Zom-Bee! - Component of the month at Art Elements

Time really seems to fly. It seems Laney Meads adorable little zom-bee beads just arrived and now September is already nearly gone...

This year seems to fly especially fast. So many things happened -good and bad-, so many problems came over from last year, and the general workload from my husband and me seem to have triplicated this year.

We didn't even manage our time out at Formentera and it pays for him as well as me. It is a kind of deep exhaustion and nerves are laying blank. But sometimes it is... like it is. Even in hindsight, I don't know how we could have managed it any other way.

Of course there were a lot of good things (and he is a constant good "thing", even when we fight ;) ), for example some of the research grants I applied for were granted.

But back to the component of the month (COM) of september at Art Elements (AE). I tried a lot with this cute little bee (look at the eyes!) but most didn't work out. Most failures were due to the fact that the zom-bee was not the main focus anymore and somehow got lost.

So I went with a cleaner design with only a few elements: A matte big glass drop to counter balance the zom-bee, tiny beads to get the overall shape right with some metal elements added and a drop of blood red at the top.

The chain is adjustable due to the added rings on top of the pendant. I like both ways.

So that was it in short. I will be in Berlin (again) on saturday, come back in the middle of the night, because sunday is my husband's birthday. Maybe I can find some sleep in between ;)

Thank you so much for this cute little zom-bee Laney!

And please have a look what all the other participants made! (I'll also come over to have a look but it may be late sunday)

Guests
http://fromthebeadboard.blogspot.co.uk/ – Linda
http://www.beadsforbusygals.com/  – Elisabeth Auld

Team
http://www.lesleywatt.com/ – Lesley  Watt
http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog  –  Jennifer Cameron
http://dianaptaszynski.indiemade.com/blog  – Diana Ptaszynski
https://jdaviesreazor.com/blog/  – Jenny Davis-Reazor
http://suebeads.blogspot.co.uk/ – Susan Kennedy
http://blueberribeads.co.uk/ – Caroline Dewison
http://phantasmcreation.blogspot.co.uk/ – Lindsay Starr
 http://cmendola.blogspot.co.uk/– Cathy Spiey Mendola
 http://saraccino.blogspot.co.uk/ – Claire Fabian (you are here)
http://silverniknats.blogspot.co.uk/ – Niky Sayers
http://laneymead.co.uk/ – Laney Mead

Where have all the flower gone...? (AE COM challenge)

Okay, next to all the other reasons why I am happy and honoured to be at the Art Elements team (formerly known as Art Jewerly Elements.... so AE and not AJE anymore! ^^)... is a big one... a quite big one... or one could say one of my most favorite ones....

...[please imagine drum rolls here]...

...I'll now participate regularly on the COM challenge!

The component of the month challenge! I actually love challenges due to several reasons. The most important ones are:
- Gorgeous component
- Already chosen component
- Deadline

The last one combined with the fact that I got an artisan bead send to me, makes sure that I take the challenge seriously and work with a time schedule and not... weeks... months.... years.... later...

While I actually do finish my work-in-progress pieces, there have been several of them that took me months to years. Just to be clear, most of this time was a break in between not working on the piece ;)

This time we got a lampwork bead day of the dead skull (quite a long title) made by Jennifer Cameron from glass addictions (have a look at her side here). The picture below I "stole" from her since I forgot to take a picture of the skull she send me before I started wrapping things around it ;)

I was allowed to chose mine and I wanted the one with the asymmetric dots around just one eye. If you are already a long-time reader of my blog you may also notice something else. Something quite shocking... I chose the one with yellow dots around the eye! Yellow, the colour that is my all-time-still-not-conquered difficult to use colour. I like yellow in certain ways, especially subdued and in combination with other colours but it is so hard to create jewelery with it. Other challenging colours I conquered over time but with yellow I may win single battles but the war still rages on!

I noticed that I lose my story line around the COM quite a bit and am rambling. Please bear with me, this happens if I am tired and over worked. Deadlines for grants are around the corner and don't care about free times and/or weekends, our pop-up store will open in a few days (you will get a full documentation!) and there were/are also some social calls you can't (and don't want to) ignore. All in all: I am tired and angry about the fact that someone shut down the heater and the lights outside (he may be called winter and I don't like him!).

