Inspired 2015 Bangle Variation with Earrings & Pendant

I am getting ready to send a grouping of Spring/Summer jewelry to send off to Angelwood Gallery for their May 9th Open House and something really inspired me to revisit the Inspired by Spring 2015 Bangle that I had finished earlier this year. The colorway that I'm working with has shifted some and I took out all of the lime greens (that group is over at the Lansing Art Gallery).  I decided to make the bangle about half the size of the original design.  I'm very please with it's outcome.

Bangle $110

I was at Zoobies on Tuesday night for Knitting Happy Hour and I met Carrie and Jason who were sitting at the table next to us. Carrie really love the bangle, I was making the matching earrings at the time.  In case she keeps thinking about it I had her snap a photo of the bangle and gave her my card.  I liked her interpretation of it, she said that the design reminded her of looking through window panes over a canyon.  (I wasn't comparing the bangles at the time so I actually quoted Kerrie a lower price on accident, which I would still honor).

Earrings $50.00

Pendant Front

Pendant Back

$45.00

I feel really good about the amount of jewelry I have been finishing for the four galleries that carry my work.  As of late it's about all I can focus on since I'm in a transitional time in my life and my beading travels on-he-go well. 

Now, I am going to get ready for my divorce hearing. Wish me luck!

Departure Bangle

Departure Bangle $250

Lately I have been focused on trying to get sets of jewelry swapped out to galleries.  I'm beading a lot as my main focus since it's portable and a lot of changes are happening in the next month.  I am trying to make my "usual" groupings with a color focus, but I keep straying from what I feel is my norm.

This bangle started with my beading wandering into double-leaves, thinking I'd try more than two, but then giving up.  It sat in my bead bag for a while until I decided it was important to do something with this weekend.  The double leaves by themselves weren't exciting me, so I made some additional accents for the middles.

It looks a little like fairy wings to me, and with it being an interesting bangle variation, I felt that calling it the "Departure" bangle was appropriate at this point in my life.

I debated finishing it as a bangle or as a bracelet, and decided on the bangle shape.  I finally played with some of the square double-hole Miyuki Tila beads that I had bought earlier this year on the sides of the leaves as a connecting point.

(back view)

I am actually quite happy as to how this piece turned out. It's a bit larger than my "normal" sized bangles since I was guessing about the number of beads to go around.  If you'd like to see it in person, come to the Ann Arbor Fiber Arts Guild Fiber Feast this weekend (tickets are sold out, but you can come shop before and after the event).

Smaller Leaf Bracelet Variation

I was going through my inventory to take over the that Lansing Art Gallery this week and realized that I completely forgot to post about one of my bracelet variations!

As I play with different sized leaves, I wanted to my a smaller, more delicate version of the leaf bracelet.  This piece turned out quite successful with that focus. 

It matches one of my Spring 2015 color combos, other pieces can be seen HERE.  And of course, all of this set with pink, fuchsia, orange, lime and purple can be seen and purchased at that Lansing Art Gallery shop right now!

Leaf Bracelet Variation

Leaf Bracelet Variation $120.00

I have been meaning to start in on some different variations of leaf bracelets, and a new color combo got me inspired to do one.  I bought a fantastic shirt from my favorite Grand Rapids boutique, Lee & Birch and it go me moving my spring color collection to a little more pink and no lime green.

This piece as a two-pearl clasp, which I have been waffling on the size of the pearl, but it really hangs on well, so I'm going to be wearing it a lot to see how it feels. So far so good at the office yesterday.

I'm looking at these photos thinking to myself, "wow, that's a lot of pink for me to be working with." I must have spring fever, plus a ton of changes going on in my life.  Lets shake it up some hey?

You will probably be able to see this particular piece for sale at the Ann Arbor Fiber Arts Guild Fiber Feast on April 18th in the sales area.  I don't have anything in the fashion show itself, but I will be modeling.  Tickets are sold out, however, the general public is invited to shop early and after the fashion show.  More info at www.annarborfiberarts.org 

New set: Layered Necklace, Earrings and Bracelet

I'm not quite sure where the inspiration came from on this necklace outside of the fact that I have a bunch of 15/0 seed beads pulled for the colorway I'm using for my Spring 2015 jewelry.  I love doing the St. Petersburg Chain stitch with 15/0s and I've been rolling around an idea for a layered necklace for quite a while.

Layered Necklace $220.00

I'm not totally happy with the kinking that is happening with the stitch, but as it hangs, it'll work itself out over time...or I might steam it.  It does give this piece a very different look though.

Necklace detail

I first was trying to stitch accent beads into this necklace, but I had a hard time telling how it was going to hang.  So I grabbed my dress form and it made it so much easier! 

