Design This – Bridesmaids’ Bracelets

Last year when a customer of mine was picking up her custom jewelry set, we got to talking about her daughter’s upcoming wedding. It was coming together as an outdoor summer wedding. I asked if the jewelry had been decided on yet and if not did she have any idea what style, colors or types of jewelry were being looked for. She said that her daughter already had her jewelry taken care of but the bridesmaids’ details had not been worked out yet. I pulled out a strand of pretty, shell leaf beads that I thought would go well with an outdoor wedding, pearls and whatever the wedding colors were going to be. My customer liked them and I suggested that if her daughter liked the necklace and earrings that I had made, that perhaps she would like to come over and look at materials that I had on hand to see if we could work up a design that she would be pleased with.

After being told that a brainstorming session would be welcomed by her daughter and that the materials for the bridesmaids’ bracelets should incorporate clover green, some sparkles, some nature components such as the beads that my customer had seen previously, some pearls and possibly some chain work as I had used in a section of her necklace, mother and daughter came over to look through the materials that I pulled together and examples of some jewelry that I had in stock that I thought might serve as inspiration. After looking over the jewelry and materials, an idea for the bracelets began to take shape. The bride to be liked the idea of a double stranded twisted bracelet for each bridesmaid. She wondered about incorporating “something blue” in the bracelets with another crystal color that complemented her tanzanite ring. Luck was with us and I had what she was looking for. She picked crystals in clover, golden beige and the tanzanite match for one strand and pearls, a pressed glass Czech leaf bead similar but more dainty than the beads I had originally shown her mom and an antiqued gold plated chain for the other strand. She wanted the bracelets to close with a toggle clasp. I was going to have to locate antiqued gold plated toggles to go with the chain that she had picked. We had time though, so I searched.

First I searched at a couple of traveling jewelry markets when they were in town. I could only find shiny gold plated or gold filled, no antiqued gold findings. Then I turned to an online supplier that I had purchased from previously. They had so many choices in a variety of styles that I wanted input from the bride to be to see if she had a preference. We finally settled on a dainty toggle with a leaf motif to complement the Czech glass leaf beads. Once these were ordered the only thing I still needed to know was sizing for the bracelets. After a bit of discussion back and forth, we decided to make two of them the same size with one a little longer.

Now it was time to sit down at my beading board and compose a design from the chosen materials that would look essentially the same in both lengths and put everything together. The twisted design allows for a bit of flexibility in sizing. While there is some twist already incorporated into the bracelets, it is possible to twist them a bit more, shortening them slightly before clasping them. I was very pleased to hear from the bride after the wedding that all three bracelets fit perfectly.

While this design came together through a couple of face to face meetings, it is not necessary to do so for me to design a custom piece for your needs. You can find several other “Design This” posts, using the "search this blog" widget, that describe my custom design process at a distance. Whether near of far, I’d be happy to discuss your custom design needs with you.

Sounds of Summer

Today is the first full day of summer, astronomically speaking. The official start of summer this year for the northern hemisphere was 6:09 pm CDT. Yes, many of us have felt summer temperatures for a while, have been enjoying the summer break from school, have been swimming and picnicking and experiencing many other things that go hand in hand with summer, but now it is official.

What sounds do you associate with summertime? The one that comes to my mind first is the sound of cicadas. On a hot summer evening you may hear the sound of the male cicada singing. I have not heard one yet this year but I did see evidence that adults must be out and about already in Austin, TX. I was at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center a couple of weeks ago and snapped these shots of discarded exoskeletons from when the cicada nymphs molted a final time and became adults.

After the male cicada attracts a female with his song, the female will lay clusters of eggs in small branches or twigs. When the eggs hatch, the nymphs fall to the ground and borrow into it seeking out the juices of tree roots. They will molt several times before emerging for one final molt as they become adults sometime from April through July depending on the species and location. This life cycle takes between 2 and 17 years and depends on the species of cicada. While the nymphs feed on the sap of tree roots and the adults may suck on the juices in tender twigs, “Texas species are not considered to be plant pests,” according to Texas A&M.

I will be listening for cicadas again this year. I find their singing to be soothing as it brings me back to lazy summer evenings and invites me to slow down and take in the sights and sounds around me. Whether it is this sound, the sound of fireworks, the sound of baseball games or whatever says summer to you, I hope you hear it and enjoy your summer.

Photo or Painting?

I have heard that question about my prints a number of times. My artwork starts out as a photograph that I have taken and then is digitally altered to resemble a number of artistic methods and styles such as sketches and paintings from classic to pop art to abstract. The end result is photographic art that can confuse the mind and leave you wondering if it is a photo or a painting or even, how could that have started out as a photo in the first place?

Other styles of art that can confuse the mind are hyperrealism and photorealism. I am always amazed at painters that produce a work of art that looks like a photo. I recently came across one such painter, Jason de Graff. Some people refer to his works as hyperrealism and some as photorealism; I say they are totally amazing. Some of his work would make you swear that you were looking at a photo whereas some have just a bit of another quality to leave you scratching your head and trying to decide, without really being able to pin down exactly what makes you question whether it is a photo or a painting.

I have included an image of one of my photographic art pieces as well as an image of one of Jason’s paintings. Can you guess which is which? When you think you know, click on an image and you will be taken to the artist’s gallery.

How did you do? I’d like to encourage you to browse both galleries to see other examples of hyperrealism/photorealism and photographic art.

Thanks for the Treasuries - May 2012

Three different Etsians let me know that they had featured one or more of my items in a treasury during May. Six May Etsy treasuries, that treasury makers let me know about, included one of my items. You can see a collage below of my items from EDCCollective and EclecticSkeptic and that were featured during May. (Click on the collage to see a larger view.)

