MLH Jewelry Designs

I have to tell you that this Do Over really challenged me. The colors are not ones that I design with. So it took me a long time to try and figure out what I wanted to do. I almost waved the white flag and had Jeannie send me another piece, but I was too stubborn to admit defeat so I plunged ahead determined to come up with a design. I finally stumbled upon a button at the local fabric store that had the same color pink as the beads I had to work with so I decided to make a bracelet and use the button as a clasp, I found some hemp cord in the green and orange colors in the button and I came up with my first piece. I had a lot of fun macrameing, I think I will re-do this piece again just to satisfy myself and then I think it will make a great gift for my friends daughter.

The before piece also had these bronze/pinkish pearl coins, here is a picture to let you see what the before piece looked like.

I went through my beads drawers thinking I have to find something in my stash to go with these pearl coins but alas I did not, it was the color combination in the pearls that just didn’t quite go with the more earthy colors I had. I checked out all of the local places to try to find something that would just click but I there wasn’t anything. I was able to go to another store this weekend and I wandered around the store with one of the pearl coins in my hand searching and then I saw this Opalite focal and I knew what I wanted to do, it picked up the pink in the pearls, the next step was how to make it all work. The wonderful thing about this particular bead store is all of chains they carry, that is where I found the final element for my design, the chain and then I knew exactly what I wanted to do. So enough said here is what I came up with. ( I am sorry the picture of the necklace are not great, I was having a difficult time photographing them, so I may try to take more pictures during daylight hours and I didn’t want to be late posting for the reveal)

Please take a look at all of the other designers who also took on this challenge.

Here is the list of the participants for the Jeannie K. Dukic’s Do Over Challenge

Jeannie/Hostess http://site.jkdjewelry.com/blog
Cilla Watkins  http://www.tellyourgirlfriends.com
Michelle Mach http://michellemach.com/blog
Alesha Conklin http://obtainingmercy.typepad.com
Molly Alexander http://beautifullybrokenme.blogspot.com
Cindy Wimmer http://www.sweetbeadstudio.com
Mary Govaars http://www.mlhjewelrydesigns.com (You are here)
Marlene Cupo http://amazingdesigns-marlene.blogspot.com
Dagi  http://kokopellidesign.blogspot.com/
Charlene Jacka http://clay-space.com/
Julia Johnson  http://beautifullywhimsical.blogspot.com
Carolyn Lawson  http://carolynscreationswa.blogspot.com
Pamela Orians http://somedaybeads.blogspot.com
Linda Younkman http://lindysdesigns.blogspot.com/
Shelly Joyce http://www.aujourlejour-shelly.blogspot.com/
Judy Riggs http://www.rigglettes.blogspot.com/
Cary Scholes http://mamaneeds2create.blogspot.com
Shaun Mullin http://bogshaun.blogspot.com/

I am participating in Jeannie K. Dukic’s 4th Do Over Challenge. All of the participantsgetsent an old piece of jewelry that she won’t sell from when she first started designing years ago and we are to re-design it. The only requirements are to use at least 50% of the original beads. Here is the before piece. As you can see it is a long piece so I have plenty of beads to work with.

Well the kids have this week off for spring break and the weather has been beautiful, but today the wind has made it chilly, 55 today and partially cloudy. Well I finally was able to do over a bracelet I had made the other day. I will have to take a new picture so that you can see how it turned out.

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and I am leaning towards a new name for my jewelry business. I need to clear my head of clutter and re-focus on my goals. I am starting in the right direction, after waiting for a year to take this class I am finally going to be able to go. Yipee!! There is a local artist Melissa Offutt who is amazing and I finally get to take a class from her in the new Tannery Art Center in downtown Santa Cruz, it was converted to artist space and apartments from you guessed it a tannery. They finally have the space completed for the jewelry classes, so I am very excited to learn some new things.