Trying to bead without the dress form.

Ah, now that's better.

Approved stopping point via social media comments.

(Thanks everyone!)

Test run, go dancing.

So I like to wear my jewelry in a normal setting to see how it wears and holds up.  I went out to see a favorite cover band of mine (The Cheap Dates) and while I was dancing I found this necklace to be really lightweight.  It didn't threaten to jump off from around my head, but it can end up around your back (if you bounce a lot).  It didn't tangle at all (yay!) and even though it wasn't laying just flat, it had a really nice look to it still when flipped (see above).

Earrings $45.00

I made the earring set to go with the necklace, these only take me about 2 hours to make (that's quick for my beadwork!)

Layered Bracelets; Plain $70.00

With Accent Beads $80.00

I have to say, posting to Facebook and Instagram have been helpful in  some decisions on the necklace.  I didn't want to go overboard with this first one, and your comments helped me figure out it was ok to stop and say the piece was done.  I also posted the below comparison image to decide whether to keep the bracelet "plain" or add in the pearls and accent beads.  I have to say that the responses were almost 50/50, so I made one of each.

The original bracelet design I put a lobster clasp on, but I really thought the glass pearls looked better, so I swapped the first one out and did a pearl on the second one too.  The plain bracelet took me around 3 hours to finish and adding in the accents were an additional hour.  I didn't time myself on the necklace, maybe next time.

Inspired by 2015 Bangle and Earrings Set

2015 Inspired Bangle $250.00

I have had a shift back to working on my beaded jewelry slightly more than my larger sculpture and wall hangings.  I've been really excited by some of the colors I see coming out for Spring 2015 and with the help of Pinterest I'm inspired and playing with some new color combinations. The first of my Spring 2015 grouping is a Bangle and earring set.

2015 Inspired Earring $50.00

I worked on this bangle while on an Arkansas road trip so I was able to really time out how long it took me to make (a question I get all the time).  This particular piece took me about 12 hours.  Factors of this timing is that I was working on this mostly while listening to the radio which allows for faster beading than when I watch TV.  Also, the base of this piece being simple geometric one color helps making beading those areas easy to think about.

I had to wait to get more of the white beads to finish off the earrings, but I have been wearing these two bangles around without the earrings.

                                            

Watercolor Bangle 2015 Re-do

This pattern is a re-do because the original bangle that I made ended up too big.  I had miscounted on my graph paper when I was drafting this piece and I think I was something like 10 beads too long, which is really quite a lot.

The original pattern had a lot of interesting aspects to it, so I decided that when I got around to re-doing it, I would use various parts of the first draft.  A few weeks ago  I ran into this pattern while I was cleaning my office/bead studio and thought it would be a good match for the colors I was working with for Spring 2015.

I had the time to actually clock making it, which took me about 8 hours total.  This doesn't include the prep for editing the original pattern and computer-work.

I've gotten a few earring ideas going to match this piece, so look out for that blog post on it's way!

Holiday Party Bracelet

I'm a little behind on posting about this bracelet...in December I took a break from finishing projects that are already started to play with some color. I have a portion of beads pulled for a Spring/Summer 2015 collection so I looked at what I had set aside.  The dress I wore for one of our holiday events is a Nicole Miller with a ton of different colors which gave me lots of options to play with new beads.  

I had picked up these great green twisted bugle beads from Bead Haven when I was in Frankenmuth then decided to use them with a stitch that I learned from Huib Petersen's class that I took a number of years ago.  The bugle beads were longer than I had used in the past, so I decided to try using larger seed beads too.  

This bracelet uses size 8 seed beads along with the 11.5 mm long bugles.  It was really different for me to try to weave with these beads.  Larger holes make it so the needle falls in and out of them much easier than I'm used to, and I had quite a time trying to get the stitching to tighten up, I ended up passing a lot of thread through the entire bracelet.  The bracelet ended up being approximately 7 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.  In retrospect I had some issues with the edges of the bugle beads being sharp and having to weave back through with my thread.  Being much larger bead holes I should have tried some thread other than nymo.  I do have spiderwire along with some other threads on hand in a pinch.  If I have another issue I'll try re-doing it.

This is the Nicole Miller dress, 

the colors are really much brighter than this image...

I'm not sure I would do this stitch this big again unless it was for an installation piece.  I like it much better in a smaller, more delicate size. Usually when I stitch this bracelet it's about .75 inches wide (I use shorter bugle beads).

As I play catch-up on jewelry that I've been making and compile a bead order based on projects that are waiting for more of a color (I now have 3 pieces that are waiting for me to order from Fire Mountain gems) here's a teaser of what's to come: