CraftyHope

The Struggle is Real (SJ Honey Do List Reveal & GIVEAWAY!)

Let me just go ahead and admit it, I'm obsessed with taking on challenges. Each month, there are several themed or inspirational challenges that I do my best to participate in. Sometimes, I wonder why I torture myself so, but I know why. These challenges always get me to try something new and look at the inspirations, my supplies, and my skills just a little differently. They push me to do more. And, I need that! Sarajo of SJ Designs Jewelry has her husband issue her a photo as inspiration each month. She is kind enough to share that inspiration with us in what she calls the Honey Do List. This month's photo was a real doozy for me.

The photo itself is striking with its curves and lines and little row of mugs. At first, though, nothing about it really jumped out at me. But, as I studied it more, my mind turned it upside down and I was soon sketching out an idea.

I saw the little mugs as bead dangles and worked over several days to create a pendant that reflected the picture (upside down) pretty nicely.

But, all I can see is Noah's Ark... And, I couldn't decide how to finish it. And, it's not really my style. So, it's sitting on the edge of my desk, unwanted. Here's where the giveaway comes in - if you want this pendant and are in the US, let me know in the comments by the first of June.

I was exasperated with myself when I made the decision to stop working on the above project, but I knew it was the right decision. I didn't want to give up on the challenge, so I took a deep breath and refocused. This was two days ago!! I took another look at the inspiration photo and the red and white polka-dotted mugs caught my attention. I knew I had a similar bead in my stash somewhere. So, I dug through my artisan beads and came up with a couple of contenders for this project: a dotted ceramic bead from Gaea and a red enameled bead (from...I don't know!) And, this morning, I tried to pull something together. But, it was a Fail as well.

GAH!!!!!

Knowing that those beads were perfect for the challenge, I tried to refocus again on what it was I liked about the photo: the arched shape, the lines in the window, the pop of color amid the browns. And, something came to me. It took several tries to get the wire shape right, but I finally had something I liked and felt right.

I am aware that this fringe/tassel style is kinda trendy right now; but I also knew it would work with this shape and fit in nicely with my more romantic, bohemian style.

Once again, I'm so relieved I didn't give up on a challenge. I was able to come out on the other side with a design that I LOVE, not just something that works for the challenge.

I'm finding so much of my artwork to be a struggle lately, but I'm also finding myself loving more and more what comes out of the struggle. I think that for me, it's important to struggle through it because if it was easy, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

So, thank you to Sarajo and Eric for another fabulous, inspiring challenge. Head over to SJ Designs Jewelry to see her takes on the inspiration as well as what other participants created.

And, don't forget, if you think you can make something of that first attempt, let me know! I'm Giving it Away!

Peek at My Week (May 10-16)

It was a week of picture-taking for me! I'm not really sure of the reason, but I'll take it for what it is. Sunday was Mother's Day. My mom and step-dad came over (with some distancing) and we grilled burgers to celebrate the day. Before they made it over, I baked banana bread and picked some flowers to brighten the house up.

It was a really nice day.

Monday was all about knocking out my errands (grocery shopping). But, in the afternoon, I sat on the back deck and watched the birds for a while. A large woodpecker caught my eye and had me pulling out the big lens to capture him on camera.

I'm not sure when I became a birder, but I kinda dig it. My next step is to figure out how to attract other birds to the yard. I've just been using wild bird seed and (homemade) hummingbird nectar, but I think there might be some other options to attract other birds. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

As I was prepping dinner, I noticed that some kind of bug was digging the insides of the petals from some of the flowers in my little arrangement.

Tuesday started out nicely enough. I fried up the last slices of the banana bread in a little butter for our breakfast. It was SO GOOD!

But, the day made a nasty turn when I went to take the chickens a treat and found one of the two of them dead in their run. I have to be thankful for a husband that will deal with situations like that for me.

On Wednesday, I busied myself with loads of tasks and errands. I pressed us some sandwiches for lunch and decided to add avocado to mine (no one else in the house likes avocado, so I get them all to myself. Bwahahaha!) I was delighted to discover that it was an absolutely perfect one.

That's the only bad thing about avocados, you never quite know what you'll find inside.

I was able to check off most of the tasks on my list on Thursday and even got to spend a good bit of time outside too. Zoe and I went for a walk on the trails.

They're a bit overgrown and need some work, but it still makes it fun to find fairytale-like images out there. Look at the thorns on that vine!!

I also discovered that our blueberries are ripe!

Oh, and the gardenias are going crazy right now!

I love it!

Speaking of gardenias: on Friday we got a little rain shower. While everything was still dripping, I went out to check the mail and was waylayed by taking as many pictures of the wet gardenias as I could. Here's just a couple of them.

They look almost magical!

Saturday morning had me out on the deck for my morning doodles, and the light was a little odd because of a slight mist in the air.

Over the week, we talked about getting some chicks to replace the one that had passed. So, I called around and found one store that had a few.

I'm almost giddy about having baby chicks in the house again.

Once we had them settled in Pat's office (yeah...that's where they are for the time being), we spent the rest of the afternoon out by the pool.

The temperature here has been fairly mild for May, but it's finally starting to rise. So, I'm glad I spent so much time outside while it was still comfortable. From here on, it's likely to be blazingly hot. Thank goodness for the pool!

I kept on track with my #The100DayProject all week.

Day 34 was using receipt books. I have two that I could put my hands on quickly. One is for rent payments and the other is for a hair salon. They both got buried in the collaged background of this simple page.

I bought a ton of the Amsterdam Acrylic Inks when they were on a deep clearance several months ago. But, there are still a few I hadn't touched. It was Day 35's task to use a few them. I chose three of the brightest colors (Reflux Green, Yellow, and Orange) to create a spread.

I wasn't completely feeling creative on Day 36. But, with the help of an Art Journal Bingo game that I found on Instagram, I was able to create first the papers with ink sprayed through stencils and then this spread.

For Day 37, I needed to use one of the key stickers that I've had in my stash for AGES. I moved quickly through making this page, and it mostly works.

Day 38 was all about using some of the eco-dyed fabric that I haven't touched since it was made several years ago. There were some bumps along the road of making this page, but it really taught me that it's important to try new things to get out of my comfort zone.

I had so many projects already on my desk on Day 39. So, when I saw the material was the Drywall Joint tape, I simply added it to the in-progress thank you notes that I had been working on.

Another clearance deal was Maribou Art Crayons many moons ago. They're definitely a case of "out of sight, out of mind". I used them for Day 40 and tried to experiment with them in several different ways for this art journal page.

If you're looking for some inspiration of your own, here's some I found and shared this week:

If you have some sort of die-cut machine that's computer connected, check out these DIY Layered Earrings with an SVG file.
I've got a TON of friends whose kids are graduating this year, so this tutorial on creating Grungy Graduation Year Jewelry caught my attention.
You've probably seen some of the encouragement to participate in art movements during the quarantine. Here's one on creating Interactive Art in Your Own Windows.
Chainmaille jewelry has always been a bit intimidating to me, but these DIY Chainmaille-style Earrings at Rings and Things look a little more up my alley.
These Photographs from Sony's World Photography Awards are absolutely stunning!
Create a Dichroic-glass Look with UV Resin using this interesting tutorial at Mill Lane Studio.

With that, my day's getting away from me. I hope you're making the most of your days too!!

May Day Earrings (We're All Ears Reveal)

May Day was the theme selected by Erin of Earrings Everyday for this month's We're All Ears Challenge. She suggested making earrings inspired by floral baskets or cones or even a Maypole. The notion of the flowers was what instantly appealed to me, though I didn't have an idea yet. It was only a couple of days ago that I realized I needed to hop on this challenge before it passed me by. And, I spent an entire afternoon struggling with designs before I finally landed on one that worked for me.

I love how the above earrings came together, but it was a long road to get there. Since I knew I was leaning in the floral direction, I began by thinking I might use tin to make some flowers. However, that seemed a little more complex than I had the time for. Instead, I decided to look through my tin bits to see if there was anything that might work a little more readily. I quickly found the sides from a Mary Engelbreit tin.

I thought that maybe I could cut it so that the yellow part would be a cone or basket with the flowers at the top. So, I tried to make a go of it.

While it is pretty cute in this picture, I couldn't help seeing it as some kind of weird ice cream cone. And, it was awfully big and kinda weird for an earring. So, I knew this wasn't the design for me and put away all my tin.

I sat and thought for a few minutes considering the inspiration. I even toyed with the idea of creating some kind of woven Maypole with kumihimo. But, then I realized that I probably had some glass flower beads in my stash that I could wrangle together into something. Sure enough, I found a small stash of them. I thought that I could use wire and twist them into some sort of bouquet that would fit into some findings to create a cone/basket. I specifically picked a pair of large antiqued brass flower bead caps because the petals were open and would work to attach a basket-handle. However, the wire-twisting was unpredictable and frustrating.

I twisted three versions of that little bouquet before deciding that that technique just wasn't going to work. In exasperation, I considered just not participating in the challenge this month. But, I finally decided that I couldn't let some flowers get the better of me.

There was a little bag of ball-end headpins on my bead mat. So, in a last-ditch effort, I stuck one into each of the six flowers I had for each of the earrings then stuffed the whole bunch into the flower bead cap. It looked pretty good. But, what was I going to use to hold them there? Well...I simply twisted one of the ends of a headpin under the base of the bead cap. And, it worked!!

