Ombré flower

This pendant got started "backwards" because I had forgotten to sew on one of the leaves for Nadine's palm in my last embroidery piece. Then I found I just had about enough of those green beads left for one more leaf, so I beaded that, and only then I started thinking about a main design to go with those leaves.
I had a small flower in mind, but as you can see once again my mind and Mabel (my imaginary muse) didn't agree and as usual Mabel won.

I pulled three colors from my drawer for an ombré design. The red is one of my regular stock-ups because I love the color, the other two were in one of my surprise orders.
Sometimes the bead tubes in those orders are full, sometimes they are leftovers, so I didn't have much of the salmon color and therefore didn't know how many petals I would be able to make. I honestly didn't think it would be enough for the fifth one and had already made plans how to deal with that. It was pretty close in the end, I had about ten beads left when I finished!

After the petals were attached to each other, the hole in the center was next.
The last time I made a flower with brick stitch petals, I had filled the center with beads in the round, but this time I went for loads of stamina in yellow and gold on a bead foundation instead.
Then I sewed on the leaves and beaded a golden bail and voilà!
Some time ago I got some black satin ropes and spontaneously added a few pink ones although I didn't know if I would ever use those, but isn't it perfect for my flower?

Fall is here

Fall is my favorite season, but this year it seemed that as if instead of going for a gentle change, Summer packed his briefcase at 5 p.m. and left for home, and the morning after Fall came into work, laughed and turned the thermostat down.
Other than in previous years, I'm taking this with a grain of salt. Given the current energy situation, should or can I turn the heat on? Will I have to look for the perfect cardigan yet again (I have very specific requirements and only ever found one that I gave away as a gift, something I still regret to this day)? Will I have to spend fall and winter in bed, covered by Gundel and dem Dekan, and how will I get them to stay there?

I decided to cuddle up in a blanket for now and concentrate on something else - fall colors.
Since der Dekan made his entrance in this house, I haven't got out my loom and only used Delicas for peyote bezels, but now I dug into my stash and made a bead mix from silver lined and transparent AB amber, a bit of silver lined marigold, and two kinds of red to make a pair of fall leaves. Who doesn't love fall leaves?
I made them in brick stitch and then thought about adding some beads from my mookaite stash, but then I remembered - once again - collecting leaves for a school project on a walk in the woods with my grandmother and how some of the leaves were rolled up at the sides. After trying out a few variations, I ended up with these here and topped them with a few dark red firepolished crystals.

My second pair of fall earrings is from the same bead mix, but this time I was determined to use mookaite which has the perfect colors for it.
At first, I wanted to make just one peyote tube for each earring, but as you can see, there was no stopping me! Copper goes beautifully with this color combination, oxidized or not, so I used copper wires to hold the tubes and beads together and to hang them on my own copper components and earwires.
This pair was really fun to make and I can see it in many other color combinations as well!

A bit of fun for the end. Changing of the seasons always makes me think of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" ;-)

Oldies but Goodies - More leaves

I'm sorry, but for this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge I don't have a story for you.
With the weather being what it is at the moment, I'm struggling to get motivated to do anything, so I'll let speak the pictures speak for themselves today.

1 and 5 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 and 7 Cat's Wire
3 and 8 My Bijou Life
4 RioRita
6 The Crafty Chimp

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Foliage

"Foliage? I can do that!"
When I read the September topic for the Art Elements Design Challenge that Caroline gave us, I was completely confident that I would rock this. I have made leaves and leaf patterns both in wire and beads before, and I even thought that this time I would be able to make more than one piece.

BAM! Unfortunately this is not a "I did it" BAM, but a "life gets in the way" one.
So this is the part where I'm getting to the cheap excuses, in this case work and health or rather a combination of both which tends to kill off not my creativity, but the ability to transfer my ideas into actual pieces. For example I saw some wire crochet leaves in fall colors before my eyes, but after ripping one up twice I didn't feel like another attempt.

I even forgot that I had started making something that I put on my manikin head to decide about a clasp and embellishments.
Just a few days ago I happened to see it again (and I walk by that head all the time!) and had planned to work on it some more yesterday after coming home from work, but due to a stranded train it took me three hours to get home, and all I wanted there was something to eat and sleep.
This morning now I wasn't even sure if I liked it at all anymore without some major changes. Now I'm afraid it's going to move to the Drawer of Eternal WIPs which is not a good place to be, I've heard ;-)

I'm glad that I'm not standing - well, actually sitting - here without having anything to show.
I love making these kind of leaves, they are great to use in earrings, pendants or necklaces, and it's always fun embellishing them with what I can find at the moment.
Here I used chocolate brown freshwater pearls and matte carnelian beads for that perfect fall feeling. After all fall is my favorite season!

Now here's the good stuff, a list of all the other participants in the challenge, and I'm sure they'll be showing a lot more. I'm already looking forward to going through all the posts and pictures!
Please have a look, I know you won't be disappointed!

Guests

Alison - Alysen - Anita - Beth and Evie - Cat (that's me ;-)) - Dawn - Divya - Hope - Jill - Karen - Kathy - Laurie -  Mary - Michelle - Sarah - Sarajo - Tammy 

AE team members

Claire - Cathy - Caroline - Jenny - Lesley - Marsha - Niky - Susan

Oldies but Goodies - Leaves

When I was in school, I had to put together a herbarium with tree samples. As usual when it was a project I didn't really feel like doing, I procrastinated until the last day. Then my grandmother told me she would be taking me to the woods now.
As you know by now I am not a plant expert. I can tell a birch from an oak tree, but that's about as good as it gets. I hung around in the woods a lot together with my friend, but we didn't necessarily check out plant life, we were too busy having adventures. My enthusiasm for the herbarium was limited.
Then my grandma took over like only she could. She would point out trees to me here and there and ordered me to get leaves and this and that. Once when I couldn't reach the leaves, she went into action with her umbrella and got them for me. I remember some red leaves which came from a copper beech as she told me. I liked them so much that I took more of them.
Of course I didn't have time to press the samples properly, so I just hoped for the best. When I came to school, however, I found hardly anyone had a herbarium. Most of the children had collected leaves and stuff just the way I had and soon recess turned into a swap meet. Now my copper beech leaves were valuable goods.
We never finished those herbariums, by the way.

Thank you if you read this far. Leaves are the theme for this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge which is the reason for these old memories coming back up.
Enjoy our little JAC herbarium!

1 2 Fab Fristers
2 Cat's Wire
3 MC Stoneworks
4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
5 RioRita
6 Violetmoon's Corner

Welcome to autumn!

If you prefer it, I'll welcome fall as well. Whatever you call it, it truly is welcome to me because it's my favorite season and I am really looking forward to it.

When the Starving Artists Team decided on "Change of seasons" as the subject for the September challenge, my brain started going into overdrive. My first idea was to crochet leaves in different colors with Swarovski crystals to enhance the colors and let them dangle from a chain on earwires. I'll keep that idea, you never know.

Then I thought it would be nice to have a tree with all the different colors - the green that is still showing, but will soon be gone, the yellow and red tones of fall ... so I came up with this little tree pendant on a slim tube rope.

Each tiny branch is crocheted individually with Swarovski crystals worked in as the leaves. You can wear the pendant from both sides of course with one side showing more yellow and green and the other one showing all three colors.

As there is not just one brown in nature, I chose to make the rope from a slightly different color. To me it makes the necklace look more alive. Of course it's no problem, should anyone prefer the same color for the rope and the tree.

This is available in my ArtFire studio now.