Pretty Palettes August Reveal

In November of last year, Erin Prais-Hintz started a Pretty Palettes color challenge on the Halcraft blog.

Each month, Erin picks a set of beads that coordinate with a color palette and invites her readers to create something using those beads.

A few months ago, Erin started partnering with guest bloggers.  It's always fun to see how two people use the same set of beads.

The inspiration for August comes from notion:creative, which showcases street art.

Erin picked a variety of beads

As much as I tried, I couldn't get those beads to play with each other.  I ended up doing a few pieces, each using some of the beads.

The first necklace uses those delicious brown rondelles and the red beaded beads.

I made a small Conway Bead, designed by Gwen Fisher, with red and brown seed beads.  It went perfectly with the brown and red beads.

The rest of the necklace is made using part of Catherine Hamilton's Orbital Ensamble necklace.  I like how the chain maille orbits echo the beaded beads.

The second necklace is similar to the first one, but I used the pink and white beads.  I also used small green/teal beads from Michael's that matched the larger teal disc beads from Erin.

I paired these with more Conway Beads.  I went a bit off here when I grabbed dark green seed beads in an attempt to match the teal discs from Erin.  Those beads have dark greens, blues and teals in them.  The green isn't quite the right shade.

The rest of the necklace is made using different part of the Orbital Ensamble necklace.  I had thought that a teal patina would work, but it didn't match.  Instead, I used a laurel green patina from Miss Fickle Media.  While the green matches the beaded beads, it is a bit off from the palette.

As with Heather's Michaels challenge, I used the smaller pink beads to make Sabine Lippert's Granada pendant.  (You can find the pattern for this in Sabine's book, Beaded Fantasies.)

This time around, I used white in the center and I *love* how it looked.

I actually used red and pink together!  I was amazed at how well they worked together.

I liked the design I used for the pendant in Heather's Michael's challenge, so I did something similar here.

I beaded a spiral rope using pink, red, teal, and brown, then hung the pendant from a brass chain.

The spiral rope shows off the jewel tones.

Finally, I used the teal discs to try an idea that had been swirling in my head.

I threaded three of them on a headpin and hung it like a pendant, similar to how I used one of Erin's beads here.

Then, keeping it simple, I made another spiral rope.  I couldn't find the right shade of teal to work with the disc beads, so I went with emerald.

I don't know if you can tell, but I used a teal seed bead for the base of the rope.  I also incorporated white and brown tones.

I still have an idea for the other two beaded beads.  I ran out of time to try it before the reveal, but it's banging around in my head, so you might see it soon.

Erin, I can't tell you how much of an honor it was to be chosen to work with you.  I had so much fun with these beads.  Thank you so much.

If you want to see what Erin made with these beads, check out the Halcraft blog.  I know she made something fabulous that you will want to see!

Halcraft Pretty Palettes

In November of last year, Erin Prais-Hintz started a Pretty Palettes color challenge on the Halcraft blog.

Each month, Erin picks a set of beads that coordinate with a color palette and invites her readers to create something using those beads.  A few months ago, Erin started partnering with guest bloggers.  It's always fun to see how two people use the same set of beads.

I was honored when Erin asked me to be her partner for the August Pretty Palette challenge.  Erin has such a way with color and design.  She can find inspiration in virtually anything:  color, literature, music, and travel, just to name a few.

The inspiration for August comes from notion:creative, which showcases street art.

Erin picked a variety of beads

I'm so excited to play!

You are more than welcome to play along.  Erin offers a link up every month.

The beads are from Michaels:

99042 Bronze Iris 10x14mm rondel
95109 Teal Dyed Jasper 9x14mm
93286 Dyed agate pink round 10mm
59593 Round dyed pink quartzite 6mm
89899 Bone carved melon 8x10mm
93359 Dyed red bamboo coral 14mm beaded beads

Check back on August 27th for the reveal, both here and on the Halcraft blog.

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

The 4th Annual Challenge of Color

I love this time of the year.  Erin Prais-Hintz's Challenge of Color is an event I have been looking forward to for several years now.

Each year, Erin chooses a color palette or palettes for the participants to play with and the results are always amazing.  The bracelet I made last year is still one of my favorites.

This time around, Erin asked us to either choose an existing palette from colourlovers.com or create one with the tools on the colourlovers website.

There was a catch, though.  Erin asked that we choose our colors by names, such as "curry chicken" or "hot chocolate" and, after choosing the first color, we had to use the last word in each color's name as the first word in the next color's name.

For example, I made this palette:

The colors are:
  yellow silk sari
  sari full pink
  pink lemonade
  lemonade stand
  stand by your man

This challenge was a bit rough for me.  I made this palette, had the perfect pendant and a great vision, but couldn't make it work.

Since I was having so much trouble, I decided to change directions.  I scrapped what I had and started with a different pendant, this time one by Nancy Schindler Adams.  I created a new palette.

