September Challenge Recap

Looking at this month's painting, I was struck by the varied swath of colors. The strong coppery red color of the curtain... the cool reflection of the pond.... the warm walls... the utilitarian grey ceramic pitcher... the fresh sun-kissed green yard. Sometimes when I am unsure where to let my Muse lead me, I turn the picture upside down. As I created my own interpretation of this painting for September Simple Truths Sampler Club, I flipped the image so that I could select different areas of the painting to focus on for a bead set that I made.

Do you see the inspiration I drew from the painting? The curtain....the grasses and fence posts....the handle on the pitcher....the view from above, like when flying in an airplane and seeing the shimmery reflection of ponds, the winding black roads and the rolling hills.

I loved seeing the variations in this month's challenge, both beads and jewelry designs. The color palette for this month was unexpected for the fall, but really couldn't be more perfect. There is a riot of color exploding all around us, and the textures that this, my favorite season, displays makes it hard to succumb to the inevitable. The last days of summer are waning and the warmth is fleeting (first frost advisory of the year tonight!), giving me glimpses of the cold and barren vista that is to come. But I need to fill myself up with the beauty of this season to make those wintery nights feel less stark. So let's take a last lingering look at the changing landscape of autumn to store the rich colors and textures until we meet this season again.



September Challenge Recap by Slidely Photo Gallery 

Be sure to click the image to make it full-screen and to listen to the beautiful song Autumn Walk by Brad Jacobsen.

Now it is your turn! Show us what you made so we can celebrate you!

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Monday Musings - Autumnal Beads - with Rebecca of Songbead

Happy Monday everyone! It's that time again, can you believe it - the start of a brand new week. I hope it will be a good one for you! 

It's our last week of Autumnal beads, and I must say that I have loved sharing this month's theme with you - Autumn colours are really wonderful, I am sure you'll all agree. 

First up this week, a clasp from Bead Swede Supplies. (I hope you don't mind another one, Kristen says. We certainly don't mind more of your gorgeous work, that's for sure!)

My co-editor Claire put some new Autumnal bead sets in her shop - Something to do beads - just a couple of days ago, and already most of them have been snapped up! There's just one of these gorgeous sets left - do head over and snaffle them up quick sharp to make sure you don't miss out. I love the exposed clay here, and the subtle touch of celadon green (one of my own favourite colours). 

Editor-in-chief Heather of Humblebeads is a big fan of Autumn, or Fall! Look at these beautiful beads she's created, inspired by the season. One of my favourite shapes from Heather - her matchstick earring pairs. 

No art beads here, but wouldn't my new Czech glass, artisan copper and Irish waxed linen Curious Inspiration Kit be the perfect accompaniment to your favourite Autumnal art beads? 

A very special bead from Mary Harding, another member of the Art Bead Scene team. Mary has been creating a series of these unique metal beads, and has even had them featured in Jewelry Stringing magazine! You can read about these beads and see more of them over on Mary's own blog here. 

And now over to the BeadBlogger Links. Have a great week! 

A Bead A Day
Some shiny things really get attention! Lisa's sharing some shiny silvery connectors that look like chain.

Teddy's Scarf
The teddy bear scarf is done!

Artist Profile: Photographer Taerie Kelly 
Taerie is a good example of how people can find their way from being crafters to accomplished artists. She has her first solo show starting this Friday!

Mini Canvas Making
Cherie's working on some mini canvases to decorate her office.

Carmi's Art/Life World
The summer goal of hand sewing twelve crazy cuffs was met with this salute to the fleur de lis!

Beading Arts
The final chapter of "Bored by Back Stitch" is now ready and available for download! The topic is "Textured Surfaces", and features ways to include shibori silk ribbon, metal mesh ribbon, soutache braid, and candy bags in your bead embroidery work!

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer, based in her country's capital, Edinburgh. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.

Inside the Studio with Claire Lockwood

Welcome to Inside the Studio!

Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

Congratulations Nan Smith! 

You have won a pair of lampwork beads made by Ema of Ema K Designs.

Please email Ema with your contact information.

***************

But where did all the time go...? It seems no time at all since I last did an ITS post. Are you feeling the autumn yet? I've been in autumn mode for some time. Several weeks ago you could really feel it in the air over here, but then the tail-end of the summer rallied a bit in my part of the UK, so it's felt a little as if autumn got postponed. Nonetheless, I have been busy with autumnal designs, both beads and jewellery. I've been working on these autumnal bead sets for a little while. Today I finally got all the elements of them together and strung them up.

There are only the five but I'm quite pleased with them.  Those bell shaped things are actually kinda stylised seed pod things.

These are my first stoneware pieces.  That marvellous being that they call Petra Carpreau gifted me some of these beautiful stoneware glazes. It took me a second attempt to get them to work. They don't show up very clearly in the group shot above. You can see them better here.

Gooey, bubbly, jammy goodness.  I'm thinking I might do a mini autumn-y shop update in the next few days, just so these pieces can go out whilst people are making their autumn designs. Saying that, they don't have to go in autumnal designs... I have few more similar bits and bobs ready, which would to go with them nicely.

The tenmoku glaze on those earring pieces is so fabulous - really glittery (good glittery!)!  I also love the soft celadon green on the discs at the top. It's a glaze that my pottery instructor has and it's not a colour I'd generally be drawn to but now I've ended up ordering a similar one for myself.  

I have a heap more beads in the works. (Apologies for the blurry bits!)

Once they're finished they'll be joining these in one big update in early-ish October.

I was aiming for a bit of a faux-ostrich-egg-shell-bead effect with the crazed ones.  I guess I might call the others humbugs... primitive humbugs, mebbe... 

In other bead making news, look: 

I know, it's a shed.  But it's a shed that will be housing my kiln! Work to get it kiln-ready starts next week. I'm just a little bit excited, although I won't believe it's happening until I see the thing sat in there. 

I usually have a selection of new art beads to share with you, but beady post-days have been a bit few and far between lately, with one thing and another. 

Very modest compared to the glut in my last post.  These are from Grubbi.  I decided to have a bit of time away from the clay and made up a couple of bits using some of them. Here's a simple, subtly coloured bracelet also incorporating a Jubilee cube and a button clasp from Amanda Davie.

And some earrings that kinda match...

And, of course there's those autumnal designs I mentioned.  I keep making these leafy jobs with Jo Lucksted's woodland critters because they keep selling - and I rather like them. (Watch this one sit in my shop for forever now...)

Super simple but neat and sweet.  I decided to use one of my personal stash of my new beads in this next piece. The clasp was from Joanne Tinley. As you may know, she isn't making components anymore so I feel a bit of a wrench using the ones I have left.

Finally, here's a meeting of two of my recent preoccupations: autumn and asymmetrical earrings, with a beautiful C-Koop enamel leaf.

I haven't listed any of these yet - hopefully I'll be getting them in the shop in the next day or so.  And, just in case you're interested, I already have a number of autumnal jewellery pieces available on Etsy.

Which brings us to the giveaway. The prize this week is $20 of credit to spend in either my bead shop or my jewellery shop.  The question I need answering is: what word(s) would you use to describe the shape of these beads? I'm looking for a name for them, basically. I don't think I can get away with calling them 'autumnal whatnots' for much longer....

Bye for now, Claire

www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com

www.somethingtodo.etsy.com

www.somethingtodobeads.etsy.com

Inside The Studio with Gaea Cannaday - The Wicked Season

Welcome to Inside the Studio! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

In honor of Halloween, we chose lucky number 13! Thanks for all the great comments! This weeks winner is  Bead-Mused. Congratulations!
You have won a $25 gift certificate to Humblebeads.com from Heather Powers.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

This week we visit the studio of Gaea Cannaday of Gaea Handmade.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

When I think of fall, I think of hot desert winds, bright blue skies, and the prickle of static electricity causing my hair to stand on end. It makes me feel wicked! Southern California doesn't see much rain this time of year and many of the plants keep their foliage year round. Our mediterranian climate doesn't paint a very interesting portrait of our fall scenery. Looking a little closer, you find sun dried grass the color of sunshine and desert wind blown cloudless night skies twinkling with stars. Fall imagery still stirs my soul and inspired many new design for me this year. Here is a gallimaufry of my fall season.

I think we talk about Halloween year round at our house. Haunted house, Skelly, Web and Love Potion.

Look what the wind blew in! A fantastic surprise visit from artist CarolAnn Lafaso of BombPop on Etsy. She brought her amazing hoard of beads and we played. Her little works of art are incredibly durable and light! Perfect for the earrings I made... CarolAnn's years of color design work are apparent with the sumptuous and dreamy color combinations she comes up with!  

