Art Jewelry Elements Component of the Month Reveal

I was recently thrilled to join the team of regular contributors at Art Jewelry Elements (w00t!!), and this is my first time participating in AJE's Component of the Month event. Today is the reveal and blog hop. This month, Jenny Davies-Reazor is hosting the event--which means that she created the components everyone is using in their designs this month. Jenny is an artist who works in many media--ceramics, polymer clay, mixed media, metals--creating jewelry, ceramic shrines and tiles, collages, and more. For the January "CoM," she called on her polymer clay skills to create fabulous, resin-filled focal elements.

Look at this cornucopia of crazy goodness we had to choose from!

Jenny then chose various words and phrases from old book pages, and affixed them in the frame with resin. This is what she sent me:

As you can see, she chose the words "artist" and "artistic" for me--I will take that as a compliment, and an inspiration!

I love the vintage design, and the earthiness of the finish and material really appealed to me. The old-timey typeface and yellowed paper sent me over the moon! I love old stuff. This design made me think of both East Indian folk art, as well as vintage American "gypsy" decor--it feels to me like a little section of architectural detail surreptitiously popped off the side of a gypsy caravan and turned into jewelry. (If you follow my blog or my shop offerings, you'll know I have a thing about "gypsy" style.) I decided to echo the rustic feel with the rest of my elements, so I used some matte-finish handcrafted Indonesian glass beads from my Happy Mango Beads stash, in slate blue and turquoise to echo the colors in the focal. I love the slightly irregular shapes and sizes of these beads--it really gives my pieces a handmade, earthy flavor.

Caravan

I used some "pineapple quartz" glass ovals from my stash to draw out the pale yellow hues in the focal and add a little transparency and lightness, and knotted the strands with navy blue Irish waxed linen to pick up the focal color again. I took some of my favorite chain, from Chain Gallery, cut it into 3-link sections, and joined the sections together with 3mm Czech glass rounds in Montana blue. I popped a little Czech glass coin in opalescent yellow onto the ring of the clasp to tie it together.

(Here's what I did with the back--I wanted to have more length beneath the focal so I added a chain at the back):

I would love to work with something like this again, it was really fun! I love it when a focal element suggests a flavor and color palette like this. Very inspiring! And of course it makes for an utterly unique piece of jewelry.

(This could even convince me to start playing with polymer clay, a temptation I have so far resisted...)

You can see this piece at my Etsy shop.

This is a blog hop! Check out the other participants' creations at the links below:

Regular contributors:
Jennifer Cameron
Diana Ptaszynski
Kristen Stevens
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Lesley Watt
Melissa Meman
Linda Landig
Susan Kennedy
Rebekah Payne
Caroline Dewison

Guests:
Hope Smitherman
Sarajo Wentling

Custom Creation--Featuring Tesori Trovati "Simple Truths" Pendant

A regular customer recently asked me to create a pendant (or bracelet) around a lovely focal she had just purchased from Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati, from her new "Simple Truths" line. It seemed to work best as a pendant:

I wanted to draw the eye toward the focal, and create more of a "V" shape for the entire necklace, so I strung a short length of copper chain across the back of the focal, and hung a copper butterfly pendant and carved leaf from it. There are some really lovely, soft colors in the clay I wanted to echo in the rest of the necklace--olive green, sea green, grass green, mauve, and of course, copper--so I chose some smooth serpentine ovals in cool leafy green, fancy jasper roundels in sea green and mauve, a big moss agate carved leaf, and pearls in antique copper and muted lime. The copper wire is lightly antiqued to match the bezel on the focal. I decided to make it asymmetrical, because I wanted some of the teal and mauve accents in front, where they would show more. This would be one to wear with your hair up, so people could see the back too!

The necklace fastens with a toggle in the front.

The focal has such a nice weight to it--heavy and smooth. Superior quality! The clay artwork is set seamlessly in the bezel.

(Here's how I attached the drop portions of the pendant to the back of the focal):

The chain is just a fine rollo chain; I attached the drop portion via a heavy but smallish jump ring (I didn't want anything too bulky on the back), and then attached two more jump rings (small ones) on either side of it, through the chain links, to keep it in the center. Sort of was thinking of how you hang a picture, with the wire across the back--I hoped it would work! Seems to work fine.

I'm looking forward to working with Erin's components again!

So Famous It's WRONG

I have to say I'm just overwhelmed with my own popularity. Perfectly exhausted by the notoriety. I mean, bombarded day and night (but not, like, in a row) by fan mail, and "you're in my treasury" convos. Mon Dieu, how many treasuries can one artiste be in, in 38 days?

Seven. (I just counted). It's seven. (Ah, the magic of tagging and prosaic, tediously descriptive item titles).

Check this shit out (in chronological order):

These treasuries are gorgeous works of art all by themselves! (If you click on them it will take you to my Flickr page and I think they'll be a little bigger). I would have them made into posters and framed. (With the little circles on my items. And maybe a big red arrow.) I think I already posted the camel kissing one, but it's my favorite ever so I couldn't leave it out. And how cool Sandra put me in hers with Leslie, Cindy and Mary Jane and their gorgeous stuff! Thanks Sandra! What an honor! The green one reawakened my obsession with felt bowls, and I'm totally intrigued by Aslancrafts' polymer clay beads. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a clay hand and some vanilla buttercream soap. And some Red Hill Beads. And a leather rabbit mask.

I have to start making treasures--with the Treasury East thing you don't have to circle like a vulture all day long waiting for a spot to open up. It will give me something new to check obsessively during the day. ("Did my treasury make it to the front page? Not yet. ... OK, how about now? ... Dang! ... OK--Now! DANG!")

Wow, my horn kind of hurts. I think I was tooting it too vigorously.

Lynda's "Vintage Ephemera" Bead All Grown Up

Well, I was pretty eager to get cracking on creating a necklace for the fabulous "vintage ephemera" bead Lynda Moseley of Diva Designs sent me. (Please see my previous post for more details on her stunning polymer clay beads and focals). I had the design in my head already, mostly, and it was just a matter of playing with it a little. I knew I wanted to use a bunch of the wonderful antique-silver-plated chain I just got from Lima Beads the other day, and red agate and labradorite, and probably some pearls. This is how that all eventually shook out:

I decided to add a couple of my nickel beadcaps to the focal, as the holes were fairly large and I wanted the bail to be really sturdy on it. I balled one end of a long piece of 20 gauge sterling silver wire in my torch, hammered it a bit, and strung a bunch of 3mm beads on it inside the focal, to tighten up the fit inside because I didn't want it wobbling. Then I had to stick down the beadcaps with some Hypocement, to keep them from moving around. Then I just started wrapping all my stones. The Dremel came in handy when it was time to polish!

I made it fairly long--the longer strand is 26"--because I felt the focal needed a dramatic sweep of stones and chain. You can see the length better here:

The chains featured here from Lima are the double cable chain (silver plated steel), flat oval chain (also silver plated steel), and a delicate ladder chain (silver plated brass). The have a great feel to them. The ladder chain is actually the same chain I make myself, just with a much rounder, hammered loop, and much finer. I'm going to make some of this in a larger gauge! I love the rounded, hammered portion.

Lynda, I hope you're pleased with how your "baby" has grown up. It made it all come together so easily--it really is a joy to design around a beautiful art bead. Thanks again, Lynda!

I Dub Thee, Lynda, the Queen of Fauxtiquities

I was cruising around on Flickr, and discovered an artist who makes the most astounding beads and focals from polymer clay--looks like she robbed an archeological site of its most luminous treasures! Everybody, meet Lynda of Diva Designs.

I just fell in love with her focals in particular, and found myself often oohing and aahing over her things on Flickr.  In a fit of wonderment over the pendant focal below, I fervently declared her the Queen of Fauxtiquities:

Look at the HIEROGLYPHICS on there!!!  I adore hieroglyphics.

She was so thrilled with this moniker (which I confess I didn't think up myself--rather I had heard it elsewhere and appropriately appended it to her) that she offered me one of her beads as a thank you!! Well I just about DIED.  Of course I wanted the dragonfly one above but it was sold.  DAMMIT.  So I went "shopping" on her Flickr site.  Well, in addition to the stamped/embossed styles above, she has a whole line of image transfer beads and focals.  I decided to go with something that would force me to design something I wouldn't normally do.  I chose the one below:

It also has a spot of lovely brick red on it (it's on the right in this photo, pictured with one of its fellows):

I got it the other day in the mail from Lynda and have been fondling it regularly ever since.  Mine mine MINE!!! Love the silver eyelet detail at either end.  I have a design in my mind for it and hope to get to it this weekend.

There is so much fabulousness in her Flickr stream, I can't fit it all here. But I'm sure as heck going to try. Look at this:

And this:

And this:

And this!

I could go on and on:

And on:

Phew! And there's lots more!!! But I'll stop now before I become slavishly fawning, or before I reach my Blogger photo limit.

I highly encourage you to check out Lynda's Flickr photostream, stop by her blog, and visit her Etsy shop. Her designs are a feast for the eyes! She even has tutorials for sale in her Etsy shop on how to create your own image transfer components with polymer clay.

Have fun!!

Purple Cactus Studios

I stumbled across this clay artist on Flickr the other day when I was uploading photos to the 88 groups I'm in. I was just blown away by her work! The colors seemed electric! And the patterns in her clay are just phenomenal. Psychedelic! I've never seen polymer clay quite like that. Like my most favorite fluorescent Crayolas. In her blog she also explains that she works as a muralist and faux finisher as well. I asked if I could feature her on my blog and she said sure. So here are some of my favs from her Etsy shop! You can also follow her blog, Purple Cactus Studios. I did.

This is a bangle! Looks like it was made out of a psychedelic snake!


Isn't this AMAZING? I just love it! The background for the photo makes me think these are little mushrooms you definitely don't want to eat. Or definitely DO want to eat. Depending on the kind of, ah, experience you're looking for.


Look at all these individual little petals!


And this is just way cool:


I could put like 40 more photos from her shop on here but Blogger won't let me. (Her Etsy profile indicates there are TWO artists, Amber and Laurence--one makes the clay beads, the other turns them into jewelry.) Bravo! Drop by for a visit!

P.S., you can also visit her website where you can see photos of her mural and faux finish work.