Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label challenge. Show all posts

Saturday, May 5, 2012

One Color Blog Hop- Yellow!

[[When I upload pictures from my camera, the pictures are half solid gray. So, I've uploaded some pictures I posted on instagram while I was working on the projects and took pictures of the finished pieces. They make me cringe. I'm so sorry :( ]]

Sally asked us to pull out a color from a crayon box and create something beautiful with just that one color. So, I jumped at the chance to play.

The colors we chose from were black, brown, purple, green, blue, orange, yellow, and red. Now, because I thought I wanted a challenge, I chose yellow of all colors. Why? Because, I don't work with yellow very much. I don't even use gold tone metals very often. So, I thought, "Let's make this a real challenge."

Well... challenge me it did...

My first piece...

Copper wire frames and pale pale yellow seed beads. and yellow crystals. If you look at the sketch and the final pair of earrings, you'll see I ditched the dangle clusters.

After finishing the wire wrapping, I thought, "OH MY GOSH! Copper isn't yellow at all!" So... I moved on to another project.

 I've been seing a lot of silk sari wrapped pieces and wanted to try my hand at one.
I hammered 18 gauge wire and started wrapping. It looks like a dream catcher. I added a lucite flower dangle and broke up some golden chain with yellow crystals.

It's really quite comfortable to wear. I love the crystals and the silk together. Rustic elegance, I think. And the dark yellow crystals are such a deep, rich yellow, I think I'm in love.

I didn't go too far with my designs, I admit. I bought a lot of yellow beads and did so many sketches but... just couldn't make them work out except for this necklace. Maybe I'll revisit this design later. For now, this necklace makes me happy and it makes me giggle wearing it.

Now! Time to go a'hoppin!

Hosted by:

Red

Bobbie Rafferty   http://beadsong.blogspot.com

Orange

Rebekah Payne   http://treewingsstudio.com

 Yellow

Rose Brisson Binoya [YOU ARE HERE!!!]    http://ahteesblog.blogspot.com

Blue

Rebecca Anderson  http://songbeads.blogspot.com
Alicia Marinache  http://allprettythings.ca
Charissa Sloper   http://blog.obsidiansoda.com
Sandi Volpe   http://sandivolpe.com

 Green

Jenny Davies Reazor   http://www.jdaviesreazor.com
Elizabeth Auld  http://beadsforbusygals.com

Purple

Jennifer Judd Velasquez http://jenjuddrocks.blogspot.com

Brown

Diana Ptaszynski   http://suburbangirlstudio.com

Black

Birgitta Lejonklou  http://lejonklou.blogspot.com/
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Saturday, April 21, 2012

Wrap, Stacked, and Layered Challenge

[Wordy and picture heavy... sorry! Scroll down toward the bottom for the completed stack if you wanna skip over the story... I don't mind... promise! :-)]


The big reveal is here! Tracy Statler over at makebraceletsblog.com put together this lovely blog hop challenge of putting together a collection of bracelets that wrap, stack, and layer. Wrapped, stacked, and layered bracelets are all the rage right now. I don't make many bracelets for myself so I took this challenge to create a collection of bracelets just for me!

The challenge:
-Gather bracelets, making at least one or two, into a new and wonderful collection of decadent arm candy!
-The minimum was 3 bracelets total, but the more the merrier.
-"Have fun and mix colors, textures, and different materials." = Straight from Tracy's post about the challenge!
-And of course, photograph said bracelets!

Here we go! (Sorry in advance for the long story :P)

To tell you the truth, I completely forgot about this challenge until Tracy sent out the reminder email 11 days ago. Things have been really crazy on my end with sales picking up (YAY!) and new designs spilling out of my head. I remember clearly the morning I got the email. I had a rough night of no sleep, a common enough thing lately but that morning was really really rough. I happened to go on Facebook and watched this video of an Alzheimer patient listening to music and just coming alive at the sound of his favorite songs. This video had me in tears and missing my grandfather. He died just a few years ago and every now and then, I get hit with a massive wave of longing to see him and hear his voice. He wasn't really there toward the end of his life. It was very sad and I was very angry Alzheimer's. But every time he relearned my name, he would sing the song "Rose Marie." And when my mother put music on for him, he would sway in his wheelchair and sing and hum with the music. It was such a beautiful thing.

I finally fell asleep that morning around 9am and woke at noon after dreaming I was back in my grandfather's garden, picking broccoli with him. You see, he was an agricultural professor in the Philippines and loved plants and nature. And I like to think I get that from him.

My hand reached for my phone, as it always does every morning, to check my email and there was Tracy's reminder email. And I knew, just knew, one of my bracelets was going to feature natural beads to remind me of my Lolo.

