Color Me Happy!

Today I had some unexpected time in the studio so I'm firing my first bisque load of beads! I'm so excited because after this I can finally glaze them! I've been getting tired of staring at these boring gray beads. It's time for some color!

Speaking of color, I just have to share a link to one of my new favorite blogs. It seems as though many of my jewelry designing friends and followers have already found this site but if you haven't seen it yet check out Love My Art Jewelry. It's hosted by an amazing group of talented and well known jewelry and bead artists and the site's motto is "making handmade with handmade", right up my alley!

They have a monthly challenge for jewelry designers and this months challenge inspiration photo is the cover of the book "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green". I'm so inspired by this color palette! The colors are just so cheerful and bright, I can't help but smile just looking at them. I've been playing with my beads and putting together a selection of both handmade and commercial beads in this palette.

Love My Art Jewelry, February Challenge

Check out the gorgeous heart pendant by Cindy Gimbrone! When she posted this pendant on her blog a few weeks ago I just had to have it! Like, now! It's a beautiful shade of fuchsia (LOVE) and it's a heart! Two of my favorite things. I know, I'm such a girl. ;-) There are also some beautiful lampwork beads in the mix as well. I'm really not sure what I'm actually going to do with these beads yet but I have a few ideas floating around in my head.

I'll be sure to share some photos of my newly bisqued beads tomorrow!

Happy wednesday everyone!
Lisa

Owl at Midnight

It's time for another blog hop challenge! When Lorelei announced that she was hosting another blog hop I jumped at the chance to play! I participated in her last one, the Michael's Challenge Blog Hop and really enjoyed pushing my boundaries by working with beads chosen by someone other than me! This Challenge uses beads from Fusion Beads, one of my favorite online bead stores. You can see a list of the beads for this challenge here on Lorelei's blog.

The great thing about choosing Fusion Beads for this challenge is that we can all order the exact same beads, unlike Michael's which seems to have a slightly different selection from store to store. The only problem though is that since we were all ordering from the same place, some of the items sold out! So unfortunately I had to substitute a few. The owl clasp by Green Girl Studios, which was a major component of the selection sold out but I bought the next best thing, a cute owl pendant by Green Girl Studios. Close enough, right?

Owl Pendant

I was excited about the owl theme. I feel a special connection with owls and I'll tell you why. A year ago, New Years Eve morning I woke up suddenly from a deep sleep. I didn't know if I was hungry, thirsty or sick but my stomach felt "off" so I went downstairs for a drink of water. I filled my glass, walked across the kitchen and there in the maple tree outside our window was an owl. I raced upstairs grabbed my husband and dragged him down the stairs to confirm that my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. He looked and mumbled, yep that's an owl, and went back to bed. Obviously he wasn't as excited about this as I was but I had never seen an owl in the wild before and I felt that this might be some sort of sign.

The next morning I looked up owls online and found that they symbolize wisdom and intuition and that if you are visited by an owl, you may share these characteristics. Wow. This visit came at the perfect time. My son had been diagnosed with autism 5 months earlier and we were struggling with decisions for his treatment. I felt as though this visit from my nocturnal friend was a sign to follow my gut. So I did. Here we are a year later and I've never questioned a decision we've made regarding his treatment. Thank you Mr Owl.

I decided to call this piece Owl at Midnight to honor my late night visitor.

Owl at Midnight

For my necklace, I layered the owl pendant with a ceramic pendant from Chinook Jewelry. I strung the pendant with the wooden and fire polished glass beads from the challenge and finished the ends with seed beads (slightly different from the challenge seed beads but the color was close). I attached some Vintaj brass chain which I wove the leather cord through and finished the ends with a wooden bead and knot.

I enjoyed this challenge and even though I couldn't get all the materials I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Thanks for hosting Lorelei!

