January Pretty Palettes Challenge

I'm officially hooked on this challenge! I am so enjoying seeing the inspiration picture and the beads that Erin Prais-Hintz posts on the Halcraft Pretty Palettes site. For January, Erin chose this picture featuring the Pantone color of the year, Marsala.

These colors are gorgeous together, and so, off to Michaels I went, in search of that lovely rich color. However, the selection at our local M's was very limited and I was hard pressed to find anything in the right color family. From the beginning, that beautiful purple gray succulent in the bouquet had caught my eye and when I found these beads below in that color range, I went off on a tangent.

Here are the beads that were used:
94760 Amethyst Glass Mix
91560 Amethyst Czech glass 6mm rondelles
80286 Amethyst stone Nugget Lustre

I added some 26 gauge Artistic Wire, threw in a little wire crochet, and here's the result:

Purple Mountain Majesty

    

                               

   

 I'm a February baby, so amethyst is my birthstone. Maybe that's why it called my name? At any rate I love the end result.

Hop on over to the January Reveal post to see what Erin and her guest, Sarah Ostriyznick, created, and links to the other contributors as well.

Hope your day is filled with just a little more joy and grace after seeing all the pretties!

Christie

Sand and Sea Blog Hop

A few months ago, I signed up to be part of Lisa Lodge's Sand and Sea blog hop. She sent us either a blue or brown pallette of beads to work with and I received a brown set. Now, I don't gravitate towards peaches and browns a whole lot but that's what makes being part of something like this fun and why it's called a challenge!

Here's a picture of the beads I received

  There was a whole assortment of goodies buried in there and it took some pondering to figure out which direction I wanted to go. Lisa had asked that we not go out and buy any beads, but that we use from our stash ( no problem there). After looking at the peaches and golds I added a few more things to the pot ( peach glass pearls, an old broken necklace and some gold e-beads), and here was my bead starting point:

And then the project kind of took on a mind of it's own. I decided to do some wire crochet so I could use a lot of the smaller beads, but to mix it up a little I used three different colors of 26g wire: antique bronze, copper and gold. This played off of the bigger beads and the colors in the focal piece.

 You can see the mingling of the three colors here where I ended it

 And here's my chunky wire crochet necklace. It's a little too big for me, but I've already had two people ask about buying it, and to quote a friend of mine "I've never met a chunky necklace I didn't like!"

But there was more work to be done! Originally I was going to use the focal with the necklace, but that was just wayyy too much going on. I used some 20g wire, took a deep breath, and tried my hand at some wire wrapping. That cute little turtle just had to be featured somewhere, and the copper tones played up the copper in the focal.  I also used two semi-matching beads to make matching earrings and wrapped them in a similar fashion to complement the focal bead. After they were all done, I realized that they were their own little set and didn't need to compete with the wire crochet. This is not my typical fare, but I really am pleased with the end results.

Here's another look at the earrings....

 and the focal

Thanks, Lisa! This was a fun challenge, and it's nice to get out of your comfort zone to see what you can create.

Here's a list of the other participants- stop by and say hi!

Eleanor Burian-Mohr, The Charmed Life

Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs

Tanya Goodwin, A Work in Progress

Kathy Lindemer, Bay Moon Design

Toltec Jewels, Jewel School Friends

Sharyl McMillian-Nelson, Sharyl's Jewelry

Marla Gibson, Spice Box Designs

Melissa Trudinger, Bead Recipes

Dot Lewallen, Speedie Beadie

Ema Kilroy, Ema K Designs

Kim Booth, The Pink Martini Boutique

Jami Shipp, Celebrating Life

Leah Tees, My Beady Littleeyes

Christie Murrow, Charis Designs Jewelry  **you're here**

Monique Urquhart, A Half Baked Notion

Gloria Allen, Gloria Allen Designs

Cindy Anderson Wilson, It's My Sea of Dreams

Suzi Campbell, Suzi Campbell Creations

Shaiha Williams, Shaiha's Ramblings

 

I'm off to enter goodies into the local fair- may your day be filled with splashes and dashes of grace and joy!

BSBP Part Deux

The minute I laid eyes on the goodies that Andra Weber sent me as part of the latest BSBP, I knew immediately what I was going to use these amazing opalite rounds for.

Almost a year ago, I became a Bead Design Corner Academy (BCDA) instructor for Michaels Arts and Craft stores. It's definitely challenged me in my jewelry making as I've been required to learn a LOT of new techniques to teach as part of our curriculum there. Can we say stretched? But it's been a very good thing. One of the new things that I learned was wire crochet. I've done crafts all my life, but knitting and crocheting were never on the agenda- and still aren't. However, much to my delight, wire crochet has become my new favorite- along with chain maille- and using different combinations makes every new piece unique.

For the piece below I used 26 gauge Artistic non-tarnish silver wire. The Artistic wire gives my wire crochet an added luster and richness and while I don't use it for every necklace, these beauties deserved it.

 I did something a little different with this piece, since the challenge is all about doing new things. I used the beads in a graduated strand and then twisted the three strands together. I love the look of  them- they remind me of gorgeous little bubbles!

Here's another one with the earrings. I kept the earrings simple, using the same chain from the back of the necklace, as I didn't want them to compete with main piece.

Wire crochet is so versatile.  I did this for a dear friend's birthday. She brought me some beautiful blue beads from Venice, and I knew I wanted to make something special for her using one of them as a focal. As it turned out, she'd never bought herself any jewelry on the trip so now she has her own memory piece. That delighted me- and her!

This one for was my sister aka best friend. She wanted lots of colors especially pink and purple, and since she's pretty wonderful,  I do my best to give her what she wants. She's able to wear this with all sort of color combinations.

Finally, here's the necklace I entered in our local county fair. It was the first year that they had jewelry as a competitive event. I was excited when this won a blue ribbon!

Bridal Bliss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you've never worked with wire crochet, please get it a try! There are plenty of online resources, but your local Michaels store should have a BCDA instructor who'd love to teach you this technique.

Thank you again, Lori Anderson, for giving us a chance to learn and tackle new things with  5th Bead Soup Blog Party. If you've never participated in this, there's a 6th BSBP coming soon.

Grateful  today for dashes and splashes of grace and joy,

Christie