Inspiration Friday

With a new year, how about we make a few little changes to our Inspiration Friday posts? This year, you pick your inspiration reference! There are lots of places to find inspiration. Photo's, magazines, fabric, nature, patterns, textures...Have a really good look at the little things around you, and make something - anything at all. The whole point is to get you out of your comfort zone, and experiment with new beads, materials, found objects, ephemera - anything you can find!

We'd love to see what you come up with. Send us a picture of your new creation, along with a pic, or description of your inspiration reference.  Send it to contest@beadfx.com with the subject line "Inspiration Friday"

If you have a personal blog, or etsy/artfire/bigcartel type site - send us a link to that as well!

We have two submissions this week - First up the ever talented Nathalie Girard  sent us this:

My inspiration this past week came from a challenge instead of a picture… The challenge is the new RAW2011 (Ring A Week) group on Flickr – it's not too late to join:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/ringaweek/

Each person is making one ring a week for the year, and already the submissions are quite incredible. You can use the materials of your choice, and even the Lark Jewelry Blog has been keeping an eye on the submissions! ( http://www.larkcrafts.com/jewelry-beading/ringing-in-the-new-year/#disqus_thread )

This is my ring for the first week (see attached), made of PMC3, a medieval inspired Knight's Ring which is a part of my Camelot's Trove medieval collection on ArtFire:

http://www.CamelotsTrove.ArtFire.com

For my 2nd ring, I'm working on a slab construction type ring (PMC3), which will go in the kiln today. Wish me luck! :o)

Next up, a little necklace I whipped up. My inspiration this week was quite literally the mess of patinaed little bits scattered over my workbench :-)
 I've been playing a bit with the patina's I got from Shannon @ MissFickleMedia



The pendant components were created from copper clay with two different patina applications. The verdigris finish is obvious, but the black one underneath was blue at one point. The spray varnish I used turned the patina quite dark. A hint of blue is noticeable in real life though - slight, but it's there.

Until next week - Happy Creating!