Bright Fuchsia and Green Stripe Mix Bangle and Earrings

When I don't have an outfit or a specific inspiration it's sometimes difficult for me to come up with what colors I want to play with. Green and purple tend to be my go-tos, but, apparently I keep gravitating towards bright pink/fuchsia combined with green also. I did this a few years ago, which I forgot about until I started beading this combo. 

Shop for this bangle HERE

Life has been...a lot lately. So not thinking too hard about my beading, just letting the colors play is both satisfying and relaxing. When I pulled these 4 bead colors I thought I was going to do checkers but I hadn't done stripes in a while and they seemed to suit these colors better.

Shop for these earrings HERE

The brightest pink bead in these is a stunning galvanized pink color that feels very summery. I had a difficult time getting the color with my cell phone but the light box and better camera does it justice. 

I actually finished this set just in time to wear out to the show we're going to tonight, we managed to get tickets to another sold out show at the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids which will be fun and hopefully not too hot in there. We're looking forward to seeing IDKHOW (But They Found Me) live. I'll pop it up on my website shop soon too. 

Flat Post Statement Earrings; Checkers, Stripes and Points

These earrings actually started with the beads I pulled to work with on our honeymoon. Most of this new set is in the previous blog post. Thee earrings get their own post since they are a brand new style for me. While I "researched" (aka Pinterest rabbit hole) current jewelry styles a larger post-style earrings seem to be coming back into fashion. I'm always up for a little test to see if I can create something with beads that plays with current styles. 

Of course I started with checkers. I wore them around, tried a different size, they fit well with a round plastic earring back to hold them flat against my ear lobe. The only issue I was having was more personal; they kink or curl up instead of hanging flat. It's more an OCD issue for me. Part of that reason they are doing this is because I'm wearing bandanas around my neck regularly for work so they graze my neckwear and kink themselves. They won't have that issue if they don't have anything they rub on. On the plus side, they are very light weight. That goes for most of the jewelry I make. The seed beads on these are some of the smallest and lightest that I work with.

All of the above earrings have made it to the Lansing Art Gallery. You can check them out at their Michigan Made Artist's Market, Opening Reception is November 10, 5-8pm

Below are a pair that I just finished so I'll have them for sale at Bløm Meadworks for Midnight Madness in Ann Arbor on December 2nd unless someone contacts me to scoop them up beforehand.

These are for sale on my website HERE.

Spike Stripe Earrings

Lately I feel like I've been knitting more than beading, but when I was between 2 dresses for a baby shower I decided to come up with a new earring design that would work for them. Both dresses have stripes. I have been searching the internet for spike and punk designs a LOT while getting wedding ideas so I figured it was time to try my hand at a large spike drop.  

Black and White Spike Stripe Drop

This isn't a great photo put it shows the rainbow 

sheen in the white beads a bit better.

The black and white dress is the one I ended up wearing, it's been a while since I've worn it and it was fun to have these as a new matching piece of jewelry.

Navy and Silver Spike Stripe Drop

I've never really had a good piece of jewelry to match the other dress which is navy with white and orange-red stripes.  It's been really hard to find a real navy seed bead in the past and Miyuki seed beads has this wonderful deep navy color now.

Between these earrings and someone posting a selfie on social media wearing an older earring design I've been inspired to get into my jewelry pieces again. I have some fun new bead colors that are calling to me now that the weather is turning warm and bright with our gardens.

Chickadee Bangle

It all started with thinking about Joy, and then my first "Joy" blog post....sketching a chickadee on some scrap paper at work which led to the bangle idea (drafted below the bird)....

That's where inspiration can begin. Just letting it flow and this is what comes of it. Then I get obsessed. I started Googling chickadees so much that Google has started suggesting articles on them for me. (Did you know that they are a year-round bird here in Michigan but we only see them most in the winter?)

I was originally considering the the feather bangles that I had already made. The chickadee feathers alone don't have much design going on. Layered together they make some really great patterns on the bird. So I sketched out a quick idea focusing on the patterning of the bird (above, to the right corner, on the paper with the chickadee) and then I could not get it out of my head. 

