Showing posts with label design challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design challenge. Show all posts

Thursday, 31 July 2014

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
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
Francesca Watson - www.francescawatson.com


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Thursday, 3 July 2014

AJE Component of the Month - June

Here we are again, another month has flown by. I've not had much time for making recently as we're doing a lot of work around the house and garden, which means most of my supplies have been put in to storage.

This month, I managed to retrieve a few bits and bobs to create something with my beautiful Art Jewelry Elements COM from Linda Landig.

Linda has recently jumped in to the addictive world of ceramics and produced her first clay components. As well as her ceramics, Linda also creates beautiful jewellery and you can find her work here - LindaLandigJewelry

Here are some of the components we chose from...


I picked this beautiful rose pink and blue floral pendant to design with. (I'm not explaining myself for forgetting to photograph them before I start any more... you're probably used to it by now!)


I was limited to what I could get to to create my design, but I found seed beads, Czech glass and crimp wire and put them together to create a simple but pretty necklace.



The leaves and flowers fell together on my mat and I loved how they looked, so started with that as the base for the design.



The beaded berries are made from magatama drops and seed beads.


I would have preferred an antique bronze clasp on the necklace, and bronze wire for the pendant (which I will swap over when I get my supplies back) But for now it has a brushed steel toggle and silver wire.



I'd like to say a great big thank you to Linda for her beautiful component, I've had great fun designing with it, and I've also found that limiting yourself can be a good exercise!

If you'd like to see what the rest of the team received and what they created, click on the links...



Guests
Ann Schroeder
 Mischelle Andrade Fanucchi
Therese Frank

AJE Members
Susan Kennedy
Diana Ptaszynski
Linda Landig
Lesley Watt
MelissaMeman
Caroline Dewison
Francesca Watson
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Rebekah Payne
Kristen Stevens
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Thursday, 17 April 2014

Spring Fever Design Challenge – The Reveal!

Good morning all. The day is finally here… the big reveal.

I’m so excited to visit all the blogs and see what everyone has made, but first a quick recap…
Lesley Watt, Claire Braunbarth and myself each supplied some of our goodies to put together challenge packs with a Spring Theme.



Sets were sent out to 23 participants all over the world with the challenge of creating Spring themed designs.

 I was thrilled with the set I received back after they’d all been put together, it was done blind so that none of us knew what we would be getting. As usual, I forgot to take a picture of what I got before I used it, (you think I’d have got the hang of it by now!)
There was a beautiful green ceramic focal and bead set from Lesley, as well as some small cream and rust coloured beads which you’ll see later on!

Some orange/red silk from Claire

and a bird set  by me. There was a smaller white bird and a leaf in the set, but I didn’t get round to using those!

The first piece I chose to work with was Lesley’s focal pendant. I love the green on this one. It’s not a colour I would have picked up myself to work with, but once I got going, I loved the rustic design that came through from it. The necklace is strung with leather and I created a knotted bail with the same leather and one of my lamp work urchins which matched the colours nicely. I began with a few of my ceramic beads, but seemed to have got a bit carried away as I ended up with a great big chunky statement necklace. I’m not overly sure about the sliding clasp on this one. I might change that!

Next, I chose the small ceramic beads from Lesley, and silk from Claire. I must have had a rustic mood on, as I grabbed more leather. This time it was 5mm thick. The silk was wrapped around the leather and secured with copper wire. I started out with it wound around the whole thing, but I liked the natural colour of the leather poking through.

I love the multi strand designs that are popular at the moment, so I chose some coordinating beads and attached the strands together with 5mm end caps. After trying it on, I wanted the strands to sit in a certain way, so I made a couple of large copper jump rings to hold them together and added some dangles. I am constantly fighting the urge to add everything I have to my designs, I just love beads so much! But I think the 3 added here set it off just right.

And for my final piece, I was left with my bird set. I bought some stunning flower beads from Laney (Izzybeads) at the Flame off with the intention of using them for the challenge. I played around with all sorts of designs and added bits in and ended up with most of my stash out on the worktop. This design sort of fell together out of the chaos, and is my favourite of the three.
I created a lariat with silk ribbon in three colours and 2mm leather! It was undone half a dozen times while I decided on the best placement, but I kept it simple so that the flowers were the main focus. I’m pleased with how the ribbons drape and look like tendrils sprouting from the flowers. It’s lovely and light to wear, and I think the most Spring like of the designs.
Sorry about the poor photo on this one, I went out to retake this and one of my lovely children stood on a flower and broke it :( This was the best of what I had!

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking through my designs and taking part in the challenge!

And now for my favourite part… the hop! 

Thank you to everyone who’s joined us in the challenge, we were overwhelmed by the fantastic response we got and I’m bursting to see what you’ve made!
Here are the links…
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Sunday, 23 February 2014

Spring Fever Design Challenge

What do we want? Spring! When do we want it? Now! Well all right then!


I usually love Autumn and Winter, but I don’t feel that we’ve had proper seasons this year… what should have been crisp frosty mornings and beautiful snow filled landscapes has turned in to a wet mess. We’ve had damaging storms across the country, and the South has been hit by awful floods.
We’re ready for it to be over and are looking forward to everything Spring brings. There are small signs in the garden of warmer times coming, the bulbs are starting to break the surface and over the last few days, the birds have been singing. So in the hope of things to come, myself and Lesley Watt are hosting a glorious technicoloured ceramic Spring Fever design Challenge! 
 There are beads from myself…

 There are beads from Lesley…

Everything has been specially made for the challenge with the theme of Spring. But that’s not all… this year, the lovely Claire Braunbarth of Smitten Beads will be joining us adding some of her sari silks in to the design packs.

Each pack consists of a surprise flower focal set from Lesley, a surprise bird bead set from me and a length of matching silk from Claire. Each bead is handmade and individual.
The challenge sets are offered at the discounted price of GBP£12 each + P&P (£2.50 uk/£3.75 overseas) and there are only 20 available. Winners of the sets will be randomly chosen from comments left on mine and Lesley’s blog.
If you’re a winner, we will let you know, get in touch for payment, and your pack will be posted out. You can create as many designs as you wish, using the beads and silk from us and anything in your stash. Designs need to be completed and ready for the big reveal and blog hop onWednesday 16th April.

 

 All you have to do to enter is comment on this post or on Lesley’s blog post but please note – you must be willing to take part in the blog hop on Wednesday 16th April.
There are are lots of ways you can increase your chances of winning too… Do any of the following and leave an additional comment each time and you will get an extra entry for each one:
Share this giveaway on your own blog
Share this giveaway on your Facebook pages, Google+, Twitter etc.
Become a new follower of ‘The Gossiping Goddess’
Become a new follower of ‘Blueberri Beads’
Become a new follower of Smitten Beads
Become a follower of my Facebook page.
Become a follower of Lesley’s Facebook page.
Become a follower of Claire’s Facebook page
Follow me on Pinterest
Follow Lesley on Pinterest
Follow Claire on Pinterest
Like Lesley’s Etsy shops THEA jewellery and THEA too.
Like my Etsy shop Blueberri Beads
Anything else of you can think of to spread the word.
Don’t forget to leave a separate comment for each method to maximise your chances though! The draw will close at 8pm GMT on Wednesday 26th February and we will randomly select and announce the winners on Friday 28th February.
Winners will be sent an e-mail asking them to forward payment in Great British Pounds to my Paypal address – payments should be made as quickly as possible to ensure beads are shipped in good time.
We will aim to have all packed shipped by Monday 10th March which will allow five plus weeks for delivery and design. It’s as simple as that so good luck and I’ll see you back here on the 28th and hope you’ll be with us for the big reveal.
If you’d like to see what happened in the last challenge we hosted, check out the Pinterest board here to see the stunning Autumn design Challenge creations.
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