Brandi's Color Challenge

"All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites." ~Marc Chagall
 
You all know that I cannot resist a good challenge. And if it has to do with color, well, then count me in!

Thank you to my friend, Miss Brandi Hussey, for selecting the unique palettes for us to be challenged by in honor of her brand new book, Understanding Color: Color Theory Made Easy. Read my review of this outstanding new reference. I know you will want one.

Brandi created six different color palettes each with six colors each for us to be inspired by and we could make whatever we wanted in the medium of our choice. I had grandiose plans to do all six palettes and even selected beads in my stash to go with each. But I only was able to complete four of them by staying up to the wee hours after baseball all night. On the other hand, now I have a few new kickstarts for when my Muse goes MIA again. Win-win!

I am going to try something new for me... a Buy It Now button for each. I have never really done that, so if you are interested in any of these, I will wrap them up and mail them out to you as a lovely little present. And if not, well, they will find homes someplace else.

So, let's get started, shall we?

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This first palette is very soft and cool feeling, like those first fresh ferns that unfurl in the spring under the dappled sunshine in a deep woods. This is a green that I can live with and it plays so well with the neutral greeny-beige colors. I had the perfect bead from Golem Studio.

I am a hoarder of Golem beads (oh, who am I kidding... I hoard all beads!). I have had the pleasure of meeting Vlad and his wife Kremona and they are just the most lovely of people. I have a whole set of them and was going to do a necklace, but then I spied these sweet lucite leaves nearby left over from a project I did last month for the Lovely Knots challenge. Now I had my bright green in the middle and the soft beige tones. Thinking lucite I remembered these carved melon lucite beads and threw in one in a slightly more blue tone just for contrast. This bracelet features an antiqued silver magnetic flower clasp that echoes the shape on the Golem bead and measures 7 1/2". I call this 'Unfurling' since those leaves and the color remind me of those sweet ferns opening their fingers to the warmth of the sun.

'Unfurling' bracelet
$50.00 + 3.00 shipping

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Now THIS palette, #2, is my kind of palette. I was fond of living in these saturated jewel tones in the 80s and 90s. I am not a big pink fan, but that bright fuschia color is my shade, and I can tolerate the other pinks as they are more of the back up singers to this high note. This palette just looks rich to me, with the royal purpley-blue and the soothing teal.

I went back to the book Bohemian Inspired Jewelry and found one of my favorite projects there by Erin Siegel called Sakura. I did a book review for that back in June 2012 if you want to see what I created from this fabulous book's inspiration. I don't have a lot of waxed Irish linen, but I did have this spool of variegated hemp cord that worked perfectly with all the colors of the palette. I found this pretty leaf in the deep magenta color from Humblebeads and a rustic turquoise ceramic bead from Diane Hawkey. I thought the pink would be hard, but as luck would have it, I had tiny faceted rose quartz and some larger faceted crystal rondelles. To get that deep blue-purple color, I dug out some blue goldstone faceted rounds. I love that stone with the little flecks that pick up the light and bounce it back. Whenever I work with fiber like this, I always underestimate what I will need. I went with the amounts in the Sakura instructions but I should have added like 15 more inches. It is a true 16" length, perfect for you girls with those nice thin necks ;-). On me it is a little too snug, as I prefer an 18-20" length. It closes with a vintage pressed glass button.

I am calling this 'Sweet Simplicity' for the way this makes me feel a little bit bohemian and free. Wouldn't this look great with a flowy white sundress and strappy sandals on the beach?

'Sweet Simplicity' necklace
$50.00 + 3.00 shipping
**SOLD**

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I chose this palette because yellow scares me. No, really. I almost never use yellow so I wasn't even sure that I could find something that would match. But as luck would have it, I had the perfect bead that I bought some time ago from Honey Bijou. Unfortunately, Honey Bijou is no longer making beads for sale :-( which is too bad, because I really liked the way she worked with colors in her polymer clay beads and also these great 'doodle beads' she sold that she made using left over clay.

I bought a mix of caliente-colored Czech glass flowers from Fusion Beads and was able to pick out several of the shades to match. The yellow was harder to find, but I remembered I had a huge mixed bag of carved gemstone leaves from Fire Mountain Gems from awhile ago and there were some sort of gem that had that soft yellow color, not sure what it is. Adding to this is a fun fluted polymer clay and metal round in that deep fuschia from Jeannie Dukic, a polymer clay floral caned bead from Too Aquarius, and my own attempts at enamel in this soft lavender color bead.

Oh, and I used my new 1-Step Looper on these dangles. It works, but I did manage to crush a few of the glass beads I had to discard, and I still had to open them all up and secure them to the chain, so I am not sure about this tool yet. But if you have to make a lot of dangles it does make quick work. I just wish that the loop could be adjustable so that you could make it larger. Have you used one? What do you think about it?

I really love this one (and ultimately may decide to keep it for myself ;-) as it has such a sassy mix of hot colors and a sweet jangly sound. I am calling this "Hothouse Flowers" for the way this looks like a modern tropical corsage for your wrist. Measures 7 1/2" with brass findings and a floral toggle clasp.

'Hothouse Flowers' bracelet

$65.00 + 3.00 shipping

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This is the palette that grabbed my attention first. Of course, I liked all the greens and turquoise, but that salsa red really threw me. It is such a pure and saturated shade next to all the other more soft and muted ones that I knew that this would be a challenge. I had something completely different in mind for this, with a hoarded Jade Scott heart pendant and tiny red rondelles, but my Muse was having none of it. So I will have to come back to that idea later.

Then I spotted this discarded steel wire frame that I had made for another project and next to that was a polymer clay bird from Humblebeads. I have an entire bin of the Jangles beads from Michaels (I keep buying more every time I go in there). The tones were perfect and added that touch of whimsy that I love so much. I wired the birdie onto the bottom of the frame, making a nest. But it needed something else so I plucked out a wee Humblebeads toadstool and another Jangles dangle.

This is a long necklace, 32" + 3" dangle. I have been making many, many in this style as they are so easy to just slip on over a t-shirt or a sundress and they layer well with other necklaces. But the real the beauty of this design is that if you want it shorter, you can just take the silky gunmetal chain (this is my favorite chain from Rings & Things - I practically have the item code memorized I buy it so often!), double it over and pass the chain over the bird frame to wear it short with the beaded links off to one side. I love designs that can be worn more than one way!

I am calling this 'Swinging Around' as it looks like this birdie is kicking up her heels on an avian swingset.

'Swinging Around' necklace
$65.00 + 3.00 shipping

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Thank you, to Miss Brandi for throwing down such a great challenge that got me to raid my stash and come up with new ideas and new designs. Please hop on over to BrandiGirlBlog to see who else played along and what art they created using these six palettes.

UPDATE!Due to some computer glitches, Miss Brandi has extended the deadline for entering to MIDNIGHT TONIGHT! So... if you are at all interested... get creative and enter something! Prizes await!
ENTER your creative masterpiece on the form HERE!