Huggie Loop Stripe Earrings

I still bead at night, but it's a bit of a struggle to be inspired to make jewelry anymore since I'm no longer working in clothing retail. When I was in that job, patterns and color changes were abundant and what I wore to work mattered. Now what matters is my measuring, math and product knowledge, which, turns out, is a lot more fun for me. So, my jewelry-making struggles unless I have an event I'm planning an outfit for, such as Abigail's Wedding this past spring (which I created her hair pieces and new jewelry for myself).

In July I ended up planning an outfit to wear to the Sad Summer Festival. It was going to be hot and Jen got pit tickets. So, I had an outfit planned with my black Vans shortalls, closed-toed Chucks, and a loose tee. I had a color theme because I love my yellow 70's-look stripe platform chucks and I have a new yellow 15/0 seed bead I've been dying to use. 

I kept in mind being in the pit while panning these earrings and I didn't want them to dangle much, if at all. The pit usually involves lots of pushing and managing crowd surfers so dangly things can easily get caught and ripped off. I decided to make closed loops integrating the post and earnut as part of the design. The first pair I made I just focused on the colors in the shoes. They weren't quite what I had in mind, so I made a shorter "huggie" style pair with a black base and the yellow that I wanted to use so badly.

I finished and tried on both pairs while I was getting ready to go and really perferred the second pair, both in the short length and color. They worked really well for the outfit, and the pit (although we ended up on the side that didn't have the circle pit or crowd surfers).

I made a third pair while I was playing with some neon green beads I had gotten in Minneapolis last year which have a fun 80's vibe. I like that this style is simple and understated but has the pops up color and allws me to still play with color, plus they're easy to wear to work. These are headed to the Lansing Art Gallery for their Michigan Made Holiday show (Opening Reception is November 9th, 2023)

Mixed Stitches Curve Bangle (Experimental)

This piece started with my desire to get a curved St. Petersburg chain into my bangle design.  In it, not just attached to it. I started sketching and doodling, but at the end of the day I don't have a specific method of integrating these two ideas so I had to start making pieces.

First I didn't know what I wanted the middle accent bead of the curved pieces to be so I started there.  I knew I wanted to use the navy blue 15/0's as the main color and just started stitching rows with the different accent beads I had chosen.

I picked a middle faceted seed bead for the navy St. Petersburg chain and proceeded to start making short strips of it.  I had figured how much arching it could possibly take in this size and about the right length.  I also figured only 4 total would fit within the bangle structure I was planning, 2 on each side. This was way more planning than I usually like to do with my beading but I really really needed this design idea to get out of my head and into an actual form. I didn't know if it would "work" or not.

I tried to keep the bangles designs for the outside parts easy and not too busy. Working a kind-of blended horizontal stripe in the colors of the dress I was matching, I prepared these pieces separately. Eventually it was pieced together and its...ok.  I stopped before I got to filling in the whole piece with beads (which was my original plan). Leaving it open allowed for the St. Petersburg Chain arches to try to hold their own. If I kept beading and filled it in the chain would have gotten lost and there would have been no point putting in all the extra effort to make it in this way. I think. I could be wrong. 

It was as finished as I thought it should be. I let it sit, I wore it to Abigail's wedding layered with some other beaded pieces. It's fine but I'm not in love with it. I thought it had the potential to be a piece I could submit to exhibits but it's not there and the design kind-of fell flat for me. Sometimes our ideas are much more glorious in our minds and the reality isn't as exciting. I'm perfectly fine with not-exciting though. I think it's going to grow on me a bit more and it could be that start to something else in the future. It is time to move on to another project with different colors. I think I've been looking a blends of blues and purples for too long now and they're wearing on me. Onward and upward.

Sequin Circle Chain Earrings

Sequin Circle Chain Earrings

1.25W x 2T x .4D

When I finished up the blue/purple versions of my original Open Circle Chain Earrings I was on to a beading project that involved sequin. That project is for a friend's wedding so that will remain a surprise. Now I have a bunch of sequin in my stash and I didn't want to stop playing with them. I had gotten some really big ones and they called to me. 

I woke up at 4am one morning and it dawned on me that I should try putting them in the middle of my beaded circles (basically mini bangles). I didn't have my sketchbook on my night stand, I haven't needed it there in quite a long time so I was up and drawing out ideas before it became a fleeting dream. 

This first pair with only 2 sequins in the middle was definitely a learning experience, I broke a few beads trying to place the sequins. They didn't dangle quite like I had expected, but on the other hand they are so tight in the middle of the circle they stay put even when circle spins and they jut up from the bottom. 

Dress print for this set

I went with this color choice based on a dress I purchased that I thought I would wear to the wedding mentioned above.  Then I found a second dress (which is the color scheme from the first round of Open Circle Earrings), so we'll see what pans out for that. I like to have options 

Sequin Circle Chain Earrings

1.6W x 3T x .4D

This second, much larger pair I did want to dangle and see what more sequins would do. To keep them towards the top of the circle the next chain sets in the middle of them. I'm thinking about working with some of the smaller sequins but they are much more lightweight and static-y so they will function in slightly different ways and now I have to go sketch out those ideas that are popping up as I type!

