Colorful Pendants

I've been working on new beads for Bead & Button. I shared a few posts ago about my inspiration of wood block stamps from India and spice markets.  Here are some of the paisleys that I designed.

I had pressed out a ton of these pendants last week and they were sitting there staring at me - questioning with possibilities.  Milky white clay beckoned, what colors?  So I went back to the source of my inspiration and picked my palettes from there.

My first group summoned the soft muted shades of this market photo featuring all sorts of flowers, pods and petals in lavender, lilacs, golden yellow, sage and  that lovely muted copper color.  I created a lotus pendant, some graphic flowers - I don't know what they are, I saw a print with the design and did my own version and then the paisleys.

Photo Credit: Jenn Garcia of the Purple Passport.
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My second grouping picked up the spicy warm shades of red, purple, orange and ochre. If I had to pick just one palette, it would be this one.

Photo credit: unattributed on Pinterest

My third color set comes from the colors of the colorful powders sold in Indian markets.  I pulled out the pink, purple, teal, kelly green.

Photo credit: Shrimaitreya

Do you have a favorite?  I'm going to put a few of these in my Etsy shop and I will make more to take to the show too because I love these for summer designs!  Hmm, maybe I'll make some jewelry with them this weekend. 

Dogwood Blossom Jewelry

Spring Eternal

I spent some time making jewelry this weekend.  My sweet aunties came up to visit me and we sat around playing with beads, snacking on cookies and chatting the afternoon away. Rosanne and I swapped beads and pawed through each other's treasures. She traded me a bird from Spirited Earth with some lampwork beads and a deer from Round Rabbit.  I'm quite pleased!

I love how everything is slowly coming to life, the blooms on the trees mixed in with the copper and browns left over from the long winter. I wanted to capture that in my necklace.

I picked up the beaded bead and flower focal at Micheal's a few weeks ago. This necklace includes patina branches and pine cones from Patina Worx, one of my dogwood pendants, the pearl beaded bead is another find from Michael's.  The enameled piece is something I created thanks to Barbara Lewis' book!  I threw in some lucite flowers, a clock charm from Earthenwood Studios and a pewter branch embellished with crystals.

My sweet Evangeline modeled it for me.  I'm finding more and more of my inventory incorporated into their daily outfits, mostly pendants - they are quite fond of my nests, book pendants and some of my smaller pieces.  I don't let they big ones like this go far from my bead table!

The clock from Earthenwood Studio.  I love how a simple bead can change a design into a story.  A visual clue can add a bit of poetry into a random collection of floral components. You can read more about using beads to create poetry in your jewelry in my book, Jewelry Designs from Nature.

More of my dogwood pieces - I'm loving these for spring.  I made the smaller version a few weeks ago used here in the earrings. The dogwoods were created from an antique spoon in my grandmother's collection.  I feel so sentimental whenever I see these, thinking fondly of her and summers spent in South Haven over the last few years.  I'm looking forward to our first summer here as residents, soaking in the beach, the farmer's markets, gardening and all the beauty Michigan has to offer each season.