Challenge of Color

Have you ever participated in a blog hop?  They’re a lot of fun, and I hope you’ll climb aboard and join us for Erin’s Challenge of Color Blog Hop today.

About a month ago, Erin challenged her readers to design jewelry based on a paint chip palette that she selected for each of us.  No two participants received the same palette.  When I e-mailed Erin to join the challenge, I asked her to select a palette for me that’s outside of my comfort zone.  She responded by mailing an earthy paint chip palette to me:

When I first saw the paint chips, I thought that perhaps I had made a mistake when I encouraged Erin to choose colors outside of my comfort zone – this palette isn’t even on the same planet as my comfort zone!  But as luck would have it, I had recently ordered a few ceramic links by Kylie Parry, including a textured coin that is a perfect match for “Fiery Volcano”.  So perhaps Erin’s choice was more fortuitous than I thought at first.

I left the paint chips and ceramic link on my bead table for a couple of weeks, hoping that my muse would guide me somehow.  She must be on strike, though, because inspiration never struck and I finally forced my migraine-riddled bod to sit at the bead table for a couple hours yesterday.  There’s nothing like a looming deadline to get my creative juices flowing.

When I design to a particular palette, I tend to pull out a wide variety of matching beads from my stash without deciding whether I’ll actually use them or not.  It’s sort of like brainstorming, where you write down anything that comes to mind without censoring.  I approach my stash with the same mindset – if the bead will work within the prescribed palette, it lands on my work surface.  It’s a messy way to design, but it works for me!

Among the beads I pulled out are everlasting curly shells that looked something like this before I unstrung them:

Photo from Fire Mountain Gems

Turns out that over the Thanksgiving holiday, my daughter (Christine), my niece (Sarah), and I visited a wonderful little bead shop in Helena, AL, Bead Biz.  Keeping in mind Erin’s palette selection, I found a strand of everlasting shell pendants that immediately caught my eye.  I added a simple antiqued brass wire-wrapped bail to form a pendant:



Once I connected the pendant to the ceramic link with a bit of copper chain, the rest of the necklace seemed to fall into place with little effort:

In addition to the ceramic link and shell pendant that match the “Fiery Volcano” chip, I added freshwater pearls to match “Tumbleweed Tan,” and a dyed jade nugget to add a dash of “Wild Seaweed.”  Antiqued brass and copper chain and wire add depth to the earthy palette.  As luck would have it, I found a gorgeous length of velvety ribbon from Larkspur Funny Farm and Fiber Art Studio.  The ribbon blends all three shades beautifully and adds versatility to the design. 

Finally, since I can’t seem to craft a necklace or bracelet with also designing matching earrings, I scaled down the components for super-simple danglies:

As Erin requested, I’ve named my design in keeping with the paint chip names:  “Fiery Beach.”

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you have as much fun hopping the blogs as I did meeting Erin’s challenge.  Now please scroll down for links to the other Challenge of Color participants' blogs.

 

The Challenge of Color Blog Hop, 12/3/2010

Participants:

Alice Peterson

Amy Freeland

Beth McCord

Brandi Hussey

Cary Scholes

Catherine Pruitt

Cindy Wimmer

Claire Maunsell

Cory Tompkins

Courtney Breul

Cristi Clothier

Cynthia Riggs

Emanda Johnson

Erin Prais-Hintz

Holly Westfall

Janea McDonald

Jeannie Dukic

Jennifer Cameron

Judy Campbell

Karyn White

Keirsten Giles

Kelly Morgan

Kristie Roeder

Kristin Stevens

Lisa Godfrey

Lisa Tracy  [You are here]

Lori Anderson

Mallory Hoffman

Marie Voyer-Cramp

Mary McGraw

Nicole Keller

Nicole Valentine

Paige Maxim

Patty Gasparino

Rebecca Anderson

Renate Stark-Krammer

Rita Parra

Shannon Chomanczuk

Sheila Summers

Stefanie Teufel

Yelisa Rojas