These are big-leaf maple tree seed beads. They're made from actual seeds. I bought these beads thinking of my Lolo and have been waiting for the perfect project to work them into and this challenge was it.

I knew I wanted to use some of the silk sari ribbon I bought a few weeks ago. The rolled ribbon has such a beautiful, colorful, and organic look to it. I used some waxed Irish linen cord as my anchor cords, a coconut disk and crystal rondelle for a clasp, and made some square knots for this bracelet. If you need a tutorial for a square knot bracelet, Rebecca wrote a lovely tutorial for Art Bead Scene you should check out! For the hole for the coconut disk to slip into, I just did two over hand knots leaving a space for the clasp to slide into.


Playing off of the colors of my first bracelet, I knew I wanted to have something with a little more sparkle. Something with way more color to it because while the ribbon I used is very colorful, the strips I ended up using didn't have much variation.

So, I grabbed a bunch of seed beads for color...

... and some silver star dust beads for some sparkle (along with some peridot chips... my birthstone, btw :D)...

... added some memory wire and made myself a second bracelet! The seed beads I used here are size 8. Some are silver lined some are matte and with the sparkly star dust beads and organic peridot chips, this bracelet is so fun! I love the texture and the sparkles.

I added a leaf charm and Czech glass flower to throw in a bit more of my nature theme into the bracelet.

Now, with the two bracelets together, I wanted to do a quick wrap bracelet.

Take some embroidery floss (I chose to use 2 colors here), some size 6 seed beads, and a size 3.75 hook and you can whip up a quick and colorful wrap bracelet. I didn't really follow a tutorial for the beaded crochet chain. I just sorta winged it. I'm sure if you Google "crochet bead chain," you'll get some really awesome tutorials.

I chose purple for this because I think that's the color that's missing from my collection of bracelets.

Now...

... add 2 old silver bangles from my jewelry collection and you get...

It's a bit messy, but I love it.

And it feels great on my wrist. Very comfy and so many happy colors.

Here's a list of all the lovely participants! Happy hopping!

makebraceletsblog.com
ahteesblog.blogspot.com [YOU ARE HERE] :)
songbeads.blogspot.com
sadafulee.blogspot.com
beadlolabead.blogspot.com
stringsattachedcindi.blogspot.com
carolynscreationswa.blogspot.com
cathiecarroll.blogspot.com
pinterest.com/chrisdeweerd
beatnheart.blogspot.com
storiestheytell.blogspot.com
tellyourgirlfriends.com
mamasgottodoodle.blogspot.com
copperdiem.blogspot.com
copperpennydesigns.blogspot.com
greenshoot.blogspot.com
twentytwelve-mmxii.blogspot.com
delle56.blogspot.com
elizabeth-marengoalhajas.blogspot.com
treasures-found.blogspot.com
erinsiegeljewelry.blogspot.com
ferrarioriginalsyahoocom.blogspot.com
facebook.com/handcraftedserenity
PaisleyDesignStudios.com
pixiloo.blogspot.com
hintjewelry.blogspot.com
silverrosedesigns.blogspot.com
daisychaindesignsjewellery.blogspot.com
jazzierich.blogspot.com
site.jkdjewelry.com/blog
jeanetteblix.com
glassaddictions.com
jerrisjems.com
howienjoylife7997.blogspot.com
overthemoon-design.com
katerichbourg.com
pinterest.com/kk0725/stack-it-up-bracelets/
kimmykats.com
kymhunterdesigns.blogspot.com
lamplightcrafts.blogspot.com
lelamccracken.blogspot.com
etsy.com/shop/goingtribal
inspiredadonments.blogspot.com
lorelei1141.blogspot.com
freshbakeddesigns.wordpress.com
lindysdesigns.blogspot.com
maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com
maureenmeanswell.blogspot.com
maybejustperhaps.blogspot.com
beadrecipes.wordpress.com
tekaandzoe.blogspot.com
miri100.blogspot.com
melissameman.blogspot.com
kenshostudio.com
beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com
havanabeads.blogspot.com
eclecticteaenshrinements.blogspot.com
roxidesigns.blogspot.com
stefaniessammelsurium.blogspot.com
thestudiosublime.com
sandivolpe.com
sharondriscoll.blogspot.com
sedillohillstudio.blogspot.com
sunshinebliss.com
sharonsjewelrygarden.blogspot.com
MiShelDesigns.com
aujourlejour-shelly.blogspot.com
blueberrycrazy.deviantart.com/gallery
uniqueboutique-creativetouch.blogspot.com
starhitchedwagon.blogspot.com
terrabeadworks.com
theresestreasures59.blogspot.com
sweetbeadstudio.com
missyrappaport.blogspot.com
mylifeunderthebus.typepad.com
fredbeansnook.com/blog

Lolo, Lola, and me. Miss you so much.
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