Okay it has been awhile since I posted. So much going on…Johan turned 11 last Tuesday, I can’t believe he is that old already. It was so nice he wanted my homemade Potato Leek soup for dinner, how cute it that. These are the moments that I want to bottle up and always remember. We also got him something he has wanted for a very long time, the Lego Death Star, he was beside himself with joy and he actually cried (pssst don’t tell him I said so he would be so embarrassed.) I guess we did good! It only took him 2 days to build it. YIKES!! that kid has a great mind. He is already programming mods for Mine Craft, he is obsessed with the Periodic Table of Elements so he is making mods of the elements for Mine Craft. That kid amazes me everyday…. I love every fiber in that kid, he is such a kind and smart kid…. He is great with his sister who is at that age (6) where I know sometimes he just wants to hide because she loves to hang with him and he is ever so patient with her. Can you tell I love my kids. LOL! They are by far the greatest gift in my life besides my hubby.

Okay you can wring out your screen now, I am done with all of the mushy stuff now. I have been putting off some of my projects that I need to get done. I don’t know why but I have….. I need to finish and pair of earrings for my neighbor for her sisters b-day, I have a bag of jewelry that a friend wants me to re-design. I need to clean my desk off of the partially finished pieces, I need to experiment with some ideas I have and the list goes on. The grey rainy day does not help and of course the purring cat sitting next to me on the couch.

I am slowly but surely going through the fellow participants in Lori Anderson’s Bead Soup Blog Hop. WOW I feel so privileged to have been able to participate with such amazing artists. It is so cool to see how different we all see our bead soups. I have to say that is my favorite thing about designing jewelry, put us all in the same room and I guarantee that you will not see a duplicate design even if we were all using the same beads!

Hope that everyone is having a great weekend, we are fortunate to have a wonderful sunny day!

Here we go a day of blog hopping to see everyone’s creations! Thank you again Lori Anderson of Pretty Things blog you are amazing to organize this endeavor. I am so excited to have been able to participate.

So a little background on my partner, Lori Bowring Michaud of Artfully Ornamental. She sent me this amazing assortment of beads with a story behind them. She sent me some sea glass that she had collected and drilled from her favorite place on earth-Willard Beach Maine, vintage textured brass rounds, vintage corrugated copper love knots and vintage willow green givre lucite rounds, a vintage raw brass pendant (which Lori filled with sea glass and resin) from the Beadin’ Path where she used to work and a SLK Industrial Chic Clasp that she filled with sea glass and resin. Lampworked beads by Jessie Harding of Burke Mountain Beads. And a sari silk in mocha latte from Barbara Lewis of Painting with Fire

Needless to say I had a lot to work with. First off I fell in love with the sari ribbon, I knew I wanted to use it with the focal somehow, I don’t usually use sari ribbon in my designs but this challenge changed my mind about it, I love it! I didn’t just want to hang the pendant on it, so I went hunting for some chain and found just what I wanted, an open chain so that I could weave the sari ribbon through it. The focal was also a bigger piece so I didn’t want to clutter the necklace with too many beads, but it did need something so I decided to use the vintage textured brass rounds and add some small beads to pick up the colors of the sea glass in the pendant. Here are a few pictures of what I created.

The next piece I created was with the clasp that Lori had filled with sea glass chips. I knew right away I wanted to make a bracelet and I found a great antiqued copper chain that would be perfect for the sea glass, I used 2 of the four pieces of larger sea glass that Lori had drilled and I decided to thread the copper wire through the 2 holes and then attach it to the bracelet, I also use 2 of the chips that she sent and used jump rings for those, I also dug into my stash and found these cute copper beads to add to the mix, I really like the way this bracelet wears. My wonderful son modeled the bracelet so you all could see the sea glass hanging from it, he was a trooper.

Lastly I made earrings from the lamp worked beads by Jessie Harding, I was having a hard time photographing the earrings. I have to admit I hung the earrings from the window screen in my bedroom and it was actually the photo that came out the best, so sorry for not so great photo. I decided to make dangly earrings by adding some brass chain that I had in my stash.

This has been great fun. I really wanted to finish another necklace with more of the goodies that Lori sent me but alas it will not be finished for the reveal, ahhh for another day then. Happy Blog hopping!

To check out all of the other participants please go to Lori Anderson’s blog at Pretty Things as I have a wordpress blog and cannot use the cool linky tool.