Pantone color trends for spring

Lavender and honeysuckle.
Beeswax and Regatta
Russet.

These are the colors that Pantone says are trending for spring.
Lavender like a bursting crocus emerging from the snow.
Honeysuckle like a beautiful candy-colored lipgloss.

Beeswax, mellow yellow, rich and sweet
Regatta, the purest ocean water.
Russet, vintage and warm.

I wonder what these trending colors say about our states of mind.
Our points of view.
The blue comes from Latin American textiles, the pink from New Wave French electronica.

The purple from a 50s garden party.
Bright and earthy, peaceful and cheery.
How can these colors inspire your creations?

Making rainbows

So, I've been thinking about how colors change from light to dark, or color to color, or something. I whipped up this rainbow bracelet of little sparkly Swarovski crystals first.
Then, I got out my leftover freshwater pearls, and started playing with the idea of dark to light in rich, earthy tones. This little necklace made me happy, even though it was not at all what I thought I would end up with.
I still have a couple of ideas I want to try, with different beads and stuff. What do you think?
So many ideas, so many beads, so little time!

Red! Another treasury!

Yay, I snagged another Treasury, Red, Red, Oh, Yes, Red! My favorite color. I included this absolutely amazing Elder bowl from makye77. How gorgeous is this? Stop in, leave a comment, feed my strange Treasury obsession.

Ha! I snagged my first treasury ever!

I feel like a real etsian now. It's a rainbow of bright color, ROYGBIV, mama!
Wish I knew how to do the whole screenshot thing, but I'm simply not that techie today.
Click the link! Share my giddiness! Love love love it!
I know, too much coffee. . .
Color my world treasury.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, parts 29 & 30

Welcome back! I'm creating a piece of jewelry for each line from Bob Dylan's song, "Tangled up in Blue." Line 29 goes like this:


"She lit a burner on the stove, and offered me a pipe."


As long as the stove was lit, I thought we'd toast marshmallows and make smores. The charm on this bracelet has a campfire with a pair of marshmallows over it. The bracelet has marshmallowy pearls, graham crackery and chocolately painted jasper beads, and blue and brown glass nailhead beads. Mmmmm. . . smores.

Line 30:
"'I thought you'd never say hello,' she said, 'You look like the silent type.'"
Oh, this one was tricky. The bracelet has a little dog tag charm that says "Joy," for her joy when he said hello. It also has butterflies, Celtic knots, and brilliant and bright blue, green and yellow glass beads. When in doubt, throw the book at it and see what sticks!
Stay tuned.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Parts 27 & 28

Welcome back to the "Tangled up in Blue" experiment, where MAB, your intrepid jewelry designer, is making a piece of jewelry inspired by each and every line from the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." Now, when we last met, I couldn't find the little scrolly things to use as question marks a couple of lines back. Don't you know, as soon as I stopped searching madly for them, they reappeared. So, I used them for line 28, "I must admit I felt a little uneasy when she bent down to tie the laces of my shoes." The scrolly thingies also work as shoelaces! Hurray! I added some sweet little light blue and clear crystals in front of them, for sparkle factor. I love sparkle, can you tell?

Line 28 brings us back once again to the hook: "Tangled up in Blue." Here's a double strand copper bracelet, a "tangle" of two strands, with bright little cobalt tricorner glass beads. I used two larger swirled copper beads, and a copper toggle with a pansy on it. I love cobalt blue with copper, two very complimentary colors together.

Only two stanzas left! Yowzah!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Parts 25 & 26

Line 25 goes like this:

"She was standing there, in back of my chair, said to me, 'Don't I know your name?'"

Now, I have these lovely, scrolly little metal doohickeys, and I was going to make question mark earrings with them. However, I searched high and low and never could find the doohickeys. These song lines with no real imagery are a little hard to capture in a piece of jewelry, but that's why this is a challenge, right? Or else I would have just made up a song about jewelry to make jewelry about. . . not a bad idea, now that I think about it.

Anyway, these little spirals springy thingies substituted for the spiralling of a question. I know, kind of lame, but there you go. I suspended light blue Swarovski crystals inside them on a head pin. The earrings are very cool and different; I just don't think the represent the song line very well.

Oh, and last night I found the scrolling things, stuffed in under my mass of jump rings. Sigh.

Onward to line 26:

"I muttered something underneath my breath, she studied the lines on my face."

Lots of faces and shoes in this song. Can I just say that I love the way this little necklace turned out? The light blue glass beads have brown "lines" through them, heh heh. I took a small oval Art Nouveau styled pendant charm and hung it in front of a blank oxidized copper Vintaj rectangle. Vintaj makes the grooviest metal beading supplies on the planet Earth, by the way, but they tend to be a bit pricey. I added some yummy chocolate brown glass pearls, and here we have a sweet, fairly simple little necklace.