Brenna's sweet family owns Coffee Connection here in town. Who better to have a winged coffee cup necklace? Apparently, I was in Pyewacket's way. Following the signs home. We are often tempted to keep driving north.

 Beaded bangles, stacked bead, ellipse beads.

New jewelry designs bound for a new local shop, Fig.

Hand carving original designs. Finding new uses for my carvings... handmade stamps! I've been decorating packages with the new stamp and have been eyeing old designs for their stamp making abilities!

New designs ready for some color.  Even though it is a busy time of year, I really focus on producing new designs each cycle. 

What inspires you creatively in this autumnal season?  

Decorating? Seasonal smells and colors? 

Please leave a comment about what this season inspires in you to win a new Jack pendant!

Free Project: Woodsy

"A wise old owl sat on an oak

The more he saw the less he spoke

The less he spoke the more he heard

Why aren't we like that wise old bird?"

Owls are associated with wisdom. They can see things that others can't. Apparently I needed to heed the power of the owl because I was ignorant of how social media could work for me.

I am not a big fan of Facebook, as I would rather spend my time blogging, and Twitter is just way too brief for me (please, I say 140 characters before I even get out of bed in the morning!). But I know that a lot of you are out there on Facebook quite regularly. After I spent the night listing things (please, Etsy, make it even quicker for me to batch edit and list items!) I stopped into Facebook for my bi-weekly check in. I added a picture of one of the little hooties to my profile and within moments I had hits and mentions and comments and hops... it was viral, I tell you! I have never seen anything like it. And because of that little innocent posting I even sold a bunch of things. (Note to self: rethink your aversion to Facebook). My point is that I wasn't even planning that interaction and yet there it was.

This necklace features one of the first wise old owls that I made in my 'simple truths' like back in January 2011. With the cooler weather in the air, I have been making up a clutch of young owlets like my first wide-eyed friend, and apparently you like him! (Note to self: make more owlets). I submitted this little guy to a magazine...but he got rejected :-( Sad for me, but a bonus for you! I think that he is too cute to keep to myself, so I am going to share him with you for free! So here is a project to design your own fall-inspired, asymmetrical necklace.

Supplies:

23” antique copper bar chain, Industrial Chic line (or substitute what you have!)

6 etched brass jump rings

1 etched brass oval jump ring, Vintaj

4 antique copper jump rings, Vintaj

1 brass ball head pin

1 leaf toggle bar, Vintaj

1 leaf toggle, Vintaj

6” 20 gauge bronze wire, Vintaj

6 antique copper cog spacers, TierraCast

3 polymer clay disk beads, Humblebeads (or substitute ceramic for an earthy feel!)

1 long antique copper branch, Nunn Designs (or make your own with thick 16 gauge copper wire hammered and twisted into a branch shape)

2 short antique copper branches, Nunn Designs

1 copper leaf stamping, similar found at AccesoriesSusan

1 owl pendant, Simple Truths by Tesori Trovati

• Finished size: 18” with a 1” drop

Step by step:

1: Separate the chain into two 10 ½” pieces and two 1” pieces. Set aside.

2: Cut the wire into three 2” sections. Create a wrapped loop stringing one copper cog spacer, one polymer clay bead and one copper cog spacer. Finish with a wrapped loop. Repeat two more times.

3: Connect the wrapped bead links with the etched jump ring. Attach the two long pieces of chain to the jump ring on one side. Attach the two short pieces of chain to the jump ring on the other side, ending with another jump ring.

4: Connect the pendant to this jump ring. 

5: Position the branch connections so that they form an open space in the middle. Connect them together using small jump rings. To the middle branch add the copper leaf stamping. Attach an etched jump ring to one side, and connect the other side to the jump ring in step 4.

6: Use a small jump ring to attach the leaf toggle to the etch jump ring.

7: On the other end of the chain, connect an oval etched jump ring. Thread the brass ball head pin to the leaf toggle bar and created a wrapped loop underneath. Open the oval brass jump ring and thread the toggle bar and the two remaining ends of the chain.

I think I need to get back in the studio and make more of these happy little owlets because they are literally flying out the door!

Happy creating! 

Do you design around the seasons and traditional themes, or do you just design what you will like?
What sort of motifs are you seeking as themes for your designs this fall and for the upcoming winter/holiday season?

Do tell!