Monday, August 10, 2015

New Designs

After spending most of the summer concentrating on birding and photography, I woke up yesterday morning with beads on the brain.  Spent most of the day concocting new designs:


 
 
These darling little polymer clay birds were handmade by TreeWings Studio.  I've added sterling silver heart charms by artist Cathy Dailey along with some vintage German red glass rondelles and sky blue glass square beads.  Everything is wired with sterling silver wire and finished with sterling silver French hooks.
 

 
 
In honor of my new hobby, I'm calling these my "I Heart Birdies" earrings.


 
 
TreeWings Studio also provided these polymer clay sunflower charms.  I've added bright yellow lampwork beads and more vintage German glass in blue and some size 8 Japanese glass seed beads.  Bali silver daisy spacers sit between the beads in the "stack" to keep the floral theme going and the design is finished off with sterling silver French hooks.
 

 
 
Pay no attention to what the California drought has done to my poor flower beds in the background...that's why flowers for your ears are much better.  These are my "Sunflower Sunshine" earrings.


 
 
Had to pick up some inspiration from my recent trip to Northern California.  Climbing the rocks and peering into all the tide pools was amazing.  I did only get to see one starfish, though, and that left me feeling kind of deprived so I figured I'd make my own.  These enamel on brass starfish charms are from Gardanne.  I've added dangles made with angelskin coral, turquoise and tiny white pearls.  The "stack" at the top is white howlite, some verdigris-patinated "gear" spacers and tiny orange Czech glass rondelles.  The earring hooks and "rope" stype rings are from Vintaj. 
 
 
 
 
These are my "Starfish on the Rocks" earrings.
 

 
 
I left this design halfway done when I took off on vacation and figured it was time to finish it.  The center beaded section are ceramic beads with rose designs - they reminded me of old china patterns.  I added some Swarovski crystal pearls (round and disk-shaped) in a deep burgundy color to pick up the deeper colors of the roses and I added some Vintaj patina in pink and silver to a pair of Vintaj brass filigree connectors to connect the two beaded sections together.


 
 
The shorter strand features a green-patinated brass key charm from Patina Queen and a tiny fuchsia Swarovski crystal butterfly dangle.


 
 
I imagined a little girl would keep the key to a hidden garden on a chain around her neck so this necklace is called "The Key to the Secret Garden."
 
It felt good to get back to creating - it was already difficult to have enough time for ONE hobby and now with adding the photography/birding I'm really feeling how few hours there are in the day.  I'll lose even more time when the kid goes back to school in a couple of weeks (yikes!  hate the school district for shortening our summer this year!) and I have to spend evenings overseeing homework. 
 
In other news, I've finally made some progress on the vacation photos and I plan to start sharing some of them this week.
 
KJ




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