Black, Gold, and Penguins

I purchased a handful of these black Swarovski crystal rivolis a couple of months ago. I originally thought they would find themselves in a neckpiece. However, when I finished the "Joie de Vivre" cuff, I decided to the dig out the rivolis. I've been holding onto these gold daggers waiting for the right pair of earrings to incorporate them. I'm usually so sick of a color combination after I've finished a piece, especially if it is a cuff or neckpiece. I think I was influenced by the fact that Pittsburgh Penguins kick off their season tonight. Something that we are looking forward to here at our house. There's been a lot of coverage of the team this week because they will be raising the banner representing their Stanley Cup win last year.

Black and gold are sacred in this town and you can never go wrong with black and gold.

Good luck Penguins!

Over the Moon

This was my submission to this week's Thursday Sweet Treat Blog. The theme was "Over the Moon". I created this one of a kind art pendant.

The moon was created with four pyrite beads that are surrounded by a variety of seed, Czech, bugle, and glass beads. The dark side of the moon was created with several different types of black beads. A cascading fringe hangs from the bottom of the pendant. It was created with Czech and seed beads. The pendant hangs from a simple circular neck wire and is backed in black ultrasuede.

So I intended to post this to my etsy shop to keep up with my personal challenge. But due to an unfortunate glitch, my computer keeps losing it's connection and I can't get it posted to on etsy. I get the whole description typed into etsy and then try to move on to the next step and I lose the connection. This has provided an unending amount of frustration. I'm hoping the issue is with etsy and not my computer. I haven't had a bit of trouble getting things posted here.

So I'm going to say that at least I got a new item posted on the blog and hope to post this piece, plus another new one tomorrow on etsy.

I hope that your day has been less frustrating than mine.

Black and White Cuff

I love this dramatic black and white cuff, but it didn't start that way. When I first started work on it, I was extremely frustrated. I usually work with a larger palate of colors. I wanted to try my hand at working with only black and white. I pulled every black and white bead from my ever growing stash. I had acquired the two quartz stones awhile back. I figured that they would become the centerpiece of a neckpiece or cuff, but would be surrounded by a rainbow of colors. As usual, I didn't have a specific plan when I started the cuff. I arranged the cabochons and started beading. Well, after only a few rows of beads I quickly decided that only black and white was not going to do. I was going to have add another color. Focusing only on the black and white, the cuff had no depth and no character. Gray was the natural choice. The addition of gray gave a pleasing step between the black and white beads. The cuff was also embellished with pearls, shell beads, glass beads, and hematite beads. 

So after, a rather dissatisfying start, I was over the top at the finished piece. It is truly a piece of art to wear. 

You can see more pictures of the cuff at my Etsy site (www.jodihorgan.etsy.com).

Custom Order

A friend of mine wanted a simple pendant that she could wear every day with just about everything. She picked a fossilized coral bead for the center. The one she picked is incredible. It is very detailed. It looks like tiny little flowers. We decided to keep the focus on the beautiful bead and surrounded it with various black seed beads. I alternated between shiny and matte to give the piece some added detail. The pendant hangs from a leather cord that has added beads on either side. The pendant is small, only about 1 1/2 inches wide. I delivered the piece to her this morning and she was very happy. So I'm happy too.

Pyrite Earrings

Here's the next pair of earrings. These earrings use a square pyrite bead and a pewter bead as the focal points. The beads are surrounded by matte gray and metallic blue seed beads. A beautiful metallic blue dagger bead hangs from the bottom with Czech glass beads on either side. The earrings hang from sterling silver ear wires and are backed in black ultrasuede.

It is a rainy weekend here so I hoping that I can get some more beading done. I'm also glad it's raining because I just don't feel like weeding the garden. I'd rather weed through my beads.

Skipping Stones Cuff

While on our recent road trip, we took a few moments to skip stones on Lake Champlain. My youngest daughter was so excited when she got a stone to skip two times over the water. We could have stood there forever skipping stone after stone. 

I created the Skipping Stones Cuff to capture that memory. The center stone is a lavrovite stone. The stone is a combination of black, gray, silver, and blue. Each of the stones I bought is slightly different. Some have black spots and others have blue streaks across them. Three dark blue Czech beads are randomly placed on each side. Surrounding each of these Czech beads are seed beads that mimic the ripples of the water. The base is a metal cuff and the underside is covered with navy ultrasuede.

Moulin Rouge Sunflower Pin

Over the past few weeks, my family has been working hard to get our gardens prepared and planted. Although we grow a lot of different things, my favorites are the flowers. Sunflowers and zinnias are always planted. A few years ago, I stumbled upon these Moulin Rouge sunflowers. I thought that they would be a nice addition to the sunflower garden. We were all so excited when they finally bloomed. 

From far away these sunflowers look black. The contrast between the dark flowers and the bright yellow sunflowers was very dramatic. When you get up close, you can see that they are really a dark crimson. They have a velvet look to them. And as you can see below the bees really love them.

Last weekend, my daughter helped me plant the first round of sunflowers (about 1,500 seeds). Of course, we planted more Moulin Rouge and we will now wait very impatiently for them to grow and bloom. 

In the meantime, I posted my bead embroidered Moulin Rouge Sunflower pin to my Etsy store. Check out the listing to see more pictures of the pin.