I started stylizing this draft into my peyote graph paper. I first tried to copy the original sketch in with Gimp, but I decided that it was going to be easier to draft it by hand. 

I chose bead colors from what I have on-hand. Apparently I'm out of the tan I use a lot and it's on backorder so I picked something close for the back (between the wings) and tail. That color turned out a little more pink than I expected it to, which wouldn't bother me but there's something not quite right with the pink and white around the "tail" design part. I realized that I wasn't sure about the color and layout about 3/4 of the way through the bangle.  It may not bother me so much after wearing it for a while but right now I think I might make an entirely new bangle in the tan that I usually use (when it comes back in stock) and I'll play with redesigning the tail.

The "head" and "wings" area of this bangle I absolutely love though.  I have some idea on what I should on a redesign but I'm not going to dig back into it until I've let it be for a while. Sometimes we are our own hardest critics. 

Color Movement Bracelet and Earrings

I ordered these neon green delicas (I think the color is called kiwi) thanks to Pinkhot_UK using this color Miyuki seed bead in her Instagram posts. I needed to have that color in my stash, but I did not have a plan for it...  So the kiwi delicas sat in a zippy bag with these other colors I had thought might look good with it until a design came to me.  

A design never really came to me.  I just needed to see these colors together so I decided to create a bracelet where the colors moved from one to the next. I realize that I haven't made a 2-drop peyote bracelet in a while and decided to video this one being made because I was pretty sure I could do it in one sitting. Which I did!  I then made the earrings the next two nights.

When I was making the earrings I couldn't decide which direction they should hang. Green top to blue bottom or blue bottom to green top.  So I asked Bryan since he has a good eye for design and he picked for me.  The second night, as I was making the second earring he was pointing out that the colors are representative of a horizon and he liked the way the color moved downward in an earring form where if it was flipped the other way the color would feel like it was moving upward. I work on these while I'm winding down in front of the TV at night, It's nice that he is often able to give more thought into my work than I am capable of after I'm pooped out from working. He's a night person and my brain works better in the mornings. It's jsut lovely having him next to me noting my work as I make it. 

Below is the video of the bracelet being beaded:

I also made this grey mismatched pair of earrings, which I like really like, I just decided they probably didn't need their own blog post:

Kitty Bangles

Over a year ago I created the Cat's Meow Bangle and earrings.  It's turned into one of my favorite pieces to wear (brown matches most of my wardrobe) and the smaller version of the bangle has sold a few times.  I didn't have any of the smaller one in my stock so I decided in preparation for new jewelry at Lansing Art Gallery and Angelwood Gallery I should get some kitty bangles to them also. We have 2 grey cats so I used them for a little bit of inspiration. Clark is the darker of the two greys and the largest of our cats so his bangle is a tiny bit wider. Lois inspired the glittery lighter grey bangle because she's a princess and should really be wearing a sparkly tiara around.

I haven't decided what's going where yet and I feel like I want to make a third for my personal stock so we'll see where all that goes. 'I liked the color combination so much that a pair of earrings came out of it too. 

Cat's Meow Bangle

I had finished this set in October, but I haven't had the chance to properly photograph the Cat's Meow bangle and earrings until now.  This piece is the result of slipping down a Pinterest rabbit hole of cat illustrations. I had been wanting to do some sort of cat bangle that was large, but not too terribly involved as far as the design was concerned and I found a ton of ideas that fit the bill.  I was concerned about the tail part of this cat design looking strange when converted into the peyote graph paper, but now that I have worn this a bunch, I don't even remember feeling like it looked off. 

I am so pleased with this piece that I'm not sure I'll ever part with it.  I wear a lot of browns and the blue that I picked out goes with a lot.  I would venture to say this matches a large portion of my wardrobe and I really enjoy wearing this as a set.  

The earrings follow the same design as the bangle and I wanted them long-wise but an everyday wear length, so I made them half of the cat head on each side.  

