogs of each of the design team, where they'll give you a more in depth peek into their creative process.  Here they are:

Amy Severino

Andrea Trank

BeckyPancake

BobbieRafferty (you're here!)

BR Kuhlman

CharlieJacka

ChristieMurrow

ChristinaMiles

ChristineStonefield

CynthiaMachata

CynthiaRiggs

DonettaFarrington

HopeSmitherman

KashmiraPatel

KathyLindemer

Kay Thomerson

KellyPatterson

KlaudeteKoon

Lee Koopman

Lisa Lodge

RenethaStanziano

SandraWashington 

Shaiha Williams

SherylStephens

StephanieHaussler

TammieEverly

Hat Week Day Three - Tuesday Turquoise

Day Three of hat fun!

No great insights today, just a really pretty color combination captured in a fabulous hat spotted at Churchill Downs last year. High fashion, great color sense, and a ready supply of quill pens at the back in case you need to sign an IOU for the amount you lose in Race 3.

These earrings came together as I was putting together a selection of work for a local gallery. I love these colors together, and was thrilled to discover that they were such a good match for this hat.

There are others among us who love hats, and Antiquity Travelers created a Pinterest board last year that features the beautiful, the sculptural, the fantastic, and a few that will make you say, "huh?!???" Lots of loveliness from Audrey Hepburn (style incarnate) and Downton Abbey to feed your hat inspiration need.

Before I leave you today, here's my current favorite crazy hat.  It looks like a pheasant and this woman were travelling in opposite directions at high speed, and the pheasant lost. I crack up at the model's expression of, " Darling, everyone knows bird butt is this season's fashion must-have accessory!".

Hat Week, Day Two -- Time To Get Fabulous!

It's Day Two of Hat Week.  If you need the background, go here.

One of the hallmarks of Derby hats (and frankly, the part that's the most fun) is that it's an excuse to wear fantastic, flamboyant, flowery and feathery concoctions that you would never DREAM of wearing any other time.

Here's a fascinator I tried on yesterday, in a search for something to wear to a Derby event this week. I loved it on the display, but sadly, it looked like Big Bird's flashy relative had died on my head. But that doesn't mean that I couldn't find a piece of jewelry that I've made that reflects that fascinator's colors, spirit, and elan!

As fun as both of these may be, I would not recommend wearing them together.  I mean, even at Derby, there's a limit. (Snork!)  And to prove my point, here are some understated little numbers women have sported to past Derbies (I continue to be flummoxed as to how they fit these things in the car to get to the track...):

Do You Have Earrings That Match?

Last week I took some new work into one of the galleries that carry my jewelry. They chose several necklaces, among other things, and asked if I had earrings to match.

Um, not for all of the necklaces they chose. But I could in a day or so!

What better excuse to go home and play with the beads, right? This was one of the pieces I needed to coordinate with, and I was extra excited to figure out how to make earrings with the cool howlite double-holed spikes.

Luckily, I had two white spikes and two black spikes left over from the batch Cynthia sent to me. So, because to me, more is never too much, I made TWO pairs or earrings for the shop owners to chose between.

The black pair is now in the gallery. The white ones are mine, at least for the time being!  There were a lot of little pieces of copper wire that sacrificed themselves as I tried to figure out how best to work with the two holes (cross them over above the bead? loop them around? cross them behind the bead somehow?), but I'm happy with the result. Next bead show, I'm on the lookout for more double-holed beads to experiment with!

So how about you? Do you make earrings to match the necklaces and bracelets that you make?  Or do you create earrings you love and then make something else to go with them?

Creative Spark from ZNet Shows

A few months ago, some members of the design team for ZNet Shows were invited to take part in a challenge -- the theme was Rings and Bling.  If the chance to choose components from their wide inventory to work with wasn't enough, everyone's creations were going to be included in an online publication, Creative Spark.

Needless to say, I jumped (in an enthusiastic if not entirely ladylike way) at the chance.  I scrolled through the website making selections, sketching ideas as I went.

The earrings above are just a taste of what I made.  I got to do some beadweaving, some stringing, and even some wirework.  The necklace below may end up being an early Christmas gift from me to me -- you never know!  I've been a good girl, I swear.  Just trying to help Santa out, you know...

Creative Spark was edited by the multi-talented Hope Smitherman, and she did a fabulous job.  I'm thrilled to be included alongside some of my favorite designers.  Go check out the ringy, blingy eye candy everyone made.  I'm on pages 53 - 59 (got a little carried away with all the yummy components!).

Made Possible By Advil

Y'all, yesterday was one of those days.  What I thought was a mild headache when I woke up turned into something that felt like a small herd of elephants had taken up residence in my skull.

So even though I had planned on spending the day in close and meaningful communication with my beads, I spent it instead piled up on the bed, eagerly awaiting the next dose of Advil.

By the evening, I was able to move both body and head without muttering words that would have made my grandmother blush.  And of course, there's really no better therapy to feel better than to do something you love...so here's what came from my therapeutic beading last night.  Nothing terribly complex, but they made me happy -- I hope they bring a smile to you, too!

Better beading through pharmeceuticals, that's what it was...