My Favourite Autumnal Palette

I have found this year, that I have a favourite Autumnal palette. Orange, purple, turquoise and a sort of mossy green. Here are some of the things I've made over the years in these tones:

You can see from these that I sometimes the turquoise veers towards the cobalt blue, and that I like to add in a bronzy gold/brown too, but this is definitely a palette which I return to again and again, particularly during this time of year. Rich, Autumnal tones, but with the vibrancy that I crave when I look at your more typical earthy Autumnal palettes. 

I returned to this palette again last weekend:

Sometimes, beads arrive and you just fall in love with them. Sometimes they speak to you straight away and say - use me now! This was the case with these gorgeous lampwork dahlias from Pasion de Vidrio. Ronald makes the most gorgeous lampwork beads, although he's currently taking a break from his art. Thankfully, I stocked up a bit first. (Yes, I bet you were worried that I would run out of beads. To quote my friend Keirsten, I needed fresh beads. My other ones had gone briefly stale.) Simply pairing them with Humblebeads' gorgeous disc beads (they fell together on my work top - I'd love to say that it was my intuitive way of working that brought them together but alas, I fear it was just my messiness and lack of organisation!) meant that I had a pair of earrings in my favourite Autumnal tones:

In Autumn, available in the shop. 

Butterflies

Why did the butterfly flutter...oh, you know the rest! These past 2 weeks, I seem to have developed a real thing for butterflies. Don't know why - yes, I am often drawn to 'things with wings' but butterflies can sometimes be a little saccharine - a bit 'wee girly' and sugary for me. Certainly to be the focus of a piece. But somehow, they've ended up in my designs again and again, whether I like it or not recently. I've also seem to lost all ability to make anything other than earrings. Whatever - I'm going with it. Often, I find my earrings can be cute but a little pedestrian, so I'm quite enjoying creating slightly more exuberant earrings for once. Let's see where this takes me.

Here in Butterfly Dance, I've stacked a whole heap of elements together. Pressed glass, recycled glass, Fallen Angel Brass, Vintaj Brass, Gunmetal caps, more pressed glass, copper hoops, vintage brass butterfly charms, handmade lampwork rondelles (some of Julie Wong Sontag's infamous 'weenies'), and my own oxidised silver earwires. I love how the butterflies are framed by those copper rings - and I love the real mix of metals. Even the brasses - the three varieties here are each so different, and each a naturally developed patina. Brass really is a beautiful and under-appreciated metal. I'm also usually not particularly keen on brass and copper - something about the yellow and orange tones being too close to one another - but the 3-tone brass, the gunmetal, the oxidised silver - I think it's safe to add the copper in there too, it only adds to the multi-mixed-metal-ness. You can find these for sale in the shop. 

Admiral are a pair I am particularly pleased with. I received these gorgeous wooden buttons as a lovely little gift from Claire who owns Smitten Beads, as part of a challenge she offered up in her shop. They really are rather special, don't you think? Now, as I said before, sometimes my earrings can be a little, well, safe. Simple. Pedestrian if I'm being particularly hard on myself! When I have a long craft fair, or a short deadline, then I definitely go into earring-making machine mode. I don't make earrings that I don't like or wouldn't wear, but I don't make earrings like these or these or these. Also, I don't/can't call my earrings things like I Rose From Marsh Mud. I would really like to, but I call my earrings things like Butterfly Dance. You see - 'safe'! I am just not edgy [nor do I know enough about poetry!] I guess - *sigh*

Anyway, I digress. Quite often my earrings have 2 or 3 parts to them. And they are simply stacked. Here's a good example:

Autumnal

Don't get me wrong. I like these. I like the colours, shapes and contrasting textures; I like their neatness. They're some of my favourites from my Summer earrings haul. But they are simply stacked - there's no engineering, so to speak, to them. And quite often when I try to wrangle a non-beady/round element into a pair of earrings, which of course have to hang 'just so', they droop limply and unconvincingly and simply don't work. 

But here, as you can hopefully see, the buttons hang just as I wanted them too. And the slim chains swoop down below, the leaves don't tip as they could, but hang down nicely - all in all, I'm rather pleased with these. More cute lampwork from Julie Wong Sontag, by the way. 

This last pair for this post are a pair which I *think* I may have to keep for myself. There's something about this combination of turquoise, darkly textural brass, this particular shade of red and the polka dots that I find hard to resist. I love that the holes in the centre of Helen Chalmers' discs have plenty of room for several slim-gauge wire wraps. I've used 0.6mm wire here and as you can see, they comfortably allow 4 passes at least per disc. This allows me to suspend them facing outwards, which, as Helen's beads really do stand looking at front-ways (sideways?) on, is a lovely bonus. These earrings also have a little touch that I've been adding to quite a few pairs recently - the embellished earwires. I used to do this relatively often but sort of fell out of the habit - I've been stalking reading a favourite blog recently, right from the beginning (a trick I picked up from Julie), and was reminded just how much I like decorating earwires - and so have resolved to do it more often. Julie's tiny lampwork beads are just the perfect size for this. If I do decide to sell these, I'll pop a link back here, but in all honesty, I think they'll be staying with me! 