I post the progress of much of my work on my social media.  At the above length a friend said that she wanted it.  So I made another shorter one for her.  I think that this bangle, if one wants it a little wider would work well at the below length also.  I love how versatile this pattern ended up being.  

There is an additional narrower cat-head-only bangle at the Lansing Art Gallery right now (November 2019) for their holiday Michigan Made show.  I'm not sure that I'll get another one done for the REACH Art Studio Not So Silent Night event that I'll have all of my current available jewelry at for sale.  That show, along with a silent auction, food, entertainment and other invited artists is coming up on December 14th, 2019, 7 - 9:30pm. You can check out the Facebook Event HERE.  

Aziraphale x Crowley Bangle

For Halloween this year Bryan thought we should be Crowley and Aziraphale from the book/Amazon show Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimen.  Some Halloweens costume research inspires me to create new jewelry designs.  This year I've been looking at a lot of angel wings. 

I had a more traditional image in mind, wings evenly spread aligned next to each other.  The more images I looked at of Crowley and Aziraphale with their wings crossed or spread next to each other, the more the idea of showing both angel and demon wings together in one piece emerged.  

If you've been following along on Instagram, I appreciate all the likes and comments as I've been beading along!

I am so pleased as to how this piece turned out.  It also seems to go with all of the outfits I'm wearing to work right now.  It shows both black and white, the black wings lined in a matte silver and the white wings lined in a matte 24K gold bead.  

I'm also trying to post videos a bit more often.  I would say I'm no good at editing, but it's a start and I figure the more I do it, the more I'll learn (and laugh at old videos).  I think I cut the beginning of this one too much, but it shows part of my process on this bangle:

So here's a video of my slow process, showing a little bit of beading on this bangle.

The Classic Cuff (Bangle)

The Classic Cuff

My day-job is being an ops manager at Talbots.  I've found my way back to retail which I really love, because I enjoy being around clothes and fabric.  We get asked a lot "What goes with this [skirt, pants, sweater...etc]?" and something that nearly always works is a white button-up shirt.  So this idea of beading a bangle in the style of the cuff of a shirt popped into my head.  

This idea has been simmering for months, maybe even a year.  One of my hang-ups for this piece was getting beads tiny enough to look like shirt-fabric.  Lo and behold, Fire Mountain Gems now carries size 15 delicas!  I was going to settle on size 15 rocailles but they weren't going to have the look I desired.  The delicas lay smooth and flat as with my other bangles, I just needed smaller.  

It was nice working with a new product.  These take much longer to finish something with how small and delicate they are.  The glass breaks easily and cannot take much stress so I have to be a bit more gentle when beading. This particular piece was also hard to keep going back to because beading one color gets boring.  I also wanted the buttons to be able to move through the button holes, which it is created with full button hole slits, but the beads are too delicate and stiff for the buttons to move through.  It still has the look that I wanted, so that's a win. 

I'm not sure what will come next of these tiny seed beads, but it will be an intricate pattern to be sure.

Klingon Bangle Light: Beadweaving Structures Combined Bangle

In making this latest piece I haven't come up with an official title yet.  This is one of those structures that has been floating around in my head for quite a while.  I just had to pick the colors and go for it, which I finally did.  There was a range of purples, blues and greens I was playing with and this green to blue really spoke to me.  I thought that I'd end up going to my dark gold 15/0 seed beads for the netting but I felt I should change it up.  The cream worked out very well and this piece is a spark of summer color on this -14 degree F sunny winter day.

Clark likes to "help" in the studio

This large bangle combines my smaller bangles with a netting design woven through them. The inspiration for this design...get ready for a nerd alert...is from Worf's sash on Star Trek: The Next Generation. With these color choices this bangle obviously wouldn't pass as a Klingon but I have to be honest about it's start.

I will get some better photos of this piece, but I was so excited to finish it I had to get some images up.  I am enjoying the long winter shadows in some of these photos, so for now enjoy this quick update.