AJE - December Component of the month

Happy New Year! I hope this post finds you well and that you've had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! I'm really exited to see what 2015 brings, I have lots of plans and resolutions that I'm looking forward to putting in to action!

This year, one of my resolutions is to try and keep up with blogging a little better (I wonder how many people have said that!) We'll see ;)

My first post of 2015 is the Art Jewelry Elements Component of the month reveal for December.

We were each given a gorgeous clay snowflake handmade by Diana Ptaszynski of Suburban Girl Studio LLC.

Originally, I wanted to make an ornament for my tree, but after a few failed attempts, I gave up. It looked lovely in my head, wrapped copper and red with the snowflake as the focal, but I just couldn't get it out as I'd imagined.

So I switched ideas and decided to make a brooch. I've had these kilt pins for ages and never known what to do with them, so I imagined a snowfall pin.

I really wanted to use navy blue seed beads to represent the sky with the sparkly snowflakes in Czech crystal and moonstones. I had every colour of seed bead other than navy, so I went with crystal AB finishing off the ends with Czech drops and silver stars.

I'm a sucker for dangles and I love how this has turned out (although I think the navy would have been a better contrast!). I think I might order some blue beads and make another.

Thank you to Diana for a great focal, and if you'd like to see what the rest of the team has done, follow the links...

Monthly Winners

Dana Hickey

AJE Blog Team

Lindsay M Starr

Linda Landig

Lesley Watt

Caroline Dewison

Susan Kennedy

Jen Cameron

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Melissa Meman

Kristen Stevens

AJE Component of the month - November

Good morning :) It’s component of the month reveal time again, and this month we got another gorgeous handmade component to design with. 

This time, it’s Kristen Stevens turn, and she gave us all a pair of cute little beaded rings. She makes the most amazing designs with the smallest beads, you can check out her shop here.

Yes, I forgot the photo, but I had 2 pairs! Hahaaaa!! So here’s what they look like, but for my design I used another colour…

Aren't they lovely? Originally, I was going to make a pair of earrings, after playing around with them, I thought they looked great as the centrepiece of some antique bronze rings I picked up from The Bead Shop Liverpool.

I tried to suspend them in the centre with copper wire… I knew exactly what I wanted them to look like, and it would have looked lovely, but it just wouldn’t work… after 4 attempts I gave up. Then it struck me, when I started out I used to make dreamcatchers. I grabbed some thin leather and wrapped the design in the centre and tied it off when there was a hole large enough to hold the beaded ring. I stitched the ring on to the leather. I added silver feathers with green seeds and brass cubes. The design isn’t particularly heavy, but I thought they would be too big for earrings, so I strung it as a pendant with flat leather. I’m not sure if this is still a work in progress, it looks to me as though it could do with a little more, maybe some leather tassels or something, I will keep thinking!

Thank you to Kristen for her brilliant component, it’s been great fun to revisit some old ideas!

To see what Kristen and the rest of the AJE Team have made, follow the links…

Cindy Martin Shaw
Shai Williams
Karen Martinez

Susan Kennedy

Linda Landig

LesleyWatt 

MelissaMeman

Caroline Dewison << You are here.
Francesca Watson
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Lindsay Starr
Jennifer Cameron

AJE Component of the month - October

Good morning and thanks for stopping by! I've been even more quiet than usual recently as I've been getting the power plugged in to my studio. I'm pleased to say it's all done now and I can see what I'm doing... hooray!  Normal bad blog posting will resume shortly!

This months Component of the month was supplied by Karen Totten of Starry Road Studios. A wonderful spiral fossil disc. I was thrilled to receive the blue/green disc just left of centre.

It sat on my desk for quite a while, I couldn't decide what to make with it. My first thought was to create a bracelet with other large disc components, but there was nothing quite right in my stash. Then out of the blue, some Canadian friends were in the UK and came for a visit. They brought me a gift of some jade beads which were perfect!

I know Karen loves tribal designs, so I wanted to try my hand at something along those lines. I took some copper, bashed and patinated it, then went crazy with my new vintaj hole making tool (it's amazing, everyone should have one... much easier than messing about drilling!)

I originally wanted to connect the component to the back piece with copper wire, but failed miserably, it just wouldn't bend properly... so the disc was lashed on with thin leather.

I quite like how it turned out!

Below the component I added some czech tile beads and bronze coated crystal points wrapped with copper wire.

And added the graduated Jade stones for the necklace.

I didn't manage to patinate the copper below, and I think I might darken the leather a little too, but it's very nearly what I was hoping to achieve.

Thanks to Karen for her wonderful component, I've had great fun designing around it!

And to see what the rest of the team and guests did with theirs... follow the links...

Monthly Winners

Lindsay Starr / Phantasm Creations

Sherri Hartman Stokey / Knot Just Macrame

Staci Louise Smith / Staci Louise Originals

AJE Blog Team

Diana Ptaszynski / Suburban Girl Studio

Susan Kennedy / Sue Beads

Caroline Dewison / BlueberriBeads

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt

Melissa Allford Meman

Francesca Watson

Jennifer Stout Cameron / Glass Addictions

AJE Component of the month - September

Here I am again a month later, having not blogged even once since the last COM. The days are flying by and all of a sudden it's Autumn.

This month, we got beautiful components from Kristi Bowman-Gruel.

They are all copper metal clay, the top row using the new white copper clay. My component was a surprise and I was thrilled to receive one of the new white pieces.

I spent a good while looking at it and had multiple ideas of what to do with it. My first thought was that it looked like it belonged on the end of a piece of leather, but after holding it on my wrist, the curve looked great going over my hand. I played around for a while with chain to try and work out how to hold it in the position I wanted, then decided it needed some colour.

It looked stunning with the deep garnet red beads I pulled out of my stash, but unfortunately, they have tiny holes and wouldn't fit the wire, so I chose some deep red and gold Czech glass and made connectors. I made large copper jump rings to hold the chain and used the connectors at each join. 

After quite a lot of alterations to get everything to hang on the right place, here is my final design...

It was really hard to try and take a photo of me wearing it (you will have to imagine it being worn by a beautiful model rather than someone with man hands!) 

It's really light and comfortable to wear, and I love the look of it draped across your hand, it makes me think of medieval knights and ladies... I think reading Game of Thrones is rubbing off on me!

Thank you to Kristi for a great component, it's really unusual and has been great fun to use!

If you'd like to visit Kristi and see more of her work, you can find her shop here http://KristiBowmanDesign.Etsy.com

And to see what the rest of the team has done, follow the links!

Thanks for reading :)

Guests

SJ Designs Jewelry

Kari Asbury

Shirley Moore

AJE Team Members

Caroline Dewison

Diana Ptaszynski

Lesley Watt

Melissa Meman

Linda Landig

Kristen Stevens

Jenny Davies-Reazor
Sue Kennedy

AJE Component of the month - August

This month it's team member Rebekah's turn to provide us all with a component for designing. And what a beautiful one she sent! Rebekah makes amazing polymer beads... her sleepy critters are world famous, but that's not all she makes. This month we were treated to either a large single, or smaller pair of hand painted leather feather charms.

I chose a pair of purple feathers that were labelled as earring charms, but as soon as I saw them I knew they would be perfect alongside one of my porcelain dreamcatcher beads.

The feathers were wrapped with copper wire and some antique Czech beads and used as dangles below my dreamcatcher charm. I also added a small bronze heart from TheaElements.

For the necklace part of the design, I chose some ceramic beads I made ages ago, but never used as I really liked them so they went in my stash. The colours gave it just the feel I wanted for the design. In between those were more Czech seeds, a chunk of amethyst and a chunk of citrine. The ceramic bead on the right is part of a Lotus set by Gaea.

