Tag: design team

Autumn – the reveal for Suburban Girl Design Team

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 I love Fall. It truly is my favorite season. The crisp zing in the air, the colors, leaves… So when Diana sent us our stoneware leaf for the Suburban Girl design team, I was thrilled. My thoughts were on leaves – as I was working with Kristen’s beaded leaf for the AJE team…and I wanted this to stand out and be unique, different…

Fall focal

The quote is from Peter Mulvey – “… and the leaves were telling secrets to the wind.” The copper was a scrap, already reminiscent of a leaf, tweaked a bit with the jeweler’s saw. I liked the way it hung, and allowed the heavier leaf to balance the enameled acorn. ( Thank you Carol Myers!)

Clasp!

The lovely copper clasp from fellow team mate Michelle! 

SBGDT fall

The whole necklace: seed pod beads, tiger’s eye in yellow and red, wood jasper… finished with seed beads and chain. 

chain detail

Hand stamped copper links: “Change”- since this season heralds the change of the year into the fallow reflective period of the winter. So much change around us – from leaves, to routines, to weather… And I liked the shapes balancing the lozenges of the tiger’s eye opposite. 

Beauty shot

I loved working with this pendant of Diana’s! It was a pleasure! Thanks for stopping by – let me leave you with a question before you visit my fellow team members’ blogs – What is your favorite aspect of Autumn? 

Diana Ptaszynski http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com/
Kristen Stevens http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/
Jan Onipenco http://moltenmayhem.typepad.com/
Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp http://skyejewels.blogspot.com/
Sandra Basara Miller http://www.sandra5461.blogspot.com/
Michelle Buettner http://misheldesigns.blogspot.com/

Denizen of the Deep – Suburban Girl Design Team “Summer” reveal!

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Summer! It is here – no questioning that! Temperatures in the 90’s here in Delaware have me dreaming of the ocean. Luckily all of DE is relatively close to the beach (as opposed to the shore in NJ) and headed there for a respite soon. The summer charms from Diana arrived ages ago – and a lovely lampwork from Jan as well! I confess, I finished this yesterday. I have been up to my elbows in clay, teaching sculpture and wheel throwing at Clay Camp – and found it hard to switch gears. But with such lovely ingredients in my mind’s eye – I think I was designing this piece weeks ago in my head!

Summer sampler Summer loot

Here is the first pile of potential pairings. I knew I wanted to use my own ceramic mermaid pendant, how could I not? The colors in Jan’s bead were so inviting! And the gorgeous paairing of sandy brown and celadon in Diana’s – so my style! Here is: shell slice, mother of pearl, stick pearl, sea glass, river stone. 

Idea pile 1

I wanted to bring more of the earthy sand color in – so Marsha Neal Studios silks to the rescue. I have a huge stash I sell with my pendants – so I am spoiled and have a color for every need!

Add some silk...

Hmm. The pile of potential has changed. Abalone, amazonite, recycled bottle glass beads, copper green pearls, jasper… What jasper is that? THe dark teal-y one with drown matrix? You know the one I mean…

Getting closer...

And here she is: “Denizen of the Deep”. I ended up with pearl and kyanite as the dangle, abalone, amazonite, MOP, pearl, and that jasper as the gems strand. 

Denizen of the Deep

I wanted the larger components on the right to be balanced visually, so the left side is a double strand of gems and matte olive seed beads. Here’s a detail of the pendant and the SGD Team featured components: 

details...

The starfish, you say? Where is the starfish? I had to go rogue and do a companion piece. I wanted the starfish to get equal attention, so it is the focal on the matching bracelet ( silk, seed beads, and gems – as inteh necklace)

partner piece

The completed pair

Hope this finds you cool and content – enjoying the best of summer and avoiding the worst. Have a cold beverage, some sushi, and channel your inner mermaid!

Please stop by my partners pages as well!

