September Song - a new mini-collection

A new mini-collection has hit the shop! I don't always work in this way - creating themed collections of pieces - but for the new month and new season, I decided to have a play in this way, and I am pretty pleased with the results! 

I began by collecting together a selection of my beloved handmade art beads - ceramics, lampwork glass, polymer, even a few metals thrown in there too. Most of these beads have been in my collection for years, and so it is a real treat to work with them - and about time too! I haven't really added to my art bead collection at all since the end of my pregnancy, but rediscovering these pieces is just as wonderful as discovering new pieces. 

Within the collection, there are definite groupings although there is of course some overlap between them all. Firstly, a soft, Summer-turning-gently-to-Autumn collection of tonal greens, bronze and topaz. Perfect for the new season, but fresh enough to be worn all year round. (I am a great lover of ALL the colours ALL year round, but I know many folk enjoy having special pieces for each season.) These are playful yet gentle, soft yet fresh and I love the simple, natural feel that they have. 

Autumn Walk

Perchin'

September Song

Autumnal

Woodland Wander

Next came the metallics. Only a few pieces here, and I am still working on a couple in this palette as it's one I adore. Warm, slightly oxidised coppers tone perfectly with deep, steely-grey silvers and warm rusts. These dive straight into the heart of Autumn and the earlier nights we are already having - the low light of a dusky evening, and the steely grey mornings we are often having here in Edinburgh. This palette will take you right through Winter and keep some warmth with you in the coldest months. 

Bohemia

La Vie Boheme

Mercury

Lastly, a summer throwback - perhaps our traditional Autumnal Second Summer? Here's hoping - I like all the sunshine and heat that Edinburgh can throw at me, which isn't always much! Just along the sea path at the front of my house there is a slightly untamed grassy area. We only moved to our new flat in May and the walk along the sea front is one of my favourite things about living here. At one of the corners I pass daily grows a beautiful Buddleia, which has bloomed all summer in a glorious range of purples from lavender and lilac through to warmer, pinkier shades. It smells glorious and attracts a lot of beautiful butterflies and I have enjoyed passing it often over the past few months. Even on the coldest of current days, it is a shot of summer whenever I walk past it. These pieces are inspired by this tree and the summery feelings it invokes, whatever the weather.

Coast

Buddleia

Jewels

Which piece is your favourite? Which colour palette are you drawn to most, and do you go for seasonal colour changes or embrace them all, all the year round? 

Tropical!

I don't often reach for these colours - fuchsia and juicy orange - but every so often they arrive on my worktable in the form of a pair of earrings or a bracelet of such. Aren't they juicy? Don't they speak of sunshine, orange groves and exotic flora and fauna? Toned down just a little with the addition of rustic golden-brown brass, I really love this palette. One to reach for a little more often, perhaps...

Colour!

Do you love colour as much as I do? I expect that quite a few people who read my blog are also rather in love with it too. It's often the first thing I turn to when starting to design. Either the colours within a handmade bead, the lovely and sometimes unexpected harmony that occurs when bead fall together on my worktop, or external stimulus. 

And one of my favourite external stimuli to turn to is Design Seeds. If you're not familiar with this as a resource/source of inspiration/lovely website to browse through, then I suggest you hop over there NOW! You can also sign up to get daily emails, and I always look forward to a new palette or two arriving in my inbox every day. Colour simply never fails to make me smile....

Here you can see an example of what comes from working with a palette:

Initial inspiration...

Citrus Blues

...and finished jewellery.

Wild Fire (sold)

I just love these colours together - they make each other pop! 

Wild Fire

The contrast between the sunshine orange and the true royal blue is just gorgeous!

Here's another palette I have 'pinned' to my computer screen. Watch this space to see what I do with this one...

A Door Hues from Design-Seeds

Rebecca is a Scottish jewellery designer, currently living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. You can read more about her and her work at her blog, songbeads.blogspot.com and see more of her jewellery at songbead.etsy.com. She also has a supplies shop at thecuriousbeadshop.etsy.com.

Colour Inspiration

Yesterday I was doing a little blog hopping (something I haven't done as much of recently as I would like, time constraints....) and landed on Shannon's blog, For My Sweet Daughter. Shannon makes beautiful beaded and etched copper jewellery and is also a fellow member of the Allegory Gallery Design Team. She hosts a weekly challenge - Finally Friday - one I have seen before but never really had time to join in with (although it is an EXCELLENT challenge - colour based using design seeds palettes - well worth a peek if you are so inclined). This time however, her chosen palette for this coming Friday didn't just speak to me, it practically leapt out of the computer and shouted in my face! Very beautiful shouting, you understand. 

from Design Seeds

I immediately felt compelled to create something in this beautifully vibrant palette and pulled out one of my boxes of beads and began colour selecting (I'm not quite as good at this as Heidi but I still enjoy it!). 

And here it is....

I got a lovely fat order from TheaToo on Friday, and thought that the lighter bronze shades (compared with rich copper or even antique brass) worker really well with this sparkling palette. 

Can't you just see the colourful lei garlands, or imagine a traditional Hindi wedding with all of these saturated warm tones? I just adore colour and the emotional pull it has....

Available now in my etsy shop.

la vie est belle

i always mean to enter the art bead scene monthly challenge and i never quite have enough time. so this month as the challenge features montmartre and i actually spent the last week of february staying in montmartre, i thought i really should get my act together and make something. 

using a cuff bead from one of this month's sponsors, captured moments, czech glass, and a scrap of sari silk left over from the bead soup party. all set in my current favourite findings range - fallen angel brass. {if you haven't checked out their gorgeous range, you really should!} i know i haven't quite got the perspective right in the top (full) photo but hopefully you can see from the other shots the lovely curve the bracelet bead has. it's funny that red, white and blue are such classic 'flag' colours - france, usa, australia, the uk; more i'm sure. i don't feel much personal affinity with it, (even though it's the colours of the union jack), as i feel so much more scottish than british, but i do absolutely love it as a colour combination. 

Andrew Thornton August Reader Challenge

Andrew Thornton is one of my favourite bloggers. I was so excited to see his Readers' Challenge and thrilled when I managed to snag a kit for the August challenge. (See his July challenge here.) When it arrived in the post, I couldn't believe just how many beautiful beads were included. A beautiful Diane Hawkey 'magic' bead, a sweet Marsha Neal charm, a generous bunch of Swarovski crystal elements, two pretty lampworks from Bernadette Fuentes and Sue Kennedy. Some vintage acrylic, a luxury bead mix, copper chain....a bounty of treasure to work with! I've been dying to get my hands on Diane Hawkey for a good while now and Marsha Neal makes some utterly gorgeous botanical pieces - I've a few of her pendants now and I adore them. A very pleasing selection to me! 

Now, I love red. It's one of my favourite colours to wear. But not to work with in jewellery design, for some reason. (Unless combined with turquoise, of course!) I have tried to work out what this reason is. I think it's primarily because of the lack of shade variation within red. I'm really no colour expert, so I may be using the wrong technical terms here but if you think of blue from very pale to very dark, there is a huge variation of shade to pick from. Similarly with green. (Oh yes, and they are my favourite colours to work with!) But with red, very pale is pink. And very dark verges on brown. And I know there is still texture and shape to work with but I think the lack of shade variation shies me away. So one of the reasons I bought this kit was to give myself that personal challenge; to work with red 'en masse'. I've also had requests for more red pieces at the craft fairs I've recently started participating in, so this kit was always going to give me a good push that I needed!

And this piece is such a good example of why I *love* challenges like this. I love red, but I hardly ever work with it. I love Swarovski crystal but usually resort to using it in the same old ways. I have had the tiny red bell and cool toggle from MissFickleMedia for forever it seems, love them but never could think of how to use them. And spreading out the elements of Andrew's pretty package out in front of me, this bracelet started to take form.....I am so pleased with how this has turned out! Totally different from anything I have made before. A bit kooky perhaps but I think it is a success. Any thoughts? Is it too off the wall for you or would you wear it? All comments gratefully received!

I still have a fair sized bounty left over from Andrew's gorgeous kit, which you can see here. Including the mystery item, a beautiful Andrew Thornton original copper coin, which you can see here! It has a gorgeous heft and weight to it, and is a beautiful shade or selection of shades I should say, of shimmering, rich copper. I had intended to incorporate it into this piece but it just didn't sit right - and time has run away with me for a second piece, which I fully intend to create using the lampworks, Andrew's coin and Marsha's beautiful charm. So watch this space for further pieces using these components!

Please check out the other challengees and see what beautiful goodies they have come up with.

Jessica Nelson

Andrew Thornton

Leslie Todd

Holly Westfall

Alice Peterson

Christine Altmiller

Cilla Watkins

Sally Russick

Beth Emery

Patty Gasparino

Jeannie Dukic

Norma Turvey

Rebecca Anderson

Thanks so much Andrew for creating this beautiful kit and sharing it with us - it has really stretched me, in a very positive way!

Moogin

I've already told you about my slight obsession with lampwork beads so I thought I might start a new regular (not quite sure how regular as yet!) blog posting about my favourite lampwork artists and beads. If nothing else it will keep me entertained.

So, to kick it off, I'll begin with my all time favourite lampwork artiste extraordinaire - Mindy MacGregor, otherwise known as Moogin. You may have seen her profiled in Beads and Beyond recently (can't remember which issue off the top of my head) or perhaps at the Scottish Bead Fair where she regularly has a stand or perhaps you've also bought some of her amazing artwork. I first 'discovered' her in Perth at the SBF last summer. Wow! Before that, I was all about the organic, botanical lampworks. No more! Mindy really does create miniature glass paintings, I can see Miro, Klimt, Kandinsky there in the background behind her tiny masterpieces (three of my favourite artists anyway) to mention but a few;


but beyond this, she does things with glass I've never seen elsewhere. She has recently taken a move towards folk art which I never thought would be my cup of tea but, surprise surprise, it is!


Her love of colour is always evident whatever style she is working in and this is one of my favourite aspects of her work. There's so much more I could (ineloquently I'm sure!) say about Mindy's work but for now I'll let the beads speak for themselves.

My all time favourite Moogin bead - so far!