I think we're starting to make some serious progress with this experiment!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, part 24

The big news is, I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the epic song, "Tangled up in Blue," by Bob Dylan. We have reached line twenty-four, and it goes like this:

"Later on when the crowd thinned out, I was just about to do the same. . ."

So, I made a bracelet that "thinned" out, from one strand to two. It has a variety of aqua and turquoise blue Czech glass beads, and white and chocolate brown glass pearls. Mmmmm, chocolate. I love chocolate brown and turquoise blue together. The center bead is a beautiful faceted Czech glass rectangle.

Onward!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, part 23

I think we might be nearing the halfway point, patient readers! So, I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." We have reached line twenty-three, and it goes like this:

"I just kept looking at the side of her face in the spotlight so clear."

I remembered these white glass face beads that I had tucked away in my stash, as well as this assortment of turquoise blue gorgeous beads, threw in a couple different shapes of gold beads, and we have a quirky little bracelet. Yay!

Gosh, I so love making jewelry. Can you tell?

And why is Blogger so weird? It's eating my spaces between paragraphs. My layout in the new post box is all jacked up. . . I'm going to just do my thing and let blogger fall where it may.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Parts 21 & 22

Not only can MAB not seem to count to twenty, I also completely forgot to add number 21. So, we had two number nineteens. . . ah, well. Please forgive me.

I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by every line from "Tangled up in Blue" by Mr. Bob Dylan. On to numbers 21 and 22, both wonderfully dangling earrings.

Line 21 is the chorus again, "Tangled up in blue." I took these lovely brass oval stampings, with a "tangle" of filigree, added some marbelized light blue glass hearts and twisted gold glass bugle beads, hung them from French hooks, and, presto change-o, earrings! They have really great movement to them.

Line 22: "She was working in a topless place, and I stopped in for a beer."

Stripping and beer. Okay. This could have branched off in various directions, but I went with tassels.

I took some shiny silver vintage chain, and made a sort of fringed tassle with different lengths that gradually get longer. Then, I added some opaque aqua glass blossom bead caps and some rhodium tulip-style bead caps. Eye pins, jump rings, stainless steel French hooks, and, voila! Earrings.

These are fab and unusual, with terrific dangle-ishisness.

Word of the day: dangle-ishisness.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Nineteen

No, not part nineteen hundred. Just part nineteen. I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from Bob Dylan's "Tangled up in Blue." Line nineteen goes like this:

"I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew. . ."

I took this sweet Art Nouveau cupid connector and added some silver vintage chain and a heart-shaped skeleton key charm to it. Then I used these bright blue foil-lined glass beads and ivory glass pearls. The result is romantic, colorful and light.

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

I'd like first to apologize for the pun. Couldn't help myself. I'd also like to say that I've never tried absinthe. Heck, I've never even see it. I live in Ohio, so it's hard to get a Corona here. I'm not much of a drinker. Two beers and someone has to drive me home, so absinthe would most likely put me into a coma.

Absinthe is a distilled spirit, 45-75% alcohol, and that's a heck of a lot of alcohol. It's made from grande wormwood, and that makes it sound even more exotic. To top it off, it's this lucious, strange bright green color, like a potion. It was extremely popular in late nineteenth and early twentieth century France, where a lot of writers and artists enjoyed it immensely and referred to it as "the Green Fairy." A list of bohemian fans includes Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Toulouse-Lautrec, Wilde, Crowley and van Gogh. Not an extremely cheery group of people, but they were quite inventive. In 1910, the French were drinking 36 million liters of absinthe a year. And that is a heck de beaucoup of absinthe.

It gained a great reputation as a psychoactive, addictive substance, and was villified and banned. However, its only real reactions seem to be caused by its very high alcohol content and nothing more. Like so many vintage fads, absinthe enjoyed a resurgence at the last turn of the century, into the new millenium, and it's now being sold around the world again today.

The myth of illness and addiction has made absinthe a glamourous subject for many artists. Early absinthe may have been mixed with poisonous substances to make it even more green, and that could account for some of the reported strange effects. From modern experiments, it seems to have the effect of an unusually "lucid drunkeness," and many creators lauded its mind expanding qualities while also damning its after effects and addictive qualities.

"The Goddess," wrote Aleister Crowley. "What makes her so adorable and so terrible?" Trust me, if Aleister Crowley thought it was terrible, then it's best to steer completely clear of it.

Me? I just love the history and the color. . .

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Nineteen

Yes, it's the next piece of jewelry inspired by the next line from the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." Line nineteen goes like this: "But all the while I was alone the past was close behind."

These earrings look like the past to me, with the lovely aged coin-like disks and bits of vintage chain. For the necessary pop of blue, I used these lