B’Sues Build A Line Hop 1 of 3

Miss Brenda would like us all to introduce ourselves, the lines we have chosen to build and let you our readers get to know us, take a peek into our studios and our processes. The idea of allowing you to peek into my studio…... caused a huge clean up effort on my part!

An Itty Bitty Peek at my Studio

Messy normally means I work well with beads scattered around me, the ideas flow really well when I’m surrounded by them. However, as you may have read I just got my shelves off the cinder blocks and on to the walls and got the first of two cabinets brought in. And well, it’s in a temporary location, with a temporary plywood countertop. If you think a few things have been displaced and are without a proper home, you would be right! Right now messy means I have a few boxes and a couple stacks of stuff needing a proper home. Show the world my mess? Yikes! But if you want to see the new/old cabinet and shelves I might could swing that….grins

What's on the Counter Top

If you read my profile you know I’ve been making my whole life. What you may not know is I have always been drawn to the Victorian and Art Nouveau eras of design. While I can be easily inspired by just about anything they remain my biggest influence. I even scoured eBay looking for 1895 Corbin Roanoke back plates for my glass doorknobs when building my house. You've even seen them in my product shots over the years :) Since I absolutely love the flourishes and scroll work of the Art Nouveau era, my thoughts of course,  immediately turned to an Art Nouveau line.

I have several “favorite” artists but for my line I’m drawing inspiration from Alphonse Mucha. His designs are easily seen in many of the brass stampings in use today. In fact several of B'Sues available pieces are of Mucha’s prints or statuary, I absolutely love that and will be using them as I work. These brass pieces are from Mucha's series The Arts, There are four in the series, these two represent Poetry and Music. I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to showcase them or if they’ll be the focus of my Blog Hop line but at some point they will be incorporated.

Mucha Stampings and other stuffs

Mucha The Arts: Poetry

Mucha The Arts: Music

Other Mucha pieces that I am focusing on at the moment include the bust of Nature: I already have the start of a parure designed around her. I have to double check some copy right issues first, I may end up with a demi but I’m ok with that.

I so love these ads for Moet & Chandon and Theophile Roederer Champagnes. Aren’t the colors wonderful!? I think the pinks would be absolutely beautiful with this years Marsala, as would the earthy tones.

and this calendar page, an ad for Mexican Chocolate. Is he not beautiful? Look at his jewelry, so in style right now, stacks of bracelets, coiled arm band and gorgeous necklace.

Honestly I could build lines from here to eternity based on Mucha’s works. There is so much inspiration to draw from, from the floral motifs to the colors, even the overall themes of his series. What’s even better is how well it fits with my current OOAK work. Perfect production pieces to add an overall cohesiveness to my shop. Exactly what I needed.

The biggest challenge I face is keeping the lines simple and easily reproducible. I see the components and want so much to layer and embellish and just play. I’ve always said it’s an art to keep designs clean, and I’m sure as I go along I’ll be practicing the fine art of taking away quite often.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay with me during our hop and I really look forward to seeing you again as I bring my Mucha Lines from concept into reality.

I'd like to invite you now to join me in hopping around to the other designers in our Build a Line Blog Hop to see what they've been up to.

The Rest of the Hop

Our Hostess
Brenda Sue Lansdowne, B'sue Boutiques
Jewelry Making Outside the Box

Marcia Tuzzolino
Aurora Designs

Jann Tague
Clever Designs by Jann

Judy King
Apt to Wander Studio

Linzi Alford
Magpie in the Sky, Spoil Heap Tales

Cynthia Wainscott
Exotic Peru

Carole Carlson
Beadsophisticate

Lynn Stinten
Dragonzwench

Marica Zammit
Bead Lovelies

Catherine Shattuck
VRBrose

Michaele Collie
The Vintage Gem

Mary Craig
Jewelry Alchemy

Lee Koopman
Strega Jewelry

Erin Whitacre
Shattered Time Jewelry

Monica Casady
MJCasady Copper Works

Leila West
Leila Nicole Designs

Cindy Peterson
Howling Dog Jewelry    < old bloghttps://howlingdogjewelry.wordpress.com/ 