I pondered how they would hang for a minute or two, then grabbed a couple of long headpins and cut off the head. Simple loops were turned on each end, and the wire was curved over a marker. The loops were connected to the flower bead cap to make the basket handle.

Then, ear wires were added to complete the earrings.

I couldn't believe the solution was so simple. It was a fantastic reminder that sometimes I don't need to overthink things.

And, the simple loveliness of these just screams of spring.

Big thanks go out to Erin for the interesting theme. I definitely would not have come up with these beauties without her prompt. Now, head over to Earrings Everyday and check out the other designs made from the inspiration.

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Bead Box 8 - Stocked

Never one to be too idle, I like to keep a supply of pre-designed jewelry elements on hand in a basic, plastic craft organizer. I simply refer to it as my Bead Box. Initially, it was created to carry with me and use when I'm away from the house for extended periods. But, I've found that since I'm at home much of the time now, it's nice to have designs ready to be put together without much thought. This is the eighth version of this box. I'll have links at the bottom for you to go see the other versions.

Each compartment of the organizer contains most of the materials I need to create one piece of jewelry. I keep my wire and pliers separate and often wait to add clasps later as well. When working my way through these boxes, I often forget what my original design had been. I tried to remedy that this time by keeping notes as I filled it. However, I stopped keeping notes after ten (and there are 17 compartments). So, we'll see how this works out in the end. Ha!

Now, here are the contents.

My notes call this a "cheat" design because I found the brass-etched pendant and the beads bagged together in a stash of works-in-progress. However, there weren't any holes in the brass. I think that's what the holdup had been for me. I couldn't quite decide where and how many holes to punch. I had originally thought that the tip of the plant would be the top, but when I turned the piece the other way, it became apparent that that was the way it needed to be punched. I'll make a simple chain with the green glass beads.

The purple-ish beads in the center were in a bead soup bowl and caught my attention. I've needed to make some earrings, so these seemed perfect for that purpose. The clear beads seemed to pair well with the purples, but I wanted something metallic added in so I altered the two little charms with some purple Stickles to make them match better.

I've been trying to figure out what to do with those altered pink buttons for ages and woke up with an idea of adding chain and a bead to them. We'll see how this new design works out.

This little pendant was created when I had some excess resin that needed to be used. When it cured, I just placed it off to the side. So, I grabbed it for this box. While I wish I had rusty beads to go with this, I chose orange-ish ones instead along with a little brass chain to fill out the necklace design.

I think I created these two charms as part of my Using Vintaj Patinas video (if not in the video then off-camera when I did the others). They'll simply hang from a stack of the beads.

While I knew I needed to make loads of earrings, I couldn't help but include this little soldered shadowbox in the mix. It's going to be the pendant in a necklace with green, black, and gunmetal beads making up the chain.

This little tin pendant was made a while ago. I simply found beads in colors that would work well with it for a simple chain. I didn't notice that one of the yellow beads isn't like the others until I started editing the pictures. I'll have to fix that!

The focal piece for this was actually intended for something else that ended up not working. It was made from a watch back, Ice Resin Enamel, Ice Resin, and a salvaged rhinestone piece. I'm going to turn it and the mix of black, silver, off-white, and clear beads into a bracelet.

I'm not sure what had me pulling these two soldered pieces together - other than the fact that they were in the same bowl with other completed soldered pieces. I selected a bright array of beads and a few buttons from my bead soup to turn these components into a necklace.

This watch face has been hanging around for a while. It's the last item I took notes on for this box, and a darn good thing I did too because the plans for turning it into a pendant it are a little odd. The goldtone beads will make up the front part of a chain. I'll add more chain later.

These little bits will be strung together on some wire to create earrings.

Yup, more simple earrings!

These u-shaped charms from Patina Queen were altered on both sides with Vintaj Patinas. Faceted smokey gray beads and small brass beads will be added to complete the earrings.

Something possessed me to pull that rust-colored button and the patinaed bobbin together, and I went for it. I did add some rusted paper to the bobbin for interest and chose beads that were similarly colored to use as I work on the front part of the chain.

This one took ages to pull together as I kept making and adding components for it. I cannot wait to see how this necklace comes together.

After fretting over that previous design for so long, I was back to earrings and limited elements. This selection will become a sweet pair of tassel earrings.

And, these will be even more simple to pull together into a fun pair of earrings.

Now that I've reviewed all of these, I don't know what's taking me so long to finish this one up. I can't wait to see how some of them turn out. I better get busy! Here are the links to my previous Bead Boxes.

Bead Box 3 - Reveal

Bead Box 4 - Stocked
Bead Box 4 - Reveal