All of my most recent circle chain earring (from this post and the last) will be at my Artist Pop-Up this Saturday, March 18th, at the Gutman Gallery, 118 N. 4th Ave, in Kerrytown Ann Arbor, 11am-5pm

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.

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. 

3 years sober: Beaded Recovery Ideas

"Hi, my name is Jenny and I'm an alcoholic."  

I say that regularly at meetings and one of these days I'll probably slip up introducing myself at some other lecture with that line. I cannot believe it's been 3 years, because 3 years ago it seemed impossible to even go a day or a week without a drink.  But something had to give, I went to my first AA meeting and realized why it exists and there's a whole bunch of people out there struggling with the same types of things I am. 

I could rattle on and on about how much AA has helped me but I'm going to keep this short and simple...the recovery symbol used for AA is a triangle within a circle. I've wanted to incorporate into my work somehow but all I can think of are what the coins look like so I decided to start there.

This thought first came to me when I noticed a ring someone was wearing at meetings that has the recovery symbol, very simply designed in silver. I really liked the idea of incorporating the symbol into something you can wear daily.  I tried 3 different types of seed beads with this coin design, rocaille 15/0s, delica 15/0s and the regular 11/0 delicas (from left to right in the top photo).

I'm still not sure where these are going.  I decided to keep my beaded pieces simple and start with the form of the coins that we receive each month for the first year, then every year after. I have them floating around my house, a few hanging from my car rearview as daily reminders. When I'm having a rough week, I carry one in my pocket.  My sponsor gave me my third year coin today at the meeting this morning and then her and another very important to my sobriety AA member took me out to breakfast.  It's all connected and we all help each other. <3

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:

Beaded Blob Earrings in Southwest Colors

I don't make this beaded blob earring style often enough. I just love them, and when I do make a pair the next thing I know it's been sold or they're off to a gallery.  I put together a really fun color pallet with the Wide Southwest St. Petersburg Chain Bracelet and decided to apply it to my beaded "blobs."  

These are heavier than my earrings usually are but they have a nice swing and a lot of personality.

I was thinking of beaded blobs from the past, here are a pair from 2016.

A blue pair from 2017.

And a purple pair are in this post from 2010 (before I started mixing colors and bead sizes).

Do you want to see these new earrings in person?  I'll be at Art Feast 2021 in Old Town Lansing on August 21st, 10am-5pm!  Come visit, check out local artists and food trucks!

Wide Southwest Stripe Bracelet and Earrings

 

In my effort to focus on larger statement jewelry I decided to make an extra wide St. Petersburg Chain Stitch bracelet. I started with the idea of the structure and then went to Pinterest for color inspiration.  I like to pin fashion/color-trend-based images by the year and these Southwest-feeling colors were very dominant on my 2021 Pinterest board. 

I pulled all the beads from my stash that had that color feel to it (and were the correct sizes and styles I needed for the design) and started stitching my stripes.  I really wanted to have this bracelet started in order to be able to have something other than the sample bracelet to show to my St. Petersburg Chain Stitch Zoom class.  I had a good chunk of it going already so when everyone seemed to have the stitch down I switched to working on this bracelet to show how I work it for the class. 

When I got to the end of this bracelet I noticed that it fit my wrist perfect, which isn't necessarily great for everyone, or if it's hot out. I decided to add on another row of netting loops to clasp the pearls through.  Not only does this extension work really well, but I love how the additional detail looks on the piece as a whole.

And of course I mad some tiny earrings to match which have come in hand when I need something quck cute and light for work:

All of these will be at my next outdoor booth show in Old Town Lansing, August 21, 2021 for Art Feast. (Unless someone contacts me to purchase them before that).

Two Tone Double Weave Look Beaded Bangle and Earrings

 

This bangle started out with the idea of checkers (which I'm so excited they are coming back in to fashion)...then different sizes of checkers. A I beaded the design it ended up moving into looking more like a double weave draft and, frankly, I was thinking of it as one would weave a plaid as I stitched and decided on colors.  

I'm not surprised that after the very involved Fancy Evil Eye bangle that I made last year that something a little more simple is what came to mind to make next. 

 This didn't come out looking at all like the checker pattern I had originally thought about when producing this design, but I'm very pleased with the final piece. I must be in a black/white/grey phase right now since that's what's on my loom at the moment too.  

 As I was beading this piece I kept extending it longer than the initial design. I decided to quit when it started to become cumbersome and too long to hold comfortably while I worked on it.  The bangle ended up being 2 5/8in long. The earrings are 2 1/2 inches long and 5/8 inches wide. I'll get them up on my shop sooner than later. *Edit, the Bangle is HERE and the earrings can be found HERE.*

 Now that spring is here I'm starting to get a little distracted...I plan on finishing our garage roof, planting and cleaning up gardens and continuing to add to the privacy fence of doors. I try to put in some sort of time beading, weaving, sewing every day...some days I'm better at it than others but I am getting much better at understanding that I can only do so much within each 24 hours that I have in a day. I still burn myself out sometimes, but I'm catching it before it happens more often.