MiShel Designs: Fibula

Remember here, when I showed you what Lisa,

of A Grateful Artist / Pine Ridge Treasures,

had so graciously sent me for the Bead Table Blog Hop she was hosting?

And how I told you what a challenge it would be for me since so many of the beads she sent were ones I didn't normally design with?

Well today's the day you get to see what I, along with the other participants, created with our stash of goodies!

Everyone was sent something different from Lisa's bead table and we were instructed to create things using her 'bead table stash' along with little goodies from our own bead tables. We were instructed not to purchase anything (if possible) to go along with our beads we were sent and to be as creative as possible.

So, out of the above goodies that I was sent, here's what they morphed into,....

First up, there's the Red, White And Blue beads which completely captured my attention - I love Red, White and Blue (Go Wildcats!!) Of course this will get worn over the 4th of July, but also during all the U of A games!! I know,...I live in Phoenix not Tucson any more but, I'm a Wildcat fan, what can I say!?!

I took the mother-of pearl pendant that was in the bunch that Lisa sent and mixed in the blue glass rectangle beads (that remind me of Italy, by the way!) and the red disks,...and a few little seed beads and then used one of the lucite flowers and the 'blue coral' beads in the little dangles and another lucite flower as the clasp / connector. From my own bead table I used the blue seed beads in navy and a mixed blue/white color and I knotted everything on some S-Lon cording. (the bead shop where I shop doesn't carry C-lon and S-lon and C-lon are basically the same material,...mostly the same colors/sizes, too - just FYI). Oh, and I tied on a little bow of recycled Sari Silk that I got from Hampton Artistic Yarns over on Etsy.

That little silver sun charm kept yelling for my attention as did all those yellow and orange beads (Colors I don't normally work with, but that I love and that always capture my attention!)

And then there were all the lucite flowers,....oh boy, what to do with these - this was the challenge! I don't use much lucite, acrylic or plastics in my work and even less flowers,.....so these were super hard to get in the 'zone' with. I love how all my fellow beady-peeps I follow can make these sweet flowers look so wonderful and appealing in their designs - me,....not so much. They look forced and way weird when I use them. That's how I feel, anyway.

However, these earrings happened quite easily,....and they make me want to have spring all over again, even though I love Autumn!

And then, I'd read a post (so wish I could remember where,...it was from a department store,...I think?? oh well, anyway) and the post had this link to a video showing how to creatively wear brooches,...Was is Nieman Marcus? Oh poo!! It wasn't, but for the life of me I didn't save it and cannot find it - anyway - back to what I created.

I wanted to create something I don't make very often but really enjoy designing, so I made a fibula/brooch and used the yellow and orange beads and flowers Lisa sent along with 16g sterling silver wire and then wrapped the beads with some pretty green craft wire to make it seem more like a garden.

It reminds me of Rome,...not because Fibulae is the Latin term for the ancient Roman brooch, but because of the sun and golden colors of the beads and because it was bright and sunny and the grass was such a lovely color of green last month when I was walking through the Palentino and the Forum and there were gardens,...and I'm getting side-tracked again! (see,...Sidetracked Shelly!! But, you see where my inspiration came from now, right?)

So, last, I turned my attention back to the blue beads,....it's a safe bet,..me and blue!

I wanted to knot some of these cute blue beads into earrings and I had been leafing through my copy of Erin Siegel and Lorelei Eurto's Bohemian Inspired jewelry book again last weekend and remembered Erin's Vintage Glam earrings from page 34 and decided that something similar to those would be nice, so here's what became of those pretty blue beads and that idea: