The Key,...

~The Sea Will Forever Hold The Key To All That Is Me ~

 

A little while back I received an email from my ultra talented friend Jeannie Dukic of Jewelry By Jeannie. Some of you may remember last year when I participated in Jeannie's Design Group, the Echo Creative Club.

Jeannie makes fabulous beads (and really cool jewelry too, by the way), and not just any beads, but super great, polymer clay beads. I had never really worked with Polymer clay beads or pendants in my designs before Jeannie asked me to design with hers last year and wow, what a treat, let me tell you what! 

"My Cherry Tree" necklace by Michelle Buettner

 

I truly enjoyed designing with Jeannie's beads and pendants.  They helped me step out of my design box a bit and try new colors, new materials and different styles - it felt good. And challenging, too. 

So, in Jeannie's recent email, she asked me if I'd be interested in designing something with a few of her new beads she just 'perfected' to look exactly like lamp-work glass beads.

 

Um,....YES, I would! :-)

 

She explained how after much trial and error and going through A LOT of polymer to get them exactly right, she was ready to put them up on her website store and she thought about asking me to design something with a few of them. (Thank you so much Jeannie!!)

Polarity Beads - Jewelry By Jeannie

 

When I opened the package Jeannie sent me (which itself was a work of art!) I was delighted to find these beautiful beads staring back at me.

 

See what I mean - lovely!!

They really DO look just like lampwork beads!!

Incredible!

I was excited at their beautiful blue color. They remind me of aquamarine blue and the color of the sea.  I tried to put some of my aquamarine stones with them - but what I had in my gem stash just didn't go with these beads - mine were too 'green' or something,....not what I had envisioned. 

To me, these beads were screaming "Sea!! Ocean!! Waves!!", so I got out some of my glass beads that look like beach glass and went to work.

I grabbed some C-Lon cord (beadshop.com) in Turquoise and did a bit of macramé to mimic the 'wave' feeling I had with these and added some various sizes and shapes of seed beads in different shades of blues to the glass beads for some contrast in size and texture.

 

I know, I know,...you're all shocked that I actually HAVE seed beads aren't you?  Well, truth be told, I have two little 'bins' completely full of them. Why?  I don't know.  Food for the vacuum, I guess. I can hear it squeal with delight from the broom closet each time I get the bins out. Lord knows that other than stringing them (and I don't even do that very well!), I could never work with these little rascals.  I have such admiration for people who work with them.  I mean seriously, the art they create with these tiny little things just amazes me.

Anyway, I got in this 'zone', if you will, while creating with Jeannie's perfect polymer beads and here's what came of my creative session.

 

 

Jeannie's new beads are called 'Polarity Beads' and they are a dream to work with. So light and versatile. That's one of the main things I like about polymer clay pieces (other than the fact that they can actually look like any other material on earth),  - their weight - or lack there of, actually. It helps when designing pieces so you don't have to have objects of equal weight on the other side to balance the bracelet or whatever you're designing. And, for earrings, these beads would be perfect because they can be larger, but not have the over-the-top weight of some glass beads - thus not weighing you earlobes down. Yeah!! 

 

 

I used this little Heart/Key charm from B'Sue's Boutique as my focal for the necklace. You can't really see the inscription - especially since I used some gilder's paste (also from B'Sue's) over it - but it says:  "He who holds the key, can unlock my heart"

 

Well, the sea holds the key to my heart.

At least that's what it feels like when I'm there,....

 

 

I truly enjoyed creating with Jeannie's new beads and using them as the inspiration for this set.

 

I guess you could say they unlocked a sort of 'key' to a certain area of creativity for me!

"The Key" Jewelry set by MiShel Designs, Polymer Clay Polarity Beads
by Jeannie of Jewelry by Jeannie.

 

 

I hope you get the chance to hop on over to Jeannie's shop and check out all her other lovelies!

 

I personally have my eye on one of her newer Acanthus Pendants (the blue one will go perfectly with some of my Ancient Roman Glass Beads from both Happy Mango and Philip Mertens).

 

I mentioned to the hubs that it would be cool for Christmas - so we'll see what shows up in my stocking on Christmas morning!! :-)

 

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Keys to Creativity!

Cheers,

~Shel~

 

Echo Creative Team - November Reveal!

Once again it's time for the Echo Creative Club Reveal!

This month I decided to keep it simple.

Well, that wasn't actually my original plan, that's just how things turned out. 

 

 

 

I love working leather into my designs and I really liked how it looked with Jeannie's Aspen Leaf Pendant and so I decided to make something to wear for Thanksgiving.

 Each year we spend Thanksgiving weekend at my sister and brother-in-law's cabin in the White Mountains of Arizona.

