3rd Annual Challenge of Music

For my She Made/She Made entry, click here.

Miss Erin gleans inspiration from many different places: her hometown, music, hunks of rust, literature, and, of course, color.

Many times, she invites her readers to join her on an inspiration blog hop challenge. Some of my favorites creations have stemmed from Erin's challenges.

For this year's challenge of music, Erin asked us to pick a seminal year in our lives or a year that impacted our lives in some way, then pick a song from that year to inspire us.

This year marks my grandparents' 70th anniversary. They were married in February of 1944. I decided to pick a song from 1944 in honor of them.

"My Heart Tells Me," sung by Glen Gray, was top of the charts in February, 1944, but that song didn't seem to capture 70 years of marriage. I opted instead for "Swinging on a Star," sung by Bing Crosby. It was top of the charts in August and September, 1944.

I liked the playfulness of the lyrics:

Would you like to swing on a star

Carry moonbeams home in a jar

And be better off than you are

Or would you rather be a mule?

The part that really struck me was "be better off than you are." The right person makes you be better than you are. My grandparents spent a lifetime making each other -- and all of us -- better every day.

This is one of my favorite photos of my grandparents, taken by Mae-Belle Photography.

To celebrate their 70th, my mom and her brothers and sisters threw a party. I may have mentioned before, but my mom has 12 siblings. There are 32 grandchildren and over 30 great grandchildren.

Not everyone was there, but it was quite a party.

Words can't express how lucky we all are to have my grandparents still in our lives.

But, back to my song.

I wanted to capture the playfulness of the song and, at one point, wanted to bead a swing to hang from a star. Well, you can probably guess how that turned out.

After a few ... several ... too many tries to mention, I settled on this bead from Genea. I love the star on the front and the moon on the back. It was meant to be.

Speaking of Genea, she creates jewelry with a playful style. How she combines colors, textures and her beautiful beads in such a fabulous way is beyond me, but I decided to give it a shot.

I started with a celini spiral.

I added a few copper swirls and mixed some of Genea's wingdings with clay beads from Staci Louise and a glass bead from Sue Beads.

I am pretty enamored with how it came out.

If you haven't already visited these ladies' shops, please do so. You can find Genea here, Staci here and Sue here.

While I was fiddling with the necklace, looking at this focal or that bead, I also made earrings.

I paired small lengths of chain maille with these cute charms from Miss Erin herself.

Copper didn't work so well with Erin's charms, so I used a bit of patina and gilder's paste to give the rings a (hopefully) celestial look.

As a side note, I finally got the hang of the violet patina from Miss Fickle Media. The color is just swoon worthy, though too purple for my earrings. Hence the gilder's paste.

I love the movement of these earrings.

You can find more of Erin's creations here.

Erin, thank you for another wonderful challenge. I love that these challenges push me out of my comfort zone.

Please take some time to visit Erin's blog to see what songs the other participants chose what how those songs inspired them.

Or, you can click the links below.

An InLinkz Link-up