The colors are:
     burnt peach
     peach blossom
     blossoming blue
     dark blue green mist
     mist of unrest

I was going for an "earthy" theme and I love turquoise and brown together.

I decided to play to my strengths.  I was already short on time and didn't want to be scrambling at the last minute.  As has been my habit recently, I combined bead weaving and chain maille.

This time, I used Kat Wisniewski's "Rapid Track" bracelet, from Blue Buddha Boutique.

I combined the chain with a simple spiral rope.

The copper crystals bring out the browns in Nancy's pendant and I love how the brown and green melt into each other.

I couldn't be happier with how this necklace turned out.

The other palette is still in the back of my mind, though.  I'm hoping without a looming deadline, I can make something awesome.  :)

Erin, thank you for a lovely challenge.  As always, I had a great time.

Please take some time and visit Erin's blog and see what the other participants made with their chosen palettes.

2nd Annual Challenge of Travel

The wonderful Miss Erin is at it again.  Last year's Challenge of Travel was wonderful and we were all able to visit other places from the comfort of our own computers.  (You can see my entry here.)

This year, Erin changed it up on us.  She asked us to vacation at home.  Instead of researching a new city or country, we were to find new and exciting things in our own back yards.

Now, I live in the midwest -- in Kansas.  I have yet to meet someone who likes Kansas enough to vacation there.

I do, however, live in a suburb of Kansas City, which is a much bigger and more interesting town.

Most people think of barbecue when they think of Kansas City.  It's true -- visitors have their choice of amazing barbecue here.  You can sample Gates, Arthur Bryant's, Oklahoma Joe's or Jack Stack and debate with the locals about which is better.

(For the record, my husband prefers Jack Stack while I am an Oklahoma Joe's girl.)

People don't know about the theater in Kansas City.  You can find the Lyric Opera, the Music Hall, the Unicorn Theater, the Starlight Theater, the American Heartland Theater, and the Kansas City Rep (that shows a great version of A Christmas Carol every year).

My favorite, though, is the Quality Hill Playhouse.  Quality Hill is a small theater.  The shows are musicals, generally featuring a wide variety of well known and little known music fitting a specific theme.  The host, J. Kent Barnhart is a wonderful talent in his own right and his one man biographical show is still one of the best I've seen.

Now that we have the kiddo, we have been attending the children's Coterie Theater a bit more.  :)

After the kiddo was born, we took advantage of the kid friendly sites of Kansas city.  We visited the Kansas City Zoo several times a month.

We walked around the Overland Park Arboretum and Powell Gardens.  (Most of the non-jewelry photos on this blog are taken on one of these two places.)

During the winter, we visited Science City in Union Station.

For this challenge, I tried to find a new aspect of Kansas City.

Did you know that Kansas City was the City of Fountains?  I kind of did, but had no idea the scope.  There are fountains all over the city and in many of the surrounding area.  I couldn't visit all of them, but decided to take a walking tour around the Plaza.

When I first moved here, I spent a great deal of time on the Plaza, but I never noticed the architecture or the abundance of fountains.  It was fun to spend time "getting to know" the Plaza a little better.

The first fountain you will see upon entering the Plaza is the JC Nichols Memorial fountain.

It is even more impressive at night.

Here is a close up of one of the horses and his rider.

Neptune is my favorite.

This organ grinder is not a fountain, but I still thought the statue was cute.

After my walking tour, I decided to create something inspired by fountains.

I started with this pendant from Nancy Schindler of Round Rabbit. It looked so much like the scrolling detail on a fountain that I just "had" to use it.

I wanted to create a weathered chain.  Using the Persian Variations instructions from Blue Buddha, I created two chains of a rippled half persian 4-in-1.  Then, I left the the chains in an ammonia patina for a few days.

Perfect!

(If you are interested in chain maille, Blue Buddha is a great place to start.  I loved the Persian Variations instructions and would recommend it.  You do need to know how to do the basic Persian and half Persian weaves, though, before starting these.)

I then created a peyote spiral piece to link the chins together.

I used larger jumprings to join the pieces together and decorated them with stray seed beads.

Here is the finished product.  I really like it, but after completing it, I wondered if the pendant was too much.

Here it is without the pendant.  What do you think?

While the chains were soaking in their ammonia bath, I decided to create a bracelet.  I bounced between a few patterns and then remembered this pattern by Heather Collin.

Heather's "Crossing Over" bracelet was perfect because the strands of beads were moving in and out and over and under, like water in a fountain.

To mirror the stone base of a fountain, I used tan and off white beads for the base of the bracelet.  The blue beads shoot out from the base like water moving up from the fountain.

Heather's designs are a joy to bead and always produce something beautiful.  You can find more of Heather's designs in her etsy shop.

I was really pleased with the final product -- it looks so lush and opulent.

Erin, thank you for another wonderful challenge.  It was fun and I loved trying a few new things.

Please take a few minutes (or hours) to visit Erin's blog and learn about the home towns of the other participants.  You may even get the hankerin' to visit some of them.  :)