Intuitively yours,

Lisa

PS: Check out the other players in the blog hop!

http://lorelei1141.blogspot.com/
http://erinsiegeljewelry.blogspot.com/
http://beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.com/
http://beadhappytoday.blogspot.com/ (You are here)
http://thebeaddreamer.com/blog
http://dreamsomedesigns.blogspot.com/
http://fryestyle.blogspot.com/
http://www.madmaggiedesigns.blogspot.com/
http://reginaswritings.blogspot.com/
http://www.mylifeunderthebus.typepad.com/
http://jennibead.blogspot.com/
http://maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com/
http://silverrosedesigns.blogspot.com/
http://lindalandig.wordpress.com/
http://fireflymyst.blogspot.com/
http://www.awishandacloud.blogspot.com/
http://spiritrattles.blogspot.com/
http://formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com/
http://songbeads.blogspot.com/
http://beautifullybrokenme.blogspot.com/
http://threeredbeads.blogspot.com/
http://christinec3.blogspot.com/
http://www.earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com/

A New Challenge -Cosmic Debris

Christmas is getting close, the decorations are up and things are a little crazy around here, but what else is new? I haven't had much time to play with my beads lately and I've been itching to work on something new. I had so much fun participating in The Challenge of Color blog hop a couple of weeks ago that I decided to join another one, even with all the craziness! I think these challenges are good for me. They break me out of my rut and get me thinking in new ways. Plus, for some reason I work best when I have a deadline. Nothing like a little pressure to get the creative juices flowing!

This challenge is hosted by the oh-so talented Lorelei who has one of the best jewelry blogs in the blogosphere. You can read about the challenge here. Lorelei and her friends Nancy and Daniele chose a palette of dark, smoky beads from Michaels. The rules were, you had to use the beads chosen plus you could add two beads of your choice and whatever clasp you'd like.

Here are the beads! PS: I stole this photo from Lorelei's blog because I forgot to take one before I got started. ;-)

The Beads

As you can see there were some peacock freshwater pearls, gunmetal chain, mother of pearl faceted ovals, black quartz nuggets and silver-rimmed glass beads. Of course when I headed off the Michaels to pick up the beads for the challenge, I forgot to bring a list. Oops. Going from memory I managed to get the chain, mother of pearl and silver-lined beads right but bought the wrong pearls and forgot completely about the nuggets. Luckily when I went back they had the two missing items and I was good to go! I was really happy that the selection of beads at Michaels is pretty much the same here in Canada as in the US.

Now, I have to admit, this selection of beads is not something I would normally choose myself. I'm more of a bright and sparkly kind of girl. This palette of dark smoky hues was a challenge for me and the black nuggets were especially throwing me off with their rough and rugged edges.

As I turned them around in my hands I was thinking about how much they looked like moon rocks or something from outer space. I thought, "why fight it?" and the idea for Cosmic Debris was born, (although I was originally thinking of calling this piece Space Junk). ;-) I sorted through my stash looking for the perfect celestial pendant to match and found a Green Girl Studios disc, called Alchemy Rock that I've had kicking around in my studio for quite some time. Its interstellar vibe worked well with my theme but it was kind of dingy and tarnished from sitting around for so long. A quick polish with my Sunshine Cloth had it looking like new in no time!

I used some gray seed beads and beading wire to create a loop to hang it from and then continued up the length of the wire on either side, alternating seed beads with the Michaels beads. I found a cool box clasp in my stash (with a moonstone cabochon... how perfect!) and finished it off only to realize that I had forgotten about the chain! So I attached a length inside to create a second layer. I think it works quite well for an afterthought. ;-)

Here is is, my "Cosmic Debris" necklace!

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. So much so that I've been wearing it around all day! As a matter of fact, I like it so much that I think I'm going to keep it. I never do that! Merry Christmas to me!

However, I still have enough beads left to make another if someone really wanted one. ;-)

Me wearing it!

Here I am showing it (and my new haircut) off. ;-)

Happy Holidays everyone!