I really appreciate being featured by the treasury makers. To thank them, I have listed below (in alphabetical order) links to the 3 Etsy sellers that let me know that they featured at least one of my items, as well as an item from their shop that I like.

Enjoy window shopping and please click on the shop links of anything that catches your eye.

CorkyCrafts
Corkycrafts' unique wine cork wreathes and cork crafts make the perfect gift for the wine lover.

HotDogCrafts
Fun mirrors, keychains, magnets and buttons can be found here.

MarasFabric
Find fabric supplies such as quilt squares and yoyos in addition to lovely handmade purses, placemats and more.

Dependable Daylilies

Some of the most dependable non-native plants in my landscape are clump forming hybrid daylilies. Daylilies are adaptable to a wide range of conditions and hardiness zones. In catalogs they are often shown as adaptable from zones 4 through 9, however some daylilies can be even be found for zone 1 or up to zone 11. Some cultivars have been developed to withstand colder winters, drier conditions, etc., so it is a good idea to source your daylilies locally if possible or read the mail order descriptions in detail to see if a particular variety is likely to do well in your area. And oh my, the different varieties that are available! You can find short through tall, early to late blooming, and evergreen to name a few different characteristics, each in a rainbow of colors. Some of my favorites are the very ruffled edged varieties whose edges are outlined in a contrasting color.

One word of caution however, there is one species of daylily that was introduced to the US 100-200 years ago that while well adapted (good), it is very invasive (bad). It is known as the common orange daylily or Hemerocallis fulva. This plant spreads aggressively, in my experience, by underground rhizomes and will quickly form an ever widening dense mat that crowds out other plants. I definitely discourage its use, but with so many other amazing hybrids of adapted, non-invasive daylilies available, this is no hardship.

The daylily varieties that I have in my zone 8 garden are very dependable bloomers. I have early and late bloomers as well as others that will even rebloom. Daylilies are very drought tolerant. I have found that the darker colored flowers will fade some in direct afternoon sun. While daylilies do need a half day of sun to flower reliably, you can plant your darker colored ones where they will be shaded in the afternoon to avoid this. Each bloom only lasts one day, however the plants send up stalks with multiple buds that open over a long period. All in all, my hybrid daylilies are beautiful, low maintenance and very well behaved, increasing in size very slowly and don’t threaten to take over their neighbors.

If you are not currently growing daylilies in your garden, I encourage you to try this low maintenance beauty. Be forewarned however. You can become addicted to continually adding new varieties once you realize how easy they are to grow. Your garden could become overrun with them, not because any one plant takes over but because you keep finding different beauties to add to your garden. If for some reason you have no room in your garden for daylilies, you can still enjoy their beauty through my photographic art daylily images on bookmarks, note cards and matted prints.

Design This – Music Cufflinks

Some time back when I mentioned to a friend that I was working on developing a line of flying pig cufflinks for my EclecticSkeptic shop, she asked if I could design a custom pair of music themed cufflinks for her to give as a gift. Since the flying pig cufflinks included a printed image of mine, I assured her that I could come up with something and asked if she had any basic thoughts about what she would like for them to look like. After sending a couple of examples her way, we hit on a personalized final design. In addition, I drew a generic music themed design from scratch since I was looking to expand my shop’s offerings by including some items for the music, math or science geek. While she and I, as well as the eventual gift recipient, were pleased with the final product, I found that I was having consistency issues as I continued to produce my cufflinks using the production method that I had researched, so it was “back to the drawing board” for me.

I searched for other options and tried different materials but was not one hundred percent excited about the final outcome until I finally located some low profile glass cabs. About this time my friend mentioned that she wished that she had suggested a slightly different design for the custom music cufflinks that I had made for her previously. I took this as a good opportunity to have someone test out the new cufflink construction that I was planning on using. I developed a new custom design using hand drawn letters based on a monogrammed handkerchief belonging to the recipient of the first pair of cufflinks and my hand drawn music note. This new design made the handkerchief and cufflinks look like a set. Everyone has been very pleased with the results and I have started stocking my silver plated or gold plated generic music themed cufflinks using the new materials in my EclecticSkeptic shop.

Music themed cufflinks make pleasing presents for the musician or music teacher. They would also be great groomsman gifts. If you are interested in multiple pairs of cufflinks, please contact me to check on the lead time needed to complete your request.

Customize This

I love it when a potential customer takes the time to ask me a question when they find almost, but not quite what they want in one of my shops, on my blog or in one of my facebook photo albums. Since my items are handmade, I am often able to accommodate these requests. Some of the requests that I have received involve changing the color of a particular component of an item, making multiples of an item that they liked or giving me some general dimensions, colors and elements that they want in the custom item. Unfortunately there are times that I don’t have the correct raw materials on hand or the time to tackle a large custom order, especially if asked during the height of the holiday retail season, but I’m always excited to try to help the people that take the time to write to me.

If I know that I have a variety of materials that will allow me to customize the color of an element in an item, I will include a photo in my listings of several possibilities along with a comment asking the shopper to contact me about the color availability of their choice. Such a request led me to adding tagua nut flying pig pins to my EclecticSkeptic shop since I could not find shell beads (pictured) in the desired color. Tagua nut is a sustainably harvested product that is a great ivory substitute and can be dyed a variety of colors. Recently I was pleased that I had the raw materials on hand to make as many multiples as needed of a different type of flying pig pin that someone saw in a listing, liked and wrote to me about.

So please don’t hesitate to send me an inquiry if you like an item of mine but it doesn’t quite have everything that you are looking for or need more than what is currently listed for sale. I welcome your inquiries and promise to see if I can create for you, the vision that you have in your head. Many other artisans feel the same way. You’ll never know if you don’t ask.