To attach the leather, I chose a ceramic oak leaf from TheaElements with a glass donut on the opposite side for the closure. I was going to attach some sort of clasp, but I really like the look of the leather just tied to the glass!

Thank you to Rebekah for a beautiful component, and if you'd like to see more of her work, you can visit her shop here... Tree Wings Studio

If you'd like to see what everyone else chose and made... follow the links :)

Guest Artists

Karin Grosset Grange - http://ginkgoetcoquelicot.blogspot.com/

Ann Schroeder - http://beadlove.wordpress.com/

Claire Lockwood - http://www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com/

Toltec Jewels - http://www.jewelschoolfriends.com/

The AJE Team

Jen Cameron - http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog

Diana Ptaszynski - http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com

Kristen Stevens - http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/

Lesley Watt - http://www.thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.com/

Jenny Davies-Reazor - http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog

Francesca Watson - http://francescawatson.com/

Linda Landig - http://www.lindasbeadblog.com/

Melissa Meman - http://melissameman.blogspot.com/

Sue Kennedy - http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com/

Rebekah Payne - http://www.treewingsstudio.com/

Caroline Dewison - http://blueberribeads.blogspot.co.uk/ 

AJE Component of the Month - July

Another month has flown by and it's COM reveal day!

Things are getting slightly more organised in the new studio and I'm enjoying getting back to making.

This month, we were treated to a beautiful dichroic glass cabochon from Francesca Watson.

Just look at all of those beauties! There's something about dichroic glass that really gets me so I jumped at the chance to play.

Francesca works in a range of mediums and her work is stunning... check it out here http://francescawatson.com

This is the cab I chose... I remembered to take a picture!!!!

So I got to work on sketching out some ideas. The cab is larger than anything I have worked with before, and everything I came up with as a pendant design seemed too big. So I decided to make a brooch. I cut some porcelain flowers and fired them unglazed, made some silver headpins and dug out my box of seed beads.

I glued the cab on to some stiff stuff and bezelled around it with size 11 & 15 seeds in green.

Once the beadwork was finished, I put the flowers on the headpins, folded the tops so that they were secure and formed a loop on the opposite end for securing them to the brooch. They were sewn in and a brooch fitting glued on. The back was finished with some ultra suede.

I've had great fun working with my cab and would like to say a big thank you to Francesca for her beautiful component!

If you'd like to see what the rest of the team and guests have made... follow the links :)

Guest Designers

Deb Fortin - www.studiok24.blogspot.ca

Toltec Jewels - www.JewelSchoolFriends.com

Carol Briody - cbriody.blogspot.com

The AJE Team

Caroline Dewison - blueberribeads.blogspot.co.uk

Susan Kennedy - www.suebeads.blogspot.com

Melissa Meman - melissameman.blogspot.com

Jenny Davies-Reazor - www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog

Kristen Stevens - kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com

Francesca Watson - www.francescawatson.com

AJE Component of the month reveal - May

Another month and another COM reveal is ready.. it's going to be Christmas at this rate!

This month we were treated to a choice of beautiful components from Sue Kennedy of SueBeads

We could pick a glass cabochon...

Or a pretty set of glass chicklet beads...

I went for a cabochon in a stunning brown caramel glass with a tint of purple. Of course I forgot to take a photograph as I do every month!

When I picked it, I imagined it set in copper with etching, something in purple to bring out the hints of colour in the glass and a rolled bail.

I tried a different technique for resist on this piece. I use stop out fluid quite often for painting designs on to copper, but with this piece I tried stamping the design on. It's not quite as sharp as using vinyl resist, but I like the grainy effect it's given this pattern.

I took some sheet copper and etched it on both sides. That way, when the bail at the top was rolled around, the etching would show.

And the reverse would be patterned as well

The cabochon was set along with an amethyst, and it was strung on to leather with copper beads.

I used the clasp I had left over from Lesley's COM last month to finish it. 

I had loads of fun designing this, and it was great to get back to some metal working. Thanks to Susan for the wonderfully inspiring component!

