Welcome to the Spring Fever Challenge, co-hosted by Lesley Watt of The Gossiping Goddess, Caroline Dewey of BlueberriBeads, and Claire Braunbarth of Smitten Beads.
Our challenge was to create with bead mixes made with art jewelry elements from each hostess. Participants each received beautiful ceramic layered flowers and coordinating beads by Lesley Watt (THEA Elements), lovely sari ribbon from Claire Braunbarth (Smitten Beads), and beads by Carolyn Dewey (BlueBerriBeads) featuring her beloved, quintessential ceramic birds.
The bead mix I received is full of vibrant color!
As I meditated on the happy colors, I began to relish the memories of blue, yellow and cream colorways from my life: my kitchen growing up with yellow checkered curtains, years spent happy, laughing with my sister as our mom chatted with us. I thought of childhood and nature, remembering my wild child hair that I was warned "would attract birds for a nest" -- haha!
Oh, how I now love and cherish my memories and my bead mix.
Spring has sprung!
Here in Orlando, life is warm and lovely year round,
yet spring brings even more lovely changes ...
the sun shines brightly, and each day is very warm
Our backyard fountains and pool comes to life
Soft clouds gently dance in the sky
Sweet, clean ocean air breezes across the peninsula
Daily tropical afternoon showers bring rainbows
Everywhere flowers bloom and life gets growing
This week, the lunar eclipse was so magical, my family stayed up all night long to experience it! My daughter and grandson played outside in the middle of night.
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| THE LUNAR ECLIPSE |
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| My grandson in the eerie light of the lunar eclipse |
And I finished my jewelry, working as the sun and moon danced!
THEa ELEMENTS Ceramic Flower Focal & Floral blue bead:
Rosary chain stations in brass with blue chalcedony rondelles and yellow AB crystal rondelles,
sunshine yellow ceramic round beads by THEa Elements accented with Swarovski sapphire bicones;
AND so excited to addvery special beads: orange yellow lampwork made by Lori Anderson! She gifted the rare beads to me in our Pantone swap, and I love how they perfectly reflect the sunset shades in Lesley's beautiful flower, as if always meant for this necklace. So uplifting and full of warmth!
Among her many talents, Lori Anderson of Pretty Things also makes lampwork beads! Isn't she incredible? I love the beads she gifted me, and they are wonderful in the spring necklace. Her lampwork in sunset, along with Lesley's yellow ceramics, look so pretty! I also added lampwork by SueBeads along with the blue ceramic bead in the clasp.
In addition, I created coordinating earrings. I was delighted when some of my left over beautiful recycled glass discs gifted from my lovely BSBP6 partner,
Mags Saari (see her blog! She is an AMAZING artist) coordinated with the pretty blue of Lesley's ceramic art beads! I added Swarovski bicones (from Margot Potter store :) in sunny yellow and sapphire, and the sunset AB rondelles. The wonderful gold triangle jump rings are from my beloved
Windbent.
Blueberri Beads Ceramic Feather
Along with Caroline's popular and lovely "mummy and baby" birdies, I was given a feather.
Inspiration struck as I decided to celebrate the feather and design with unique carved bones recently given to me by Heather Richter, and faux carved bone beads by Nicole Welch. I added a little abstract feather by
Scorched Earth at the clasp. So often in spring, my girls and i would begin camping, or gather with friends around campfires singing, "The Earth The Air The Fire the Water Returns Returns Returns Returns...." This necklace reminds me of earth in spring, drumming, celebrating mother, returning to each other.
Ceramic feather, bone, agate, faux bone, cotton ribbon, antique copper and brass.
In honor of the lunar eclipse, I made coordinating turtle earrings with crescent moons.
The turtles arrived in the mail as a surprise gift just in time to become lunar lovelies!
I added a little abstract leaf to the clasp - it looks like a smile! -- from
Scorched Earth
With the birds, I created a Mother's Day pearl lariat necklace. I decided to use the sweet birds as charms, and made three beaded rondelles to add to the ceramic charms. I wasn't sure if i should keep the lariat simple with the mummy and baby, keeping two of my beaded beads for earrings, but I decided to create "fringe" instead. I like the effect.
I strung freshwater pearls with pearlized blue seed bead spacers into a very long necklace;
using the ceramic clasp by
Pajado Art House, I made a lariat of pearls. The beaded beads (pattern by
Datz Katz) were made to coordinate, as garden flowers for the sweet BlueberriBeads birds.
Smitten Beads Sari Silk Ribbon
With the sari ribbon, I was thrilled to create a soft, gentle necklace for a a seed bead
focal I created with
The Color of Dreams bead. The blue of the silk and the purple lace
look so pretty with the crystals and blue freshwater pearls.
I wanted to braid or arrange the ribbons in a brilliant way..
I tried to think of something clever, but I'm hoping I'll get new ideas
today from our reveals! For now, they are soft against the lush focal.
SPRING FEVER CHALLENGE ARTISTS LIST
see what has sprung up!
Thanks for looking!