Leila Belcher
Leila Bee Designs

Gloria Allen
Wings and Beads

Pamela Anger
Novegatti Designs

Tammy Adams
Paisley Lizard

Lynda O'Mara
LOmara Creative

Elizabeth Hildreth
MadScientistsDesigns

~*~*~*~*YOU ARE HERE!!~*~*~*~*
Dana Hickey
Wind Dancer Studios

Janet Calardo
Jan Lea Designs

Maria Clark
Sweet Willow Designs

Lori Beekman
B. Accessorized

Jennifer Kroeger
Relic Charm

Amy Jorgensen
Hoarder's Corner

Robin Reed
Artistry: Handcrafted Bead Designs

Ingrid Anderson
Lilis Gems

Louise O'Shields
Desire Divine Jewels

Susan Killam
Killam Creative

Mary Katherine Deis
The Rose Sword: Artisan and Vintage Collectible Jewelry

Nike Bottalico
Nike Bottalico

Susan Bowerman
Woodside Wireworks

Kristy Le
Kristy Le Trendy Jewelry Designs

Jan Peters
Stylized Vintage

Mitzie Crider
Needful Luxuries Occasional Blog

Gina Hockett
Freestyle Elements

Linda Anderson
From the Bead Board

Alexandra Sefton
Imaginary Jewelry and Altered Art

Melida Boman
The Journey of Pens and Things

Teresa Shurter
TreeZ's Treasurs

Melissa Latimer
Smithed Up

Renee Hong
Fine and Dandy Jewelry and Art

Nadine Edris
Moondance Jewelry

Lori Meyer
Parisienne Girl

Jennifer Merrill Williams
Artists of All Stripes

Denise Lussier Poirier
Jewelry by Denise

Renee Allen
Small Stuff Design

Autumn Adams
Autumn Dawns

Elizabeth Owens
1996 Shabby Lane

Kat BarronMiller
Midnight Kat Productions Art Jewelry

Sandra Ballard
Mama San's Mojo

Coral Law
ab:coraldesign

Pantone and it's Ever Changing Color of the Year

Pantone's Marsala

Personally I think quite a few jewelry designers think too literally when it comes to Pantone. 

You hear it every year, who are they to tell me what color to use!?

 It's a report, Pantone is telling you what is headed to the stores......
 the clothing stores, the furniture stores, the Bed and Bath stores, the Bead stores, everything we buy that is designed is taken into consideration. 

These are the prominent colors being used by designers all over the world. 

The colors always overlap with previous seasons and future colors being used. 

Whether or not you pay close attention should be based on who your target market is. If she is a fiercely independent woman with her own ideas, do whatever you want. 

If she's fashionista, you'd better pay attention. She's looking for pieces that will look good with her new outfit AND last seasons favorites as well as being able to blend with next season. 

Does that mean you HAVE to use Marsala? 

No

It means you should use colors that look good with it. You should ALWAYS use colors that LOOK GOOD with other colors, ALWAYS!

Here's a little article I wrote for Jewelry Lessons way back in 2008 it's still VERY relevent.

My Favorite Color Wheel from Real Color Wheel

How many times have you heard “I never would have thought to combine THOSE colors!”? Or “I can’t believe how good that looks with copper!”? Or my favorite :You can’t use those colors together, they’ll clash.


The truth is you can combine colors in any way you choose - making them a pleasure to behold is a little trickier and where this article is headed.


There are books you can buy but to fill up the pages they’ll talk about reflectivity, prisms, and bending light - we’re going to stick to the basics and how they apply to us.


All colors are made up of three primary colors red, yellow and blue. We all learned this at a young age, remember finger painting?


Mixing those primary colors creates secondary colors.
Red + blue = purple(violet)
blue + yellow = green
yellow + red = orange


When mixing the primary colors to get secondary colors you probably noticed that if you add more of one color than the other you’ll get Tertiary colors- those shades in between each primary color and it’s corresponding secondary color Ie yellow, yellow-green, green, blue -green, blue, blue-violet , purple (violet), red-violet, red, red-orange, orange, yellow orange and back to yellow again.


Notice brown is not on our wheel of color- that’s because it is a neutral and made of ALL three primary colors. You’ll also notice white and black are not on the wheel. White is considered an absence of color, adding it to any shade makes it paler. Black as we all know does the opposite, making the color deeper and darker until it too shows no color.


OK so now we’ve all relived our Kindergarten finger painting days and should have smiles on our faces, but what does this have to do with choosing colors? Well, keep reading, we’re getting there!


Complementary colors, are those colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel. They complement each other. Blue and orange, red and green, yellow and violet (purple) It doesn’t matter how you spin the wheel if the color is directly opposite it will complement the other.


Family groupings. Any color within a family grouping can be used with another color of the same grouping.


Cool family of color groupings are those colors associated with water and ice or a stormy wintry day, mainly blues and greens, blue gray, gray, blue green and blue violet.


Warm family of color groupings are those colors associated with fire, reds, yellows and oranges.


Neighbor groupings - Any color that is next to another color on the wheel can be used in combination with that color. Red always goes well with blue and any shade of purple between the two. Red is also perfectly happy with yellow and any shade of orange. See where I’m going here. Blue also works just fine with yellow and any shade of green.


Monochromatic families- a single color but includes any shade of that color from the palest pastel to the deepest jewel tone.


Pastel family groupings are the basic color wheel lightened to a soft hue.


Jewel tone family groupings are again the color wheel deepened in intensity.


Now remember I said any color could be used with another. Here’s the trick to doing so - it just has to be of the same family grouping, or tonal value.
Meaning the intensity of the color has to be the same. Whether it’s a jewel tone or a pastel or any value of dark or light in between, if their intensity is the same they’ll work well together as they belong to the same family grouping!


I mentioned copper at the beginning and well it’s simple really, copper has a red base color and it tarnishes down to brown. Brown being neutral goes with any color! And of course red likes blue or yellow and any color in between and it’s complementary color is green! So really, why wouldn’t that color look great with copper?


