Favorites For Friday

BEADS!! I'm drooling just writing this post....all the pretty beads!! Thought this week I'd share a few lovely beads. The first set is from Deborah at Sweetwater Designs who is also an Entrecard dropper. The rest are just some of my favorites over on Etsy and I own a few too (not these particular ones).

Sweetwater Designs

Spawn of Flame

Mandella Glass

Charleston Beadworks

BeadyGirl Beads

I guess you can tell that, on the whole, I love color. Oh and the EJDSS Team is having another giveaway for September so stop by and get your entry in at our team blog here. Enjoy and have a great weekend.

Where Do You Find Inspiration?

Everyone will have a different answer and I'm always interested to find where people get their inspiration from. I was reading an article about this subject but it covered the topic of wire work and design. The author's suggestion was to look at buildings with ironwork which makes perfect sense. I'm sure there are people who live in the country and have the landscape around to give them ideas. There are people who paint or photograph what is around them. I have to admit that I don't really know what inspires me, silly as that may sound. When I come up with a design sometimes its just sitting with a bunch of bead or jumprings in from of me and hoping for the best. Other times it might just suddenly come to me what I should do with that awesome focal bead that has been sitting there for ever. Then there are the other times when I'm out and I see something that gives me an idea for a design.



One thing I do love to do is look around for inspiration. Whether it is from nature, like the first photo (Zion, Utah, USA) or from something manmade like the bridges and buildings in the second photo (Tyne Bridges, Newcastle, England). It might be the colors or the shapes that give you the ideas to come up with a design. So what inspires you to make what you do? or do you have many different inspirations? I'd love to hear what inspires you.

For The Love Of Maille

Why do I love Chainmaille so much? Good question, especially since I'm not really into the whole Renaissance Fair scene. Only ever went to one once when I was about 10. I really don't have any desire to make a Hauberk (a shirt made of mail - see Wikipedia) or any other clothing of mail. Although a belt would be pretty cool. I do have great admiration for those Maillers who do such projects. No I just like jewelry made of Maille. I love the idea of taking a pile of jumprings and weaving them into something pretty.

Some of the weaves are so old and that fascinates me but there are new ones that are gorgeous too and someone has just sat down with a bunch of rings and played around to come up with something completely new that is based on this ancient art.
Then, of course, you can add beads to a piece to add variation. I don't just mean adding them in between sections of a weave. I'm talking about "capturing" the beads as in the above photo. This bracelet (Sea Sprite) is from Nicole Hill who makes some beautiful pieces, check out her Etsy shop here http://nicolehill.etsy.com/. On top of using beads in Maille, a change of metal can alter the look. Sure you have the usual suspects of Stainless Steel, Silver, Gold or Copper but what about some Anodized Aluminum or Niobium to add some color. Or how about using some Stretchy (EPDM) rings.

My personal fave at the moment is the Rainbow Anodized Niobium from CandTDesigns. Curt over at CandT manages to get at least 2 colors on each ring which makes for some stunning pieces. He also has started a line of rings made with square wire, which are on my shopping list. So really, you can see why I love Maille. With so many possibilities the world is your oyster. I personally end up sticking with the "standards" but I do everything I can to make sure they are far from standard. If you want to see more Maille then stop by our Etsy Group Blog, AKA Chainmailler's Anonymous.