January 2014 – Susan Kennedy

AJE Component of the Month – Jenny Davies-Reazor

It’s time again for the Art Jewelry Elements monthly challenge, and this month, Jenny Davies-Reazor provided us with the component! She made these amazing escutcheon molded polymer clay pendants, with a word saved inside with resin! She made this one especially for me, as I am having a few health issues of late. I always forget to take a photo before I start working on the piece!

Mine was in colors of olive green, verdigris and blue. I love it! As I didn’t have any beads in my stash to really match well with the pendant, I had to go to Michael’s to find something. I found these blue/green glass rounds and they really went so well there was no way I couldn’t purchase them!

Then I looked down and saw the buddha head beads! I knew I had to have that as well!

I used a turquoise teardrop from my stash as well as titanium hematite beads I picked up at Bead Fest and had the bottom done!

I’ve also been dabbling in kumihimo lately, since I won an amazing prize package from Beadaholique last year (yes, LAST YEAR) and ordered s-lon cord to make these braids in the colors of the clay pendant.

The colors of the glass beads also go amazingly well with the cord. During this process, I figured out a way to make looped ends for the braid without using the caps you normally use with kumihimo braid. I have no idea if this has been done with cord before, it’s new to me! I’ll post a tutorial on AJE for it in the future if you’re interested!

The final piece! I’m in love! It’s a long necklace that goes right over your head, no need for a clasp. And it’s so special because Jenny make the pendant especially for me!

Please stop on over to the AJE blog and see what everyone else made with Jenny’s wonderful pendants!

Polymer Clay Word Beads

I’ve not been blogging or checking blogs or much of anything since probably the beginning of October. Even really before that, with getting ready for Bead Fest and ArtBLISS and another bead show I did. But my boyfriend’s father fell and became ill in the beginning of October, and sadly passed at the beginning of December. Then there were the holidays. Then I got really sick with what I think was pneumonia. I am still really tired, having been given blood pressure medication due to my thyroid issue – I’m wondering how long the fatigue will last before I get used to it. But I’ve been slowly working on polymer clay, as you may have noticed, simple things, not very complicated yet, as I really don’t have a dedicated work space for this. My kitchen table it covered with polymer stuff! But I think these rustic word beads turned out pretty nice! You can get them in my SueBeads etsy store a little later today!

I also added more ammonite connectors, this time with ranger patina in three different colors – I like the deep from the sea effect with these!

And I added some paired charms, a swirl pattern in two colors of blue ranger patina, and a pair of ammonites in three colors of rust patina. I really like how these turned out.

New Work – Polymer

I posted on Tuesday over at Art Jewelry Elements about what I have been working on since the beginning of the year. I’m excited because I’ve been incorporating lampwork tools with polymer clay to come up with some pretty cool beads and connectors! Here’s a sample of what’s going into my etsy shop today!

AJE Component of the Month – Rebekah Payne

This month, it was Rebekah’s turn (Tree Wings Studio) to provide the Component of the Month! I was excited about this because I almost immediately knew what I wanted to use with the bead I received.

I chose this olive green one with white and copper dots! Look at the texture on the side of the bead – I really nee to know how she did this – it looks like stretched taffy!

I had purchased these chunky pearls at a bead show here in Pittsburgh a few months back, and I was so glad I did! They go perfectly with the bead Rebekah sent me! I also used two copper lantern beads I had left from a Bead Soup a while ago.

I did NOT, however, have the perfect clasp to go with it, and while I want to make one, I decided to look on etsy and see if I could purchase one.

I found this great toggle clasp from hummingbirdsupply on etsy and this it goes perfectly, with the dots on the clasp. The only thing that might not work is if it’s too antiqued, which I can change, of course, or just go ahead and antique my copper beads. Can’t wait to get it and finish this bracelet – it’s a keeper!