Rainbow Resist Statement Bangle

 

Can I finish a decent-sized bangle on a tight deadline? Apparently yes. But it's about all I did between sleeping and working. 

I found out that my first Resist Statement bangle (in red) was accepted to Handweavers Guild of America's Small Expressions Exhibit. Which means it will be traveling this June 2026 through July 2027. I have had the Rainbow Resist Bangle in mind, and another juried exhibit that I wanted to enter a Resist Bangle into....due by May 14th. I was dragging my feet creating this one thinking that I wouldn't get into Small Expressions and I'd just submit the red one to the next event... the universe had other plans. 

I started this one on May 10th and finished it on the 13th. Four days of only beading in the morning and evening around work...and on my lunch break. I usually just knit on my lunch since I only take a half hour, but in this case, every bead counts! 

I considered having Resist repeated on this bangle like I did on the first one. I initially chose to design this rainbow one with the word once so that it wouldn't take as long to bead. The more I have to pay attention to a pattern (I graph these out myself), the longer it takes with more potential for mistakes and backtracking. At first, I chastised myself for being lazy only beading Resist once, but ultimately, I like it better than if Resist was beaded out twice. I think it would have gotten WAY too busy looking really quick. 

I got the bangle done, photographed and submitted in time, so we'll see if this one gets to travel too. I like having one of these around. My subtle commentary on how I'm feeling every single day right now. As I make more, I imagine them piling up together as its own little protest in my studio and around the house. What color(s) to do next...

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.

CCFF Bangle in Fall 2022 Color Fade

This bangle design started with the Capital City Film Festival Design for the 2018 year.  The design is on one of my favorite tee shirts from volunteering for CCFF. The dress that I wore to the Opening Night event was a black and white with similar angles and lines so I had created this bangle to go with it in black and white. The first bangle design can be seen HERE.

I don't often revisit designs but I wanted to play with color fades with black and I needed a break from checkers (just a short break) and this was perfect to go back to.

I had pulled a bunch of colors in late summer and these were some of the delicas that I still had set aside. I really love every color blended together in this variation. The individual seed beads are a mix of metallic, matte, cut, color lined...the coolest ones are a clear green glass with a plum color lining the hole of the beads which give them a really unique effect.

Of course I made some earrings to match and the set is ready to go. It made it's debut at Midnight Madness in Ann Arbor last Friday night and got a few Oooos and Ahhhhs. The Pac-Man Bangle was by far the most frequently picked up piece though. 

I'm going to post the earrings and the bangle for sale in my Website Shop soon also. 

 

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. 

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. 

Fancy Evil Eye Bangle and Earrings

When I was designing with Evil Eyes in mind, I found so many variations that I couldn't stick to just one, so I drafted 2 different bangles to work with.  I started with the simpler design to see how I felt about this style jewelry.  I also was dragging my feet on picking out colors for this set, I decided to go with one of my defaults, purple.  This particular turquoise was calling to me, so I combined it with one of my favorite neutrals for a base and silver in the middle of the eye.

I'm very happy with how the bangle turned out.  It has the spiraling movement that I felt in a lot of the designs I was looking up. Positivity, Hope and Serenity flowing through my stitching.

The earring set(s) were inspired by all of the mismatched sets I've been seeing lately in the fashion world. I really like the mismatched looks, but I feel like they don't sell well.  

I'm still considering selling this set as 3 different earrings together (above).  It just feels like that's where I wanted this set to go in the first place.

Squared Bangle in Yellow Variation

I finished this piece a few months ago but keep forgetting to blog about it.  I keep thinking I had already because I've been wearing it a lot.  I guess I had first crested this design in 2010 with the first bangle inspired by a dress/tuinc piece that I had bought.  The blog post about that one can be found HERE. 

The original was a 4 pattern repeat in design but I had not repeated the colors.  This bangle (and the one I made over the holidays this past year) do repreat in color.  I like them both ways, the color repeating is easier to do and keep track of but sometimes I just have to use as meany different color beads and finishes as I possibly can.  

The original earring design for this bangle was a large square and small square with uneven edges, I decided to go a different route and just pull my basic sized eearring from the original bangle design itself and I think it is a much more successful design.  

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.