May 2015 AJE Component of the Month

May's component of the month features Sue Kennedy of SueBeads.  She is one of all time favorite lampwork artists and I have many of her lovely beads, but this month she went in a different direction and offered us her gorgeous beaded beads!

A gorgeous pile of beaded beads!

The ones I got!  Love those colors :)

I was going to not do earrings just because she sent a pair, but I had technical difficulties while working on the necklace design I had in mind, so at the last minute, I said why fight it!

I paired these beauties with another pair of beauties by Sue...her flower stamped beads!  I love these beads and I have gotten several colors in the round and her chicklet style.

I added some golden yellow Czech glass lentil and flowers to bring out those colors in the beaded beads.

This shows how the little lentil beads will hang when worn.

Another view in outside light!

These are long, not quite shoulder sweepers, but they definitely make a statement and I think would be perfect for summer!  I will put them in my shop later today!

Thanks for stopping by...I hope you go visit the rest of this month's design team!

Guests

Elisabeth Auld

Mischelle Andrade

Karen Martinez

AJE Team

Susan Kennedy

Jennifer Cameron

Diana Ptaszynski

Kristen Stevens

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt

Melissa Meman

Linda Landig

Caroline Dewison

Lindsay Starr

Niky Sayers

Art Jewelry Elements Component of the Month, for November 2014

I am happy to be back on the last day of the month to share my design for the AJE COM featuring cute beaded ring components by our own Kristen Stevens!

Because Kristen is just so cool, she sent me a green set AND an indigo blue set!  These are made from twins, meaning they have 2 holes and they have a very cool iridescence which is very hard to capture in photos.

As per my standard MO, I waited until the last minute and created a pair of earrings with my indigo pair yesterday!

I wanted to make the beaded rings part of something else, so I found some copper washers that were the perfect size, after some hammering!  I decided I wanted to attach the beaded rings to the washers, so I got everything ready by texturing, punching some holes for the wire and added interest, patina'ed everything with LOS, then tumbled.  These are always important steps to remember to do BEFORE attaching fragile components like these that you don't want to expose to chemicals, or water!

I used very thin gauged copper wire and wrapped the rings onto the washters.  I used absolutely gorgeous lampwork headpins from Sue Kennedy of SueBeads.  These are my most favorite color combination she does!

I added my own hand fabricated sterling ear wires, embellished with tiny glass beads and copper wire for the finished pair.  I think a tiny touch of red to bring out the red in Sue's lampwork would have been great, but I couldn't find anything tiny enough and just the right color red for the jov.  These worked in a pinch!

There you go!  Thanks for stopping by.  Here are the participating Team Members and Guests for the month.  Go take a peek at all the gorgeousness!

Guest Designers

Cindy Martin Shaw

Shai Williams

Karen Martinez

AJE Team

Susan Kennedy

Linda Landig

LesleyWatt 

MelissaMeman

Caroline Dewison

Francesca Watson

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lindsay Starr

Jennifer Cameron

Thanks again, Kristen!

AJE Component of the Month for May 2014

The gorgeous components this month are created by the talented Sue Kennedy of SueBeads.  She gave us the choice of one of her amazing pressed glass cabochons and several of her new pressed bead design...chiclet beads!  It was a really hard choice, but I chose a cabochon and received a gorgeous purple one!

I first thought that I would practice my soldered bezel setting skills, but kept trying to think of something different.  I settled on creating a woven wire "lace" bezel against a copper flower back plate.

I wanted to keep the necklace simple, but wanted to incorporate some different color than the copper and purple of the cab.  I remembered these sweet little Czech glass "twin" beads I bought a while back.  Not sure what I was thinking...am not a seed beader!  I devised a way to wire-wrap them into a chain though and they work perfectly with the purple cab.  I added a second strand of copper "hammered bar" chain I had in my chain stash.

Wanted to add a dangle beneath the flower, but couldn't figure out what.  I remembered some Czech glass teardrops I had bought and they really complemented the purple cab and the Czech glass in the chain. I oxidized everything with LOS and let it tumble for an hour or so.

This was such a fun piece to make and you all know by now that I am a sucker for Sue's lampwork!  In fact, I purchased one of the 1st pairs of chiclet beads she posted, and just last week, swooped in for 2 more pairs!

Thanks for stopping by!  Go show some love to our guest designers and the AJE team!

Guests

Shai Williams

Erin Prais-Hintz

Kari Asbury

Carolyn Lawson

Merja Sundstrom

AJE Members

Susan Kennedy

Diana Ptaszynski

Linda Landig

Lesley Watt

Caroline Dewison

Francesca Watson

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Rebekah Payne

Keirsten Giles

Kristen Stevens

AJE Component of the Month for March

Better late than never!  Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to post my piece using Jo Tinley's wonderful hollow copper bead on Monday, but I perservered and finally have a finished piece.

Here is a gander of what Jo sent us...aren't they wonderful!  I would like the whole handful!

I kept it simple, but I wanted the bead to be the focal, so I encircled it with a copper washer that I texturized to match the bead.  I embellished with a pretty orphan lampwork bead by Sue Kennedy, some Swarovski crystals in Palace Green Opal, and some fluted copper beads, all wired to copper chain.

Jo sent some sweet little heart charms as well and I added one as a dangle underneath the focal.

Sorry I was late to the party, but I had fun creating it.  If you haven't already seen what others created  using these fab beads, go now!

Carolyn (Carolyn's Creations)

Jess Green

Niky Sayers

Jo Tinley

Jennifer Cameron

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Susan Kennedy

Linda Landig

Kristen Stevens

Francesca Watson

Lesley Watt

Thanks for stopping by...I know I have been pretty sporadic in blogging, but we all have lives to live, right?

AJE Earring Challenge - 1st Reveal...

but I hope not a dollar short!  What is the AJE Earring Challenge?  Over at Art Jewelry Elements, the gauntlet has been thrown down!  Make 52 pairs of earrings...seems like a lot, but it is only 1 a week...easy, right! Unless you are a procrastinator, like me ;)  The catch is that they must contain an art bead or component and you must credit the artist, even if it is yourself!

I started out on Week 1 with sterling paddles and lampwork glass disks from the amazing Sue Kennedy of SueBeads...my favorite part of these, aside from the obvious lovely lampwork, are my hand wrought molten silver drops I learned to make from Stacie Florer at the last ArtBliss workshop!

For week 2, I created a pair from pretty, floral blue and green ceramic charms from the lovely and talented LeAnn Weih of Summers Studio...she is such a sweetheart!  I have had these in my stash for a while because I wanted to do them justice...what do you think?  I added Czech glass flowers and some sweet Thai Hill Tribe silver flowers as well as my hand wrought earwires.

You can visit other bloggers who are participating in the challenge by going here...or find all the beautiful earrings in one place on Pinterest!