My hubby and son (a.k.a. the Masked Rider) built this awesome tree house up there and actually sleep in it - my nephew usually joins them - even when it's 17 degrees or colder out.  Silly boys!

My sis, niece and I prepare all sorts of yummy food and there's usually friends from town that travel in to have dinner with us and the cabin is usually full of people and children.

And delicious smells, too.

This year my niece is with her in-laws and so I'm missing her super delicious homemade apple pie - big time!!

(and her, her hubby and their kiddos, too!)

There's lots of Aspen up at the cabin.

And since the Wallow Fire in 2011,  there's a lot more Aspen on the mountain because Aspen come back quite a bit faster than the other trees that were lost in the fire.

I look around and am so grateful for all that is still left.

The trees, the cabins that are still standing and the animals that still call this forest their home.

It's a quiet Thanksgiving this year.

So simple was in order.

Please stop by and visit all the other Echo Creative Club Team Members this month to see what they've created with the components that Jeannie sent them.


Echo Creative Club - November Team

 

Alicia Marinache

Charlie Jacka

Cindy Cima Edwards

Dagi

Donna Martin Bradley

Jeannie K Dukic

Jessica Klaaren

Karen Williams

Kashmira Patel

Kristen Stevens

Michelle Buettner

Shannon Chomanczuk

Sonya Ingersoll-Stille

 

 

 Echo Creative Club

Jewelry By Jeannie
Echo Creative ClubFlickr group

 

 

Until Next Time,

 

Peace, Love and Giving Thanks!

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

Echo Creative Club - October Reveal!

Welcome to the October Edition of the
Echo Creative Team Reveal.

 

Remember when I showed you the two pendants that Jeannie had sent me to be used in both the October and November Reveals? 

 

As I mentioned, I decided to use her wonderful
Cherry Blossom Pendant for the October Reveal.

 

One reason is because it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month and there's shades of PINK all over the place - LOVE that!!

  The other reason is because the leaf she sent reminded me of my sis's cabin and Thanksgiving,...so I wanted to use the leaf charm/pendant for next month's reveal. (Nov.25th)

 

When I saw Jeannie's Cherry Blossom pendant I fell in love with it!  Although I take a lot of pictures of flowers, I don't use many of them in my jewelry designs. But this Cherry Blossom is super gorgeous and it also took me back to my childhood,....



Via Lisa Crabtree - Pinterest

 

 



Growing up in "Mayberry" (how I lovingly refer to my hometown) we had a beautiful cherry tree in our back yard.  I could look out my bedroom window and see it every day. I loved this tree. I loved how it looked in Spring when it would bloom and how the blossoms would smell. 

 

Cherries from King Orchards via Pinterest

 

I also loved the cherries it produced.  I loved them a bit too much.  I ate a lot (I mean a LOT) of cherries off that tree every single year!  So many in fact that each year my body would scream "Enough Already!" and I would break out in hives, covering me from head to toe in huge, itchy, red welts!

 

I even had to come home early one year from Church camp because I broke out in hives w/in 48 hours of getting to camp - that sucked!!  (My parents weren't very happy about having to come and get me, either!) 

 

Still,...I didn't learn. I'd eat a ton of those juicy little 'red-devils' every single summer! Until I got in junior high and didn't want to go through all the itching and looking like an massive red-welt for a couple of weeks!

The dark bark of the tree, branches, cherries, cherry seeds and stems 

 

But I'd still snatch one or two off the tree each year just to temp fate because they were so darned yummy!

However, in my defense,....ya gotta eat a lot of cherries to have a proper 'cherry seed fight' with your brother (who's a few years older than me) who was consistently able to spit seeds a bit farther and faster than I was!  Just sayin',...

 

 

 

I remember one day after school a friend of mine rode his bike over to my house to talk about some of his 'girl problems'.  He was a bit upset and ended up throwing his bike against my cherry tree. I yelled at him for that cause he put a huge gash in the tree and if my dad saw it he would come unglued and yell and my brother and me. 

Well, the tree survived the bike, but when my friend passed away in August of this year that memory came rushing back,...

 

From the Cherry Blossoms to the Cherries,....

 

 

That cherry tree was a source of comfort. It was always there. It always bloomed, always produced the best tasting cherries, it was pretty with or with out blossoms or leaves and was a constant in my life from the time I was born until I left home at age 19.


Anyway, several years after I moved away and after my step-mother had sold our house, I went back to Mayberry and rounded the corner to my Aunt's house where I always stayed when I went home (it was across the street from my old house!) and that's when I noticed it. 
 

The cherry tree had been cut down!  OMG!  How could it be gone!?! I was so angry. I stormed into my Aunt's house demanding to know why on earth those jerks who lived in my old house cut down the most beautiful cherry tree on the face of the planet! 
 

 

 

 

 

She just looked at me, raised her eye brows and said (rather sternly!), "They're not jerks they're kids who grew up here, just like you, and they didn't want to cut down the tree, it got struck by lightning and split in half. They didn't have a choice!  Welcome home.  Now, what do you want to eat?"

 

 

"Oh."  That's all I could say. Just "Oh."  And then the tears started to well up. My Aunt looked at me and said, "Don't you dare cry about it. It's just a tree!" She was right. But, to me, it was my tree,...part of my past,...part of me. 

 

 

 

So, when I got Jeannie's Cherry Blossom Pendant in the mail for the Echo Creative Design Team Challenge this month it brought back all those special memories and the comfort of that tree.

 

I know I'll probably re-design this necklace a hundred more times since nothing will ever be perfect enough,...but for now, this is my "Cherished Cherry Tree".

 

 

Thanks so much Jeannie for allowing me to take a ride down memory lane this month with your beautiful Cherry Blossom Pendant and the Echo Creative Team!

 

 

Be sure to check out all the other participants this month and see the wonderful designs they've created using Jeannie Dukic's (Jewelry by Jeannie) components.


Kim Dwork

Michelle Buettner 

Shannon Chomanczuk 

Jeannie K Dukic

Cindy Cima Edwards

Beth Emery

Erin Prais-Hintz

Charlie Jacka

Kristen Stevens

Lola Surwillo


Echo Creative Club

Jewelry By Jeannie

Echo Creative Club

Flickr group

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Cherry Blossoms!

Cheers,

~Shel~

 

Echo Creative - See What I Got!

I wanted to share with you the lovely components that Jeannie Dukic (Jewelry By Jeannie) sent me for the next two Echo Creative Club Design Team Reveals.

 

 

 

Oh quick,...shut your mouth,...you don't want drool spilling over onto the keyboard! 

I'm really in love with this beautiful Cherry Blossom - aren't you?  Although I take a lot of pictures of flowers, I don't particularly design with them that often, so this will be a great challenge for me.

 

 

 

 

And oh this Aspen Leaf is just super!

I really love fall colors and leaves!

 

 

 

 

I'm able to participate in both the October and the November Reveals, so Jeannie sent me both pieces together and said I can choose which one I want use this month and which I want to use next month.

I am choosing to use the Cherry Blossom pendant this month and the Aspen Leaf for November.

 

Come back here on Thursday, the 25th of October and you can see what all the participants have created for October!

 

Until Next Time,

 

 

 

Peace, Love and Echo Creative Goodness!

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

Echo Creative Club - April Reveal Is Here!

This was one of the months I was able to participate in
Echo Creative Club
sponsored by the talented
Jeannie over at Jewelry by Jeannie.

Jeannie makes some wonderful polymer clay beads and pendants - like the ones pictured here that I received from her a few weeks back for April's challenge.

Each time I looked at Jeannie's pretty Peeled Paint Beads this month, I kept thinking to my self, "Greek Goddess". 

So, I think that's what I was channeling when this bracelet design came to fruition.

 

I don't know,...what do you think?

Not sure if it's really Greek Goddess like or not.

 

I really like the colors though and the way it shines.

The Peeled Paint beads with their yummy turquoise color and the copper and gold tones made them fun to design with and I'm pleased with the way Jeannie's wonderful beads really stand out!

(Thank you Jeannie!)

I'm thinking I need to have a Toga party,...now that it's officially Summer in the desert,.....seriously.

It's reached over 100 degrees a few days this week and it's gonna stay pretty hot until late October,
so a Toga is probably all I'm gonna feel like
wearing for the next 6 months! 

Good thing I'll have my cool bracelet to wear, isn't  it?!!

Those of us on this month's design challenge team are listed below.

Be sure to check out every one's fabulous creations.

There's loads of talented designer's here who have created some yummy eye-candy for you to drool over!!

April Blog Hop
Jeannie K Dukic http://site.jkdjewelry.com/blog
Birgitta Lejonklou http://lejonklou.blogspot.com/
Cindy Cima Edwards http://www.cindycima.com/
Kristen Stevens http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/
Lola Surwillo http://www.beadlolabead.blogspot.com/
Lori Anderson http://www.prettythingsblog.com/
Michelle Buettner http://www.misheldesigns.blogspot.com/
Molly Alexander http://www.beautifullybrokenme.blogspot.com/
Shannon Chomanczuk http://www.formysweetdaughter.blogspot.com/

Oh, and don't forget to hop on over to our
Echo Creative Club Flickr Group
and see all the gorgeous photos
of our designs over there, too!!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Sun Goddesses!

Cheers,

~Shel~