Being in this strange mood the idea and the title for the little skull came up in my mind. As a reminder for the good times, for the summer with all its brightness, colours and warmth, and maybe in the end as a reminiscence of hope. The song "Where have all the flowers gone" is a political one and seeing what goes on in the world and how people who should and could know better react, I definitely was in need of this :)

By the way: I used bronze, copper, silver, aluminium and iron wire. Yes, a record for me! I added mostly czech glass beads as well as a dangle made from polymer clay by me. I love how it all turned out, the movement of the necklace but I also have to admit: Never ever look at the back side!

Thank you again for the great day-of-the-dead-skull-lampwork-bead Jennifer! :)

PS: I am still not sure whether I want to change from a necklace to a decoration piece... and whether I want to keep this "random" wire colour look. I tried it to get the impression of a grown piece that someone started to attach random pieces over time... let's see!

And have a look at Art Elements as well as at the blogs of all the other participants!

Guest Designers
Staci Louise Smith
Karin Grosset Grange
Solange Collin

Art Elements Team
Caroline Dewison
Susan Kennedy
Laney Mead
Claire Fabian (you are here right now)
Diana Ptaszynski
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Cathy Spivey Mendola
Lindsay Starr
Niky Sayers
Lesley Watt
Cooky Schock
Jen Cameron

"Green and blue skies" and "Little galaxies" - Earrings, what else? ;)

There is just something magical in lampwork art. The glass, the little dots of silver, the swirls of colour, the depth within... 

All the headpins I used here are made by Jennie Yip from Iced Moments. She sells at etsy but I actually found her work at a facebook group. There are a lot of great groups where you can buy or sell art beads and I found a lot of my favorite artists in such groups :)

The silver dots with the green or blue or even black always reminds me of the sky, be it in the bright sun or in the middle of the night full of stars...

I also played with two pairs of round headpins with rather simple shapes, but believe me: They dangle and move beautifully! (As earrings should, at least for me) 

I always have a hard time to decide whether I prefer the shiny or the etched versions. In the end, to be honest, I always want both!

Huh... normally I would link now to my etsy store. But I neglected it a little bit. I'll try to upload new pieces over the next days! I have made enough... just taking good pictures, that are somehow good enough for me, that is the most challenging part! ^^

"The Awakening of spring" - Earrings

Pantones color(s) of the year 2016 is (are) "Rose quartz and serenity". They are not really my favorite choice or to put it in a more positive way, they were a real challenge. So you may understand why I am so proud of this earring pair! Beautiful artisan lampwork nuggets, small czech beads, hammered copper and some tiny copper spacer... so surprised how much I love Pantones choice now ;)

You can also find them in my shop here :)

"Penumbra" - Romantic and rustic earrings

After all the paintings some earrings again! I love the colour combination, bold and bright and still... with a dark gothic feeling :)

The czech glass beads and the tiny metal spacer are from Rebeccas "The Curious Bead Shop" and the lampwork beads are handmade by Sue Robinson.

They dangle of course! Earrings have to have some movement for me! ^^

You can find them in my etsy shop here :)

"Morning dew" - Bracelet

Something simple, still a piece of work I am a little bit enchanted by! Maybe also a good example for an easy knotting bracelet with a tiny wee bit of macrame, if one wants to try. 

Etched green seed beads that seem to glow, combined with waxed linen threat (from "The Curious Bead Shop") and cotton thread, a mixture of czech and other glass beads as well as a gorgeous lampwork glass button made by Sue Reynolds.

She actually send me some of these buttons as a gift after I won beads in a fb auction from her (thank you again Sue)! Simply because I told her how much I love them but just didn't have any idea how to use them. She told me that they are mostly used as clasps and send them to me as a challenge!

...and here we go... I also "just" used the button as a clasp.

But I already started a pendant with a completely different way of incorporating one of these buttons! I just started it... months ago... ehm... ^^

A nice little bracelet, that would also look great combined with other bangles and bracelets!

If you want to catch this one, you can find ir here in my shop :)

"Frozen time" - New years first post and, of course, earrings!

It may be a little late to wish you all a happy new year, no? The time before christmas was just running away with work, more work and even more work, combined with christmas markets, workshops I gave and last but not least the creation of advent calendars and christmas presents. The time "between the years" ("zwischen den Jahren" in german) was filled with family visits and family dramas. What else? Thankfully most of them had a happy ending. Especially with the young dog of my little brother ("higher" than me by the way ^^)... he had a car accident. But he is getting better and better after the first critical days. 

