A chronicle of the meanderings, false starts (which in retrospect, while sort of embarrassing turned out to be highly instructive), epiphanies, selective apathy (still evolving), wild mood swings, opinions (subject to frequent change), and life lessons of an inveterate dabbler (and her latest dabblings).

Thursday, July 11, 2013

New Work

Considering how much time I've had off lately, I sure haven't brought much to completion. It seems I am always preparing...snipping, sanding, sawing, etching, coloring...It takes forever to get to the end product!

I did however finish a few things over the long holiday weekend. I finished this necklace yesterday--I sort of stumbled on a nifty way to make interesting caps for pendants (I just can't bear to stick a plain jump ring on a pendant, I have a compulsion to cover up that hole), and in my usual fashion I put these caps on every stone pendant in my stash. So now I have to start turning them into necklaces! This was the first:

Sold
The pendant is aqua terra jasper (also known as impression jasper), as are the big roundels on the middle strand (absolutely stunning roundel beads from Beads and Honey--fabulous shop and service). The sweet little cream colored beads in the top strand are encased khaki lampwork spacers by Kelley Wenzel (sadly for me currently on a bead hiatus--good thing I've been hoarding a bunch--SEE??? this is why we must hoard, because sometimes the beadmakers start taking pictures instead and THEN what will you do?), and the stick beads near the bottom of the photo are new jade from a local shop. Also featured are Indonesian glass beads from Happy Mango Beads in celadon (such a perfect match!) and oatmeal. The little copper heishi spacers are also from Happy Mango (they are a real staple of mine, I love how they add a little flash of metal, but are plain so don't interfere with the feel of the piece).

I've also been slowly working my way through my stash of enamel from Anne Gardanne. Over the holiday weekend, it was beadcaps! I really love the pointy little tulip caps. This is my favorite pair:
Regular Garden Party
I love the colors on these caps--lemon yellow, strawberry and grass green. So inspiring! I combined them with pink quartz briolettes (from FineGems--got some GREAT stones from them), Czech glass in antique rose (on the earwires), and little pale peach seed beads on creamy Irish waxed linen. Now I want to make about a hundred things in pink and yellow. I love these colors with copper.
These are almost an identical design, but with violet blue quartz briolettes instead, and denim blue caps. The berry sprinkles on the caps told me PINK!!! I obeyed.
My Little Pony  Garden Party
I love the blue violet with the azure in the beadcaps and the pink tones. I never would have thought that I would fall in love with a My Little Pony color scheme.
I wanted to use cording with this pair below too, but I just didn't have the right color so I went with little copper headpins. These caps are an electric violet blue (so hard to photograph purples, they are more purple in person than they appear here.)
Psychedelic Garden Party
The little turquoise saucers sitting atop the green leaves are itty bitty handmade lampwork spacers by Meital, and the matte turquoise Indonesian glass seed beads from Happy Mango were a perfect match (I have two long strands of these beads, they are AWESOME, they are more like little stones than glass beads).

This last pair got its color inspiration from the wonderful fuchsia color left on my headpins after I torched them. I couldn't bear to pickle it off so I left them as is, and when I set them aside with these orange caps, I thought PLUM!! I had these wonderful Czech glass rounds in a "lumi" finish, and I loved the contrast with the opaque enamel. I added little fuchsia button pearls to the earwires to pick up the fuchsia on the headpins.
Pee Wee's Garden Party
I just love these darling little flowers.
There's something Seussian, or Willy Wonkian, or Pee-Weeian about them. Can't put my finger on it...They make me think of all my favorite childhood books and movies. I sort of went with a Willy Wonka color scheme.

That's all for now!

10 comments:

  1. Beautiful pieces! That necklace is fabulous!!
    I need to get back to using stone beads because they go with anything.

    All your earrings are darling, and so colorful!

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  2. Really nice pieces! I always love looking at your work even if I am not a regular commenter. But you really made me smile with Pee-Weeian!!

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  3. la collana è decisamente splendida mi è spiaciuto non poterla acquistare!!!

    un saluto Alessandra

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  4. I LOVE seeing all your colourways in similar designs, Keirsten... you are feeding my OC with delicious flavours LOL.

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  5. This regular reader loves your regular garden party.

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  6. I love the femininity of all these pieces! Just lovely colours and a lightness of touch. I think making a stack of components works in your favour because then you have lots to choose from and can sail off on the making ship without interruption!

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  7. I would wear your earrings on a train!
    I would wear your earrings on a plane!
    They would look so good in the air!
    They would look so good anywhere!

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  8. These are so beautiful. You have a wonderful sense of style and imagination and are fortunate to live near such wonderful sources of beautiful supplies.

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