And yes it works for the more upscale metals too. Yellow Gold obviously has a yellow base, goes well with red or blue and and all those in between and it’s complementary color is purple. Silver has a blue base, yup you’ve got it! Goes well with red or yellow and all the colors in between and it complementary color is orange! So even our metals have the primary colors covered :o)

For a fun interactive color  site where you can play with complementary color combinations, monochromatic colors or any number of combinations go here:


http://www.colorschemedesigner.com/


Click on any color and whether you want monochromatic or multiple colors.


If you’re still unsure or a little afraid here’s another tip. Go down to your local home improvement store or the paint store and buy their full spectrum color swatch. You’ve seen the home decorating shows where the designers use them when showing what colors they chose to go with what fabric.- they go from lightest to darkest of every color. It’s your very own tonal value chart and they even come out with a mini version for the fashion trend colors every year!

Marsala is RED, see above copper reference.   Now that you've read a little on color theory look at Pantone's Marsala photo up top again. See the neighbors and the complements? 

Don't be afraid of color, explore it, revel in it!

Til next time!

OH! BTW next weeks post will be early!! It's Part ONE of the Build a Line Hop!!
See ya then!

Come on Hitch Your Wagon up, I Know I Have

Wow! Posting early for the hop made me think I missed last week! I was scrambling to pull together this post lol I have pretty much loaded my wagon and you know what they say, time flies when you’re having fun!  and boy, Time sure got away from me.

It’s end of year so I have books and reports and paperwork to do for the bread and butter business. It’s beginning of year so I have goals and projections to get mapped out for both bread and butter and Wind Dancer. My component pricing/inventory needs to be keyed in again, I thought I had it backed up but apparently it was on the still need to do it list when the iMac died and I’ve been putting it off and looking up replacement costs instead. I finally got one of my cabinets in my studio and the shelves installed on the wall and the built ins in my closet put in….. no wonder I’ve been so exhausted! I’ve moved two rooms, twice in the last couple weeks and I’m not done! whew! Oh! and I think I have finally found the Dentist I’m going to keep. This wonderful guy fixed in minutes what the last two never could and my mouth no longer hurts. Good thing because it looks like I’ve got a bit more work to be done in the future, sigh.

More good news….

I joined the Artisan Group and have been giving my shop/FB/twitter/etc a facelift in advance of picking up some nicer business cards. The ones I have aren’t bad but if I’m going to put them in the hands of stylists or celebrities, I’d like a heavier card stock and some gloss.

I also joined the Year of Jewelry project. A piece a week for an entire year. It isn’t completely necessary to follow the suggested themes, so if I already have something going or a custom that’ll work just fine as my weekly offering. I think it’s going to be fun. I want to work on my piercing skills and this will allow me to do that while also honing other skills at the same time. Your creativity spikes when you’re working creatively, it just kind of feeds on itself. I’ve always liked that, you’ve probably figured that out if you've been reading my blog for any length of time. It’s also the reason I have so many sketches on envelope corners and backs of receipts! And the reason I have post its and sketchbooks all over the place. Speaking of sketches I still have several (or more) from my 25 sketches series that I know will find their way into light during my YOJ. I know this to be true, as Week number two has already done just that.

…….. and I've joined a triple hop/challenge. As you all know I make mostly one of pieces and do a decent amount of custom work. You’ve heard me soul search my pricing and marketing all while comparing apples to oranges when it comes to production work. I have hoops and crosses that serve as production pieces in my shop but not a comprehensive line. This challenge and the corresponding hops will remedy that. This also goes hand in hand with having joined the Artisan group as a cohesive line is a more professional look than a shop full of one ofs, even if they are all my favorites.

The first B’Sue Build a Line hop date is set for the 23rd so be sure to come back around to see what we’ve got going on! In the mean time here’s week two from Year of Jewelry and the sketch it was born from.

Rose Quartz, Garnet, & Gold Filigree Earrings

These are so pretty in person the combo of Rose Quartz and Garnets is just perfect with gold.

Thanks for stoppin by!
We’ll see you next time, kids are back to college this week house is going to be really quiet.

AJE December Component Reveal

As I said several times already (I'm just a little excited) I won the December component over at Art Jewelry Elements! The sweetest little snowflake from Diana of Suburban Girl Designs.

Diana's Snowflakes - aren't they CUTE!?

I got to designing right away, and with only a couple minor tweaks to the design I got my components made up fairly quickly. Then with a little sit and stare time I decided on the best way to assemble them all into a pretty sweet choker.

Only one moment of panic when I realized I had attached the filigree backward on the end of the beadwork and had to cut it back off and reattach. I really like this one, it's just so full of sweetness you just can't help but smile at it.

Pop on over to the Art Jewelry Elements blog with me to see what the others have made with their snowflakes. I'm sure they've come up with some gorgeous pieces of their own!

Thanks for stopping by!

See you next time!

The Rest of the Hop!

Monthly Winners

Dana Hickey..... You are Here!

Cate Van Alphen

AJE Blog Team

Lindsay M Starr

Linda Landig

Lesley Watt

Caroline Dewison

Susan Kennedy

Jen Cameron

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Melissa Meman

Kristen Stevens