The Color of Dreams: Clay and Lucite Blog Hop

This Grateful Artist Blog Hop

 begins with

The Color of Dreams

My daughter & I decided to both create jewelry, inspired by the beautiful palettes, patterns, and motifs of polymer clay artist Patricia Handschuh. A Florida artist, Handschuh has that rare ability to infuse her art with her world; living in a tropical paradise, Handschuh's beads are a confluence of the spiritedness, exuberance, and lightness of the peninsula. Each art bead is its own little sanctuary. Her beads are full of vibrancy, color & energy, and creating with her work is joyful. My daughter and I simply couldn't get enough, and we happily purchased additional beads from The Colors of Dreams for today's challenge! 

Our beads arrived wrapped like candy, with special treats!

The Color of Dreams boutique is a little bit of heaven.  

(And a Valentine's Day discount is available now! ;) 

With our additional Color of Dreams beads, my daughter decided to use both bead mixes sent by Lisa in order to create a necklace of "Easter egg" colored spring jewelry, and I discovered to my delight that two of the additional beads worked perfectly in an antique brass and teal/ turquoise colorway of beads I had gathered into a Mise en place weeks ago!  

My daughter's jewelry:

The Color of Dreams beads strung on hand knotted on silk,
 with silver lined blue seed beads and both our Lucite & crystal bead mixes.

My jewelry: 

The pretty butterfly Color of Dreams pillow bead was a perfect for my turquoise & teal seed beads, Vintaj butterfly, and Picasso drops just waiting on my bead board to take flight.

 I hand cut about 360 jump rings from antique copper German wire, and created a "beadmaille"** necklace, a combination of beadwork & chainmaille.

An upcycled Kirk's Folly angel became the charm holder for the Vintaj butterfly,

sparkling stars & moons, and pretty Czech. I may still embellish the brass butterfly

with my Metal Me This turquoise patina....What do you think? Dap & Patina? 

 ** Beadmaille is a technique  invented by Cindy Thomas Pankopf that combines beadwork & chainmaille. I'm learning from her book, "BeadMaille" and beginning to understand what it takes to combine two technique weaves like RAW & Euro. In essence, it is very simple, and I think beadmaille has lots of potential. However, this isn't something I've seen really take off yet, or be explored by artists other than Pankopf (if you know another Beadmaille designer, please share! I'd love to see the work) . That said, I hope to learn the technique enough to begin experimenting on my own. This design is my second beadmaille piece and is a variation of her "Art Deco" necklace.

Thank you, Lisa, For Hosting Our Hop Today!

The Grateful Artist

 

Enjoy all the jewelry of the Clay & Lucite Blog Hop:

Special Guest of Honor:Patricia Handschuh of The Color of Dreams Blog :)

Isolina Perez, Isolina Perez

Jennifer Reno, Musings of a Crafty Jenny 

Tracy Stillman, Tracy Stillman Designs

Charlene Jacka, Clay Space

Alice Craddick, Alice's Beads and Baubles

Therese Frank, Therese's Treasures

Kay Thomerson, Kayz Kreationz

Ashleigh Kleinhans Becker, Sela Designs Jewelry

Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs

Alice McCarthy, Northwoods Creative Studio

Rebecca Sirevaag, Becca's Place

Toltec Jewels, Jewel School Friends    *** you are here :)

Emma Todd, A Polymer Penchant

Kathy Lindemer, Bay Moon Design 



Toltec Jewels is an author by day, jewelry maker by night. Her literary work is housed by the San Fransisco MOMA and is published internationally in popular magazines, literary quarterlies, and university publications. She has won a number of awards for literary and jewelry arts. She is happiest making handcrafted jewelry with her entire family, snuggling with her doggies and grandkids, sewing, singing, reading, and learning jewelry techniques. She is the host of Jewel School Friends, a community of expert and emerging artisans taking inspiration from each other and Jewel School. Join her on Facebook for networking, fundraising for Beads of Courage, jewelry making challenges, contests, give-a-ways and of course, cool beads and jewelry!