Another Friday, another Fabulous Friday Finds post. I can tell these are going to be fun. And the good thing is that I'm not even having to look very hard to find fabulous stuff!
The first fabulous thing I want to show you is on flickr. Begun by Nina Dinoff, a talented jewelry designer, the Ring a Day challenge is without a doubt one of the most creative undertakings I've ever seen. One of my favorite artists, DDee Wilder (aka Malodora) is participating, and I freely admit to stalking her flickr feed to see her rings of the day every day.
One of my favorite rings of Nina's is this Shooting Gallery ring. What a hoot! She has some equally fabulous ones in her photostream, and it's only February!
And this one by my friend DDee is just wonderful:
Those are just a couple of the rings. There are LOTS of people participating in the challenge, and you won't believe what some of them have created. Check out the entire Ring a Day challenge pool HERE.That's not all I wanted to share for this Fabulous Friday. One of my beadweaving friends posted a link to Mary Harding's Etsy shop because she's having a fabulous Valentine's Day sale -- 40% off!! I've been ogling the creations in her shop all morning, and I think I'm going to grab a few goodies before they go away. Her ceramic pendants are gorgeous, with such detail and such surprising colors. Check this out:
Okay, it's time for me to have some latte and do a little beadweaving. Before I leave, let me remind you that you can still receive a 20% discount from my friend Doree (aka PinkQuartzMinerals) on some of her wonderful mineral makeup. Check out last week's Fabulous Friday Finds to see how.
AND... I'm still having a 3-for-2 pattern sale on all peyote patterns in my Etsy shop. I have 25 patterns listed and am working on getting more of them ready to publish, so if you have a particular favorite design that's not listed yet, let me know! The 3-for-2 sale goes through the end of February -- purchase two patterns and receive a third pattern of equal or lesser value FREE (leave the name of the third pattern in the Notes to Seller when you check out).
Happy Friday, everyone!! :-)
If you're anything at all like me, you spend a lot of your online time drooling over the wonderful creations of others. I spend an inordinate amount of time browsing Etsy, flickr, 1000 Markets, Facebook, and all sorts of other places and am constantly amazed at the creativity and artisanship I see.
It wasn't too long ago that I was looking at pictures on flickr and came across some new smoke-fired clay pieces posted by Kristie Roeder. They were amazing! I could tell from the pictures that the textures of the pieces were lovely and smooth, and the muted color tones created by the smoke-firing process had such an earthy feel that I immediately fell in love with them. I left a comment on one or two of the pictures and mentioned something about doing a collaboration - I so wanted to do some beadweaving with one or two of Kristie's pieces (the only problem was that they were being purchased just about as fast as she was listing them in her Etsy shop).
Imagine how happy I was when Kristie contacted me and said she'd like to do a collaboration. We worked out the details, and she sent me a package with several of her smoke-fired pieces as well as some of her stoneware and recycled crackled glass pieces. I've had them sitting next to me for awhile, waiting for each of them to talk to me and tell me what it wants to become. A couple of them spoke up (screamed, actually), so they were the first to be turned into jewelry.
The first one is called Suspended Heart. The smoke-fired heart is, just as I imagined, very smooth and soft feeling; and it has wonderful patterns left on it from the firing process. I used a piece of heavy gauge copper wire I had found on the beach at Lake Michigan to suspend it from a very different type of bail I created with matte metallic bronze delicas. The necklace portion is made from two strands of ndebele rope and a single strand of delicas, loosely braided to mimic the lines in the face of the heart.
The second piece is called Atalanta, a Greek name that means "equal in weight." This one features one of Kristie's smoke-fired donuts as the focal. Once again I used salvaged material, this time some pieces of driftwood, to suspend the focal. Rather than try to match the color of the donut or the driftwood, I decided to go in a completely different direction and choose a color that would complement the browns. These dark red matte beads were the perfect color and texture. All the beadweaving is single peyote in varying widths.
I still have more pieces waiting for me, and I have a few ideas brewing. I do have a tendency to work right up to a deadline, and since I have until August 20 to get these in Kristie's hands (she's going to display them at the Philadelphia Bead Fest!!!), I'll have time to do at least one or two more pieces.
Want to be inspired? Check out Kristie's Etsy shop. You'll be amazed at all the gorgeous pieces she has in there! Here's just a sampling:
