Ceramic beads challenge

Back in July I came across a chance to win some beads and participate in a challenge to use the beads from Shawna Barnes of JSB Arts. When I got the beads a few weeks ago I knew this was going to be a real challenge for me. They were definitely different from the usual beads I incorporate into my work. But I was excited to see what I could do with them. And then life got busy and they got put to the side for a while. The thought of them tumbled around in my head for a while and then came the crunch. With just a few days left before it was to be done and posted I put them on my desk and tried adding different things to see what worked.  I would leave them and come back every once in a while to see how they looked and change it up, trying a different combination. I find this method works well for me. Don't rush it just see what happens in short spurts. Then when the time comes to sit down and really work on the piece it seems to come together without too much struggle.

When I was working on the pendant I thought I had a pretty good idea as to which side was the front. The idea was to have some wire wrapped around the small donut to add some dangles to, but when I was finishing and needed to do something with the wire on the back a swirl began to form so I decided to make swirls with all the wire ends. So now I'm not sure which side I like best. I guess it's a two sided pendant!

What do you think, which would you use for the front?

I'm afraid I forgot to take a picture of the beads before I started. I think you can figure out which are Shawna's. She makes really interesting ceramic beads and components. The ones she send me were very rustic natural looking beads. I added the copper components, seed beads, wiring and dangles.

I hope you like. Check out the other people doing the challenge at JSB Art.

Keep Creating!

Wendy

Ottawa Bead Society Challenge

Although I'm not a beader last year I decided to join the Ottawa Bead Society. It's great place to get inspired by other jewelry makers. They've had some great demos and I always enjoy the show and tell of peoples jewelry creations. One of the first meetings I went to last year was the reveal of their first bead challenge. It was so interesting to see the outcome that I was glad to hear they were doing it again this year and of course signed up to be part of it. The challenge involves groups of 3 people over a 3 month period. How it works is, the first person creates something with beads and passes it along to the second person at the next meeting and they add to the creation and then passes it along to the third person to finish it and bring to the next meeting for the big reveal. Well I was the third person in my group and this is what I received to work on.

I was loving the colours as soon as I saw it because I knew copper would look great with it. My challenge was the strings and loose ends that came with it. Not being much of a beader I was unsure of what to do with them but after consulting with a local beading store I learned a few new tricks and was able to finish it off just the way I wanted. 

I made an etched copper disc to be a backdrop for the beaded circle and finished off the ends with some interesting caps and beads and my usual adjustable copper hook. I think I was so lucky to get this challenge. There were 10 groups in all and the results were spectacular but this was the one that was most my colours which made the design part of the challenge fairly easy for me. 
I didn't manage to get a photo of all the other ones but I'll let you know when they get them up on their web site.
For my first jewelry challenge I think I can say it was a success. I really enjoyed doing it!

Happy Creating!
 Wendy