If you'd like to see what the rest of the AJE team and some special guests created with their components... follow the links!

Guests

Shai Williams

Erin Prais-Hintz

Kari Asbury

Carolyn Lawson

Merja Sundstrom

AJE Members

Susan Kennedy

Diana Ptaszynski

Linda Landig

Lesley Watt

Melissa Meman

Caroline Dewison

Francesca Watson

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Rebekah Payne

Keirsten Giles

Kristen Stevens

AJE Component of the Month reveal - April

This month we were treated to one of Lesley Watt of TheaElements beautiful button clasps. They're really cute and dinky and the perfect finish to any number of designs. I decided this time to keep my ideas simple, and I've had this half brewing in my head for a while, so when the clasp arrived I knew this was the time to create it.

This was the clasp I received... a cute little ammonite!

I like beads, well... that's a bit of an understatement... I love them! I've tried making them from virtually every material you can think of, and have loved them since my Grandma introduced me to her button tin one Summer holiday. I would lay them out in order of favourites, and have hours of fun. Creating this bracelet gave me that same feeling of being a child again, and choosing things just because I like them.

This bracelet contains some of my favourite treasures and is finished off wonderfully with the addition of Lesley's clasp.

There are sterling wire wrapped beads, ceramic, glass and a fine silver urchin set with 30 cubic zirconia all made by me, Czech beads, Spotty bead & blue pear from Gaea, and a sea foam textured round by TheaElements, Glass nugget by Beads for Breakfast, fluorite and a blue stone I can't remember the name of, all finished off with a Bali silver ammonite bead and of course Lesley's button clasp. My favourite thing about the clasp is that it blends in so well to become part of the design, and it was the deciding factor on my colour scheme. I had great fun picking out the colours in it and echoing them with my found treasure.

And this month, I've also made an effort with my photography! Inspired by Keirsten's post about interesting backgrounds, I've acquired an old pallet which I think looks great! I've reimagined it as a boardwalk by the sea for my ocean inspired design!

Hope you enjoyed reading, and a big thank you to Lesley for her beautiful component! If you'd like to see what the other AJE members and guests have made... follow the links :)

Guests

Johana Nunez
Leah Curtis
Perri Jackson

AJE Team

Lesley Watt
Keirsten Giles
Caroline Dewison
Rebekah Payne
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Jen Cameron
Diana Ptaszynski
Kristen Stevens
Francesca Watson
Melissa Meman
Linda Landig
Sue Kennedy

March Component of the month reveal

I’m really excited for this month’s reveal as it’s my design that’s being used by everyone to create their pieces… can’t wait to go and see what everyone’s done!

The component was one of my moth pendants. Handmade and carved from porcelain and glazed with precious metal lustres.

I don’t often use my beads in my own work, so this was a double challenge for me!

I decided I wanted to go for a bold statement piece and toyed around with a few ideas. My first was to make some components from copper clay, but I probably should have tested if I could do that before I committed, as I failed miserably and they were too thin (I’ll know for next time!)

Next I got everything out of my supplies and tried to add as much as I could in, but that didn’t work either. The moth was drowned out by the busyness around it, so I finally settled on a simple chain design with a couple of extra pierced and etched copper moths, Czech turbine & cathedral beads, copper leaves and magatama drops, all topped off with a beautiful chunky copper chain.

I love the Art Nouveau feel to the design, I’m still undecided as to whether the copper moths should have been a bit smaller, but it certainly makes a statement!

And I love the play of colour on the component. They are really difficult to photograph, but you can see in this picture, the deep velvet cerise colours that come through in parts of the glaze.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll visit our special guests and AJE Team members to see what they created with their component!

Guest Artists

Helen Simon – Helen’s had to drop out due to an injury, get well soon Helen!