I made a lot of "stuff" too. Some of it already sold (yes, it happens to me again and again that I forget to take pictures.... or that it is too dark to take them) and others I still have to take pictures off. Quite difficult since I need daylight for my camera and there are just a few hours every day. Normally they are gone when I am back home from work.

But these beauties, what shall I say? Made last year (how long ago that already sounds ;) ) with gorgeous rustic, crusty and organic blue lampwork headpins made by Kimberly Rogers from numinosity. She also send me some silk with it. Originally for some other earrings, but the dark purple was just meant to be with all the shades of blue frozen in glass.

The wire is wrapped with steel wire, combined with dark oxidized sterling silver ear wires. They have a good weight, move and dangle beautifully and before all, they are just magical. Frozen time was the name instantly coming into my mind. There is a feeling of old in the blue, of a hidden, deeper meaning, of stories untold but just below the surface... 

You can find them here in my shop.

"Blue steel" - Tribal, rustic and dark earrings with braided steel wire

 

My partner bought some steel wire for a wreath (yes, he made one with a looooooooooooot of christmas balls!). There was a lo left after he was finished and then he told me: That is now your wire. 

Okay... mh... it is really thin but quite sturdy. So I started to play with it. I ended with trying to braid the wire and after some initial problems, it was surprisingly easy. 

I used it to wrap it around these gorgeous turquoise and rustic lampwork beads (made by Julia Hay). The design is simple but I like the look. Especially the texture the braided wire is adding!

 They are also listed in my shop here :)

"Suavely" - Earrings

Hammered metal provides such a rich and organic surface to work with! The contrast between dark oxidized areas and the raised sanded light areas is just beautiful and reminds me of rough overgron stones or coral reefs deep on the ocean.

The tiny lampwork beads have a beautiful subtle grayish blue colour and of course, they have movement! Dangling is definitely an important feature for earrings for me ;)

I thought I add a picture where you see how warm sunlight will be reflected even if the raised areas are not supershiny (I wanted something more subtle to go with the beads). 

They are in my etsy shop here :)

"Drop of blue" - Earrings

If you are following my blog, you may already know that I got a big amount of old jewelery to upcycle/recycle from Rumpel's mom. I used a lot of the chains and beads, but also got a tiny wee bit of leather.

Not a lot of leather but in perfect condition. So what to do with it? I tried a lot of small shapes until I made these loops and wrapped them with copper wire. The dangling lampwork beads are a lovely contrast in their light blue to the black.

A sweet and simple design that was surprisingly complicated to come up with ;)

Oh, of course they move and dangle beautifully!

And also to be found here :)

"Sparkling purple" - Earrings

Sometimes all it takes is a simple idea. These earrings are not complicated. But they have an interesting shape and play of colours... and they dangle! Movement is one of the most important features of earrings for me!

The swirls are stamped brass pieces I heated and oxidized. Later I just wrapped them around to create a kind of charm. During wrapping I made a hole at the top where the jump ring can go through. 

The lampwork bead was made by Sue Reynolds, full of sparkles and glitter! I tried to capture the sparkle!

A little bit modern goth, playful swirls combined with clear lines ;)

You can find them here :)

"Roman gold" - Rustic, dark earrings

The organic, rustic surface of the hammered brass looks old and worn. Like an ancient piece found after being forgotten for hundreds or even thousand years ago. A different time, a different empire...

The dark red of the glass, the glimmer of gold from the brass, it brings so many ideas and stories into my mind.

The earrings are made from hammered and oxidized/darkened brass with copper ear wires combined with artisan tiny lampwork beads. The earrings move beautifully. You may find a "dangling" quality in most of my earrings.

I am not sure why but jewelery is something more than just pure adornment for me. It is a reflection of who I am and also what speaks to me. I can understand how jewelery had a deeper meaning in a lot of older cultures. There is jewelery that I can see and it is pretty but in the end just that. I am also not tempted to buy anymore (I was being younger). Now there has to be more, a story, a feeling, a tribal vibe just for me. It can be organic, rustic, worn, ancient... not pretty. But beautiful.

These earrings reminded me of old roman jewelery. Yes, it is more rustic than they would have used for their quite often more delicate style. But it was the story and images that came to my mind, so be it! :)

"Roman gold"

There are also here in my shop :)