Forest Journey Mystery Competition

Hello again and welcome to the reveal of Allegory Gallery's latest challenge, the Forest Journey Mystery Competition. 

As with all the challenges/competitions that Andrew Thornton designs, this kit was loaded with many beautiful beads.  The concept of this challenge involved "thought(s) about the hero's journey...They must leave behind the status quo...where remarkable things can happen..." 

Every trip into the forest can set one on a remarkable journey of sights, sounds and sensations.  In creating this necklace, I wanted to express the different textures and shades of light found in the forest:  the smoothness of wooden branches chewed bare of bark by animals, the roughness of gnarled roots, broken branches and sticks, and rays of sunlight streaming through the forest canapy, revealing leafy plants dappled with delicate forest flowers. 

Most of my design features beads from the kit although I did add some Czech glass flowers, leaves and wavy glass discs.  I also found the delightful leather cord which has metallic flecks of copper on it from barsikmoy, a fellow Etsy seller.


Journey into the forest for more beautiful designs by visiting Allegory Gallery's Design Challenges Facebook page here.

Thanks for joining me!

The Frog Prince Design Challenge

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Allegory Gallery's fairy tale mystery challenge for January is the Frog Prince.  This challenge also celebrates Pantone's Color of the Year for 2017: Greenery.  Greenery is described as a "fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature's greens revive, restore and renew."  What a wonderful color to receive in the mail this time of year!  Just look at the luscious green beads I received in the kit:

Beautiful shades of green in the Frog Prince Mystery Challenge

I find it interesting that, although I don't really care for green as a color I wear myself, I absolutely love to play around with the color when I make jewelry.  I guess it's my longing to dig in the dirt, especially this time of year, and to tend to flowers, shrubs and vegetables that draw me to this color.  I started my challenge pieces with the gorgeous frog pendant that Andrew Thornton included in the kit.

Frog Prince Necklace with Andrew Thornton Pendant

I love the little frog pendant and wanted to highlight it in my necklace.  I chose a green faceted teardrop bead along with this really cool blue and green crackle square bead, then wire wrapped them together to form the dangle with the pendant.  Leaves came to mind when I was thinking about frogs, so I used the pressed glass leaf beads from the kit, more faceted teardrops and some small green leaves I had in my collection. 















My next design is a long, 33 inch necklace I made using the beautiful green seed beads from the kit. I added some copper chain, metallic copper colored seed beads and some Czech glass English Cut matte metallic beads I had on hand.  The large bead I used in the pendant design has a greenish gold tint to it and the vintage Lucite drop is a lovely mix of blueish greens with a bit of gold swirled in.

I usually try to make at least one pair of earrings using the kit.  I made two:  in the first one I wanted to use the interesting polymer clay beads, but alas, I broke one of them attempting to make the hole just a little bit bigger... sniff.  So I found some old lampwork beads I had on hand that looked sort of like frog eyes to me - albeit unevenly dilated frog eyes : ) - for my design using the wax linen cord and more of the small beads.  
 


In my last pair of earrings I used some polymer clay beads with some twisted yellow green beads on the bottom.  I really like how these look on but I've been having a hard time getting a good photo of them.

That's it for my challenge pieces.  Please join Allegory Gallery's Design Challenges Facebook page to see what everyone else made.

Thanks for joining me here today and come back on February 23 for the next Mystery Challenge - "Queen of Hearts".  I can't wait to see what William and Andrew have in that kit - thanks guys!

Allegory Gallery's Magic Potion Special Challenge Reveal

 

Look at the beautiful beady goodness!

Today is the reveal date for Allegory Gallery's Magic Potion Challenge.  This is one of their "Special" challenges in that one does not know what the kit will include.  The only "clue" was the above graphic.  I have participated in the challenges before, but this was the first "special" one I tried.  Boy, was I ever glad I joined!  One of my favorite colors is purple and this kit was loaded with purples.

Magic Potion Bracelet

Andrew Thornton creates beautiful pendants for these challenges and this time along with the pendant we received a bonus of two star rounds which I knew I'd make earrings out of.  The pendant has stars and swirls on it and is one of my favorites.

The first item I made was a bracelet using the pendant Andrew made and the wonderful large acrylic and glass beads.  There was a black bead with sparkles in it that is absolutely lovely, but unfortunately the photo does not do it justice.  I happened to have a small purple button that matched the colors too - bonus! 

Magic Potion Necklace

Next I made this necklace.  I used the black Obsidian(?) chips, the silver rectangle beads and the small deep red rounds.  I added some vintage crystal roundels and a large dark red faceted round I had for the pendant.








 I made a few pair of earrings to go with the necklace. 

                            

 

 Then I finished (last night!) with the earrings I originally thought to make.

I think that wax linen cord just makes earrings fun so I used that to add shimmery purples to the bottom of the star rounds.  The best part of all is that I still have plenty of beads left over for more projects!  Thank you Andrew and Allegory Gallery : )

Stop by the Allegory Gallery Design Challenges Facebook page for all the other items that were made for this special challenge. 

Allegory Gallery Tribes Challenge Reveal

Allegory Gallery hosts several bead challenges throughout the year (here's a link to the blog http://blog.allegorygallery.com/).  Last year I had participated in a couple of them and had really enjoyed stretching creatively using different colors, beads and supplies.  I wanted to join up again, but challenge reveals were moved to Facebook which I wasn't on so I didn't join in.  But after reading about this challenge in a post by Andrew Thornton, the creative mastermind behind the Allegory Gallery challenges in his blog (http://andrew-thornton.blogspot.com/2016/05/tribes-competition-challenge.html), I knew I had to join Facebook and give it a go.

So here I am, new to Facebook (I know, what took me so long?) and since I live in Wisconsin, a proud member of the Forest Tribe.  Here are some photos of what was posted on Allegory Gallery's blog regarding the beads included in the Forest Tribe mix.

Tribes Competition Challenge: Forest

 

I started with Andrew's pendant, then started selecting beads that had the deep, rich colors of the forest.  I had two (nut?, seed?) beads, which have a cool looking texture that reminds me of bark, roots and vines in the forest. I ended up using two beautiful earthy green ceramic beads from Gaea, some vintage glass beads I had on hand including some old crystal and leaf and flower beads.  I wanted that warm, rustic feel to my piece so I used oxidized copper wire to wire wrap the beads.  After adding some flowers to Andrew's pendant, I felt the design needed more flowers (what doesn't?) so I wire wrapped a few more with some leaves thinking I'd just add them to one of the beads.  Since that didn't work out, I wrapped them on a headpin and tried to use that for a component.  Well, that didn't work either, so I settled on a piece of textured and oxidized copper sheet I made a while back.  A few more bugs needed to be worked out of the design (yes, it was this morning when I finished), and voila! I give you my Forest Tribe Necklace.

I tried a few ideas out and finally came to my final design. 

Flowers and leaves were added to Andrew's pendant.

Final Design of Forest Tribe Necklace.

I really enjoy participating in Andrew and Allegory Gallery's challenges.  I highly recommend them to anyone out there who's starting out (or is a seasoned pro) in jewelry making.  The bead mixes are full of beautiful beads and Andrew's pendant is always delightful.  Go check out what everyone else has made at Allegory Gallery's Design Challenges Group on Facebook.