It's a wrap for the wraps

Frequent readers will know that earlier this year, I was struck down with an addiction to making wrap bracelets. This actually culminated with being featured on the front cover of October's issue of Beads and Beyond:

Pretty much my own personal wrap de resistance.  I was given the words 'Ode to Autumn' to work with (a Keats poem, I was ashamed to not know, although I did recognise it when the penny finally dropped) and certainly, that idea of an Ode or Song was my inspiration here - the idea of a wrap bracelet (which can be worn as a necklace too) seemed the perfect response to this idea. I hunter-gathered as many Autumn art beads as I could, co-ordinating accompanying beads (ceramics, copper and my favourite Czech pressed glass) and spun this wrap together. I'm not sure I have anywhere to go from here, so my wrap-making compulsion seems to have ground to a halt. 

I did however have one left in me for the West End Fair, and here it is. One of my current favourite colour-combinations at the moment, royal blue, sky blue and sunny yellow. A dash of orange in this one too, thanks to the awesomely ridiculous hands of Mindy Moogin MacGregor. 

Beautiful lapis coins echoing Mindy's amazing lentil, wooden teeth, Peruvian opal discs (more lentil-echoing there) and some sunny, pressed glass rounds. It's a fairly happy piece, I'd say!

You can find Aztec for sale here. 

Forest Walk

I'm not quite sure how I find myself year - here, at the end of September. Surely it was only just the beginning of June a couple of days ago? Or at least, that's how it feels. You've heard it all before - I've certainly written it before - but there's truth and importance to be taken from this sensation. Sometimes time seems to pass so quickly, I feel like I'm not quite present in the moment - what happened to June, to July? I know August was a craft fair....but it's good to take a moment to be here, in this crystalline droplet of time. To breathe. To BE. (You can take this also as a warning to myself, because once we get into October, we're galloping towards November and craft fair season, leading up to Christmas...Oy.)

I've been feeling a real urge to submerge myself in the creative process right now. To dive in, headfirst; to shut off from the click-click, beep-bleep and blink of electronica and social media and general everyday distraction. But somehow, I haven't been able too. It's terribly frustrating when your  heart and soul knows what it needs, but your head cannot give you the space. And of course, there are so many jobs and tasks that need to be done before you can even allow yourself to *think* about turning to making. Messages to be answered, orders to be packed, bunnies to be hung out with. Maybe it's the time of year - having been in full-time education until 24, and then spent the following 8 years teaching in schools, it's hard to throw off that 'new school year' feeling. It's a feeling that I like, actually - turning over a new leaf, a real sense of something new. Being open to possibility and change. . Or even just the possibility of the possibility of change. The chance to try new things; new techniques and media. It's exciting! And therefore doubly frustrating that I haven't quite synced my body with this feeling. Not least because I burned my hand badly enough to have to go to hospital last week, and have been hampered with the use of only one hand this week. Thankfully, my right hand was the sole functioning one (I am VERY right-handed, despite always having a secret desire to be a leftie. Is that just me?), and so things haven't been quite as difficult as they could have been. But I'm glad that, as of last night, my left hand really is feeling very useable. 

One thing I did manage a few days ago was this bracelet. Simple stringing, and plier-use aided by a glove protecting my sore hand, was manageable at least. I received some beautiful bonus beads (the best kind!) from the lovely Sally of Soul Silver with my most recent order from her (the red ones in the bracelet below). I was immediately struck my their rich, glowing quality - the depth and luminosity of their colours. They draw you in. Goodness, I do love colour! Their richness and depth also spoke to me of the season. I reached for other beads - a toning handwoven glass round from myself, a selection of Czech glass in equally rich tones, and a beautiful, speckled ceramic round from Bo Hulley - and combined these with contrasting brass and bronze. Originally, this bracelet was charm-free, but I felt it needed *something* and the Fallen Angel Brass feathers were just the ticket. 

Just look at how glowing Sally's lampwork beads are here. Even more so in real life. I've also used a magnetic clasp, from The Bead Shop Scotland. I've always been a little suspicious of magnetic clasps, not trusting them to stand up to what they should. But I bought a few of these due to the recommendations I read, and their uncommon prettiness (you can see there are several different designs and sizes on their site) and boy, am I pleased that I did. I was able to satisfy more than one customer during the West End Fair by switching clasp on a bracelet they liked but struggling to fasten themselves. And really, they are so lovely that I have decided to use one from the outset here. Super-strong too. 

I love designing bracelets - I love their linear qualities. I love to take the eye on a walk along them, to have interest all around - and so 'Forest Walk' seemed an apt title for this piece, given the association with the seasons which Sally's beads invoke for me. Also, a nod to a recent walk we took here in the Lothians. 

You can find Forest Walk for sale here. 

Earrings!

Earrings....I love 'em. Cannot get enough of them. 

A day goes by without my putting some in my ears, then it's a wasted day. 

Luckily, I love making them too! So quick to whip up, yet so satisfying too. And there's plenty of scope for artistic expression too. It's like a painter with a teeny, tiny canvas. 

I'm on a real earring kick at the moment, as you can see from these pictures. All created in the past week (and not the only ones!)

I think these last ones are my favourite. I'm always a fan of a decorated earwire, and I'm so pleased that the very tiniest of my handwoven {song}beads can be created with large enough holes to decorate these long and elegant earwires. What do you think? I have plans for more of these!

If you're also an earring fan, most of the earrings in this post are available in my etsy shop. 

{Song}beads

What have my handwoven {song}beads been getting up to? Here are some of my designs where they have been popping up recently (and a few not so recently!):

Some have sold, some are *mine* and some are available over in my etsy shop.