PS: Check out the other bloggers in this challenge!

http://Lorelei1141.blogspot.com

http://silverrosedesigns.blogspot.com

http://blog.elysianstudiosart.com/

http://threeredbeads.blogspot.com/

http://starcitystory.blogspot.com/

http://erinsiegeljewelry.blogspot.com/

http://www.thistlefarmarts.blogspot.com/

http://therabbitmuse.blogspot.com/

http://lindalandig.wordpress.com/

http://dreamsomedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://rosebud101-fortheloveofbeads.blogspot.com/

http://jenjuddrocks.blogspot.com/

http://formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com/

http://www.mylifeunderthebus.typepad.com/

http://deborahmpurdy.blogspot.com/

http://beadhappytoday.blogspot.com/

http://pinkicejewels.blogspot.com/

http://craftyhope.blogspot.com/

http://gr8findings.wordpress.com/

http://tropicbeads.blogspot.com/

http://melissaruth.com/blog/

http://maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com/

http://beautifullybrokenme.blogspot.com/

Challenge of Color

Hello blog hoppers! My name is Lisa Godfrey and I have a little business called Lisalu Jewels. I'm so excited to be participating in my first ever blog hop challenge! What a great opportunity to get to meet some of my fellow beady bloggers.

This challenge was created by Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati and you can read all about it here on her blog. We were all given a paint chip in our chosen color family. I'm really drawn to oceany blues and greens so I thought I should pick something from the opposite side of the color wheel for a fun change. I chose red and here is the swatch sent to me by Erin. I started off making one piece of jewelry and ended up with two from my palette! What can I say? I was on a roll. ;-)

My Paint Chip Palette

Rosy Rouge, Mango Parfait and Basmati Rice

For my first piece, called Rosy Rouge, I chose to work with the red tones in the swatch. I started with a gorgeous set of lampwork spiral discs made by one of my favorite lampwork artists Heather Boardman of HMB Studios. If you haven't seen her work you should check it out. I love her use of color and funky style. I combined the entire set of beads with Swarovski crystals, Czech glass druks and sterling silver round link chain. Then I finished it off with some gorgeous hand dyed silk ribbon from Jocalatte which I tied in a cute bow on the side. I'm really happy with how it turned out! Even though the red isn't the "exact" shade as my swatch I think it's definitely within that family. ;-)

Rosy Rouge

For my second piece called Mango Parfait, I tried to incorporate all three colors in the necklace. I started again with another beautiful set of lampwork beads by HMB Studios. Heather really did all the work for me! This set included red, orange and cream beads that worked perfectly with my palette. I linked them together with yellow jade rondelles and added two different sizes of sterling silver round link chain, one for the bottom and one for the top. I finished it off with a clasp that I made myself, which also happenes to be my first attempt at making my own clasps. I'm pretty happy with it. :-)

Mango Parfait

I can't wait to see what the other participants in the blog hop have come up with! Here's list of the other players with links to their blogs. Happy hopping!

Alice Peterson
Amy Freeland
Beth McCord
Brandi Hussey
Cary Scholes
Catherine Pruitt
Cindy Wimmer
Claire Maunsell
Cory Tompkins
Courtney Breul
Cristi Clothier
Cynthia Riggs
Emanda Johnson
Holly Westfall
Janea McDonald
Jeannie Dukic
Jennifer Cameron
Judy Campbell
Karyn White
Keirsten Giles
Kelly Morgan
Kristie Roeder
Kristin Stevens
Lisa Godfrey (you are here)
Lisa Tracy
Lori Anderson
Mallory Hoffman
Marie Voyer-Cramp
Mary McGraw
Nicole Keller
Nicole Valentine
Paige Maxim
Patty Gasparino
Rebecca Anderson
Renate Stark-Krammer
Rita Parra
Shannon Chomanczuk
Sheila Summers
Stefanie Teufel
Yelisa Rojas