Diana Ptaszynski http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com/
Jenny Davies-Reazor http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog
Kristen Stevens http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/
Jan Onipenco http://moltenmayhem.typepad.com/
Marla James http://marlasmudmoments.blogspot.com/
Sandra Basara Miller http://www.sandra5461.blogspot.com/
Michelle Buettner http://misheldesigns.blogspot.com/

 

Bloom and Grow – Suburban Girl Design Team Spring Challenge

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Good Morning! I am pleased to welcome you to the Spring edition of Suburban Girl Studio’s Design Team Hop and Reveal. I was thrilled when Diana asked me to be on her design team. She and I totally hit it off, and have so much in common – including the fact that we make ceramic pendants, charms… So why be on her team? Her work is lovely, and totally different from my own. What a creative  ‘shot in the arm” to be sent lovelies in the mail and get to make jewelry with them! And to be in a sisterhood – the Design Team…I know – all you bead/jewelry colleagues out there know of what I speak. Had to put it in context for the Muggles. So this is what I unwrapped from the postman…

It arrives...

Uh – pink? orange? Not Jenny colors. Excellent. Like I said – not like my work… And look at the gorgeous lampwork bead! A challenge bonus from Jan – from Molten Mayhem and fellow design team member…Going to think on this a bit…

The plan

OK – thought it over, sketched it out as I always do. My personal challenge was to use metal. Metal smithing was one of my two areas of concentaration in art school. (With painting the other) But teaching art full time, living in rental apartments right after college – not a torch friendly lifestyle. I am thrilled with the new equipment available in the metals world and glad to have a chance to dive back in…Sorry, I digress. I decided to tab set the flower in copper and use the words “Bloom and grow” on the border. ( I use text frequently in my work) And dont miss those glass headpins from Sue at Sue Beads. They were very inspirational in the design plan…

raw materials

The cast of characters; Jan’s bead, Czech glass leaves and flowers, assorted silks and suedes…

Fit and finish

Ready, set, go! To me the antiqued copper gives an earthiness and grounds the vibrancy of the glaze color. 

clasps?

There it is! Set ceramic flower with a frenzy of floral inspired goodness hanging below. The flower centers are the SueBeads glass head pins – just the right color pop and size. It is long, and there is a lot going on visually so I decided to keep the rest simple. Those clasps? No, thank you. I made them to correspond with the piece – but wont need them now. Worth a try…

first option second try

chain?   winner!

Top row: I tried wide silk, and thin suede. Nope. 

Bottom: Chain – yuck. Need a green element. The winner – fairy silk from Marsha Neal Studios!

put it on.

(Sorry for the wet hair/just out of the shower shot. Had to take the picture minus dog hair…)

I would wear this short, with a v-neck. Thats my style. But with the silk you could wear it long as well. What do you think? I would love to hear from you before you click away to visit my bead sisters on the design team… Thanks for stopping by!

Diana Ptaszynski http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com/

Jenny Davies-Reazor http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog

Kristen Stevens http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/

Jan Onipenco http://moltenmayhem.typepad.com/

Marla James http://marlasmudmoments.blogspot.com/

Sandra Basara Miller http://www.sandra5461.blogspot.com/

Michelle Buettner http://misheldesigns.blogspot.com/


Clay. Creations. Friends. Fun…

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pendants

Wow – all last week was a blur. Getting ready for Wicked Faire, firing the kiln multiple times, packing, prepping. Phew. (Wicked Faire was fun. No, there werent many pictures taken. Yes, I saw Gumby, Santa, Papa Smurf, Jesus, demons, a faun, pirates, and so many more characters. But what happens at Wicked should stay at Wicked…)

So this week – already Thursday? Show applications, paperwork, etc. Doing quite a bit of catching up…Working on Fall themed submissions for magazines, mailing my charms to Ornamentea for the “Lucky charm swap” and thinking/sketching for my Music blog hop…

Exciting news…I am one of the newly selected members of the Suburban Girl Design team. Suburban Girl Studio is owned and operated by Diana Ptaszynski – who I met last fall at Beadfest in Philadelphia. (She organized a bead swap that went from fun to epic. Friends were made, hijinks ensued.) Diana makes ceramic beads and components in stoneware, porcelain and raku. Like these: 

Suburban girl beads

And these: 

Suburban Girl raku

The design team will receive a piece – seasonally, and we will create using that component, blog the results and share the love. You know the results are going to be radically different,and extremely creative. It will be interesting to see especially as the team members all have different packgrounds in art, clay, design, metal smithing. I am looking forward to the creative challenge. 

I had been thinking perhaps I would go out into the blog world, and see if there was interest in a design team of my own. My pendants are one branch of my body of work, I do quite a bit more. (Tiles, shrines, collage…) Perhaps after this design team experience, I will launch my own. What do you think? 

Stay tuned for the music blog hop next week and new tile designs in the works.