Niky Sayers – http://silverniknats.blogspot.co.uk

The AJE Team

Caroline Dewison – http://www.blueberribeads.co.uk << you are here

Diana Ptaszynski - http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com

Susan Kennedy - http://www.suebeads.blogspot.co.uk

Kristen Stevens - http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/

Keirsten Giles - http://cerebraldilettante.blogspot.com

Jenny Davies-Reazor - http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog

Melissa Meman –  http://melissameman.blogspot.co.uk

Rebekah Payne - www.treewingsstudio.com

Lesley Watt - http://thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.co.uk

Linda Landig - http://www.LindasBeadBlog.com

Francesca Watson - http://francescawatson.com

AJE Component of the month – February

With February being a short month, we’re a little bit late for the reveal. But this month it was Melissa Meman’s turn to provide the component. Melissa makes stunning enamelled copper pendants and charm’s amongst other things, and she chose fluttering hearts for this months challenge. If you’d like to see more of her work, you can find it here https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MelismaticArtJewelry

This is the pretty pink heart I received to design with. I love the texture of the raised dots of enamel! My heart had 3 holes, one in each corner, and I originally had the idea to rivet it on to a cuff, then I changed my mind and was going to make a brooch, but eventually after jingling around my stash, I decided on a necklace.

I wrapped Czech beads and fluorite with bronze wire and attached them to some beautiful hand dyed silk for an extra splash of colour. I didn’t use a clasp, as it ended up as a long necklace, so can be slipped over your head. The silk is lovely and soft against your skin.

Thanks to Melissa for a beautiful component, it was great fun to work with! And if you’d like to see what the rest of the AJE Team and guests made with their hearts, you can visit them using the links below!

Guests…
Lori Bowring Michaud 
Kathy Lindemer
Kim Bender 

AJE Team…
Melissa Meman
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Rebekah Payne
Caroline Dewison
Kristen Stevens
Keirsten Giles
Sue Kennedy

AJE Component of the month reveal - January

It’s AJE component of the month reveal time again… I can’t believe how quickly January has flown by! I’ve been pretty busy since the beginning of the year with new designs and shop updates, and also designing something around one of these beautiful components from Jenny Davies-Reazor.

Jenny is an amazing mixed media artist, but don’t just take my word for it… 

have a peek at her work here   https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/jdaviesreazor

The components were finished with a word chosen for each of us, and topped with resin to create a stunning keepsake. My word was calm… I could do with a bit of that at the moment, it has been a hectic month!

Calm for me is the evening. My favourite time is a Summer’s evening at dusk.  There is a peaceful stillness that falls over the garden, the drone of everyday busyness has died down and as it says in my word description, there is a feeling of tranquillity. Then as the sun sets, the heat of the day fades and the stars start to appear one by one… I’m relaxing just thinking about it!

Ahem… back to my design…

My component came with 2 holes, but for the idea I had in mind, it needed at least 3. I didn’t want to drill it, so I used copper wire to create the loops where I needed them. From the word, I hung one of my porcelain moons, a Czech glass bead and a copper star cut from sheet. I pulled out the blue silk and loved the colour combination with the blue, copper and gold, but it wouldn’t hang right on the silk alone. I wanted to add more beads to create the feeling of luxury, so more copper wire wrapped in a spiral created the stiffness and loops I needed.

I’ve a bit of a thing for Czech glass at the moment (you might have spotted that!), so I pulled out everything I had in blue and gold and swapped and changed them until I was happy. A handmade simple copper clasp finished off the design.

Looking at it again, I’m tempted to add some more dangles, I might play with it a bit more!

Big thanks to Jenny for the chance to create something with her wonderful component! It has been great fun to work with!   If you’d like to see what she and everyone else has created with their own words, follow the links below…

Thanks for reading! x

Guests:
Hope of Craftyhope -
Sarajo of SJ Designs Jewelry

Jennifer Cameron
Diana Ptaszynski
Lesley Watt
Susan Kennedy
Caroline Dewison
Linda Landig
Melissa Meman
Keirsten Giles
Rebekah Payne
Kristen Stevens
Jenny Davies Reazor