Jewelry for Angelwood Gallery

It seems this month is the Gallery swap month for me.  I know I keep saying that I'm not making new jewelry, but I am doing a few pieces here and there to fill in colorways for galleries. I like my work to look at least a little bit like a set.  This teal, white and neutral mix is what I'm sending off to Angelwood Gallery this weekend.

Polka Dot Bangle and Earrings

Polka dot bangle and earrings.

 

I have been creating some much simpler bangles as of late.  I usually have some pretty intense pattern that I'm busy working on, but with the amount of work that I have been trying to pump out, I think these "simple" patterns are a bit of a mental break for me.  First it was the chevron, now polka-dots.  They're a welcome change of pace.  These are at Grove Gallery right now (unless someone scooped them up this weekend, I'll find out when I'm in tomorrow.)

 



Teal & Black Striped Chevron Necklace

 

Since stripes and chevrons have been coming out, I've been taking advantage of the trend and playing with the same in my beading. 

 

Lariat Necklace: $200.00

 

Since there's plenty of detail in the St. Petersburg chain of this necklace, I kept the embellishment on the ends simple.  I had initially tried to make the pearls on the ends "cluster" like I do with the leaves on my lariats, but it didn't look right, so I did loops.  I may try a fringe on another one.

 

Chevron Stripe Earrings: $55.00

Simple Stripe Bracelet: $45.00

 

And of course, earrings and a bracelet to match.  It's hard to tell in these photos, but the earrings have a jet black glass pearl toward the bottom where the earring "cups" a little bit.

 

 

New Summer Floral Bangle

2013 Floral Bangle: $180.00

 

I bought a new dress over at Grace in Old Town a few weeks ago.  Adding to my dress collection for the weddings, showers and art openings (yay!) that are coming up this summer.  So, of course, the beautiful water-color leaves and flowers gave me fodder for a new bangle inspiration.

 

I had originally thought of making the bangle really wide (like 2 1/2+ inches), but decided that the design in my head would fight with the busy pattern of the dress.  There's a lot of information that I still wanted to put into this bangle, so I did not do a repeat pattern on it.  Meaning, unlike most of my bangles, it's a different image on every side.



 

I must have been slightly out of my mind though when I was drafting this pattern.  I was torn between things I have to get done and things that I want to make.  I decided to take the want-to-make route and make this bangle.  I somehow managed to count out the circumference of this design 20 beads too big.  I thought that it seemed large when I strung on the first row, ignored the issue, and decided not to look back after I was well into it.  I love the design, and may even pull parts of it for other bangle drafts.  It's easy enough to take out 20 rows somewhere to make it "normal" sized later.  For now, I will wear it slid up on my forearm.

 

 



I'm still thinking about making a larger version of the bangle, with a lot of white space.  It probably won't be wore along with the dress though.  Below is an image of the pattern in the dress (front middle). 

 

Happy Halloween! Jellyfish Costume 2012

 

As you may or may not know, I LOVE HALLOWEEN! And so I try my best to come up with a great new costume and make it.  This year's brainstorm came a little late (since I start thinking about Halloween around June).  But I did get a start into it and posted a blog about taking over the pool table with my jellyfish dress and hat project.

 

 

As I was hand stitching all of the parts of the hat together last week, I started to put Sparkle and blue LED lights into the base of the hat.  The whole time thinking "I hope this works, how am I going to stick this darn 3V battery in?"  Since the conductive thread needs full pressure on the positive and negative side of the battery, I decided to try a binder clip:

 

These little guys are great for everything.  That's why I carry them around in my purse.  And it worked!

I would strongly suggest this as a quick-fix for your eTextiles.  It held on all night, including the point where I took the hat off and it started to get passed around.  Here's an ok image of the hat lit up:

So, as usual, I got my costume together in time and fun was had by all.  Happy Halloween and good luck on the candy jackpot tonight!



5-Leaf Grandchildren's Colors Pendant

 (Pendant finished with silver chain customer provided)

I had the pleasure of working on a really meaningful birthday gift this past week.  My customer asked if I could do a pendant with more leaves (or would it be too bulky?).  I told her I could make them smaller so that it would not be too big.

The idea behind this pendant was to have each of the 5 grandchildren pick their favorite color for a leaf, then go from there.  I received this nice little write-up which I thought was so adorable, and helped me in the process.

(names blurred for privacy)

 

Now this wasn't exactly a mix of colors that you would think to put together, but luckily seed beads comes in all shapes, sizes, finishes and colors.  So I pulled what I thought would be the best color mix of these suggestions.  I did a couple of different arrangements, this one seemed to make the most sense at the end of it all, so I sent this image to my customer:

 

(faceted dk red leaf, fancy finish dk red leaf, silver lined aqua leaf,

rainbow finish blue leaf & matte finish copper leaf)

She's is so wonderful to work with because she just loves everything, first try.  Which makes working with her a dream.  The package went out on Tuesday afternoon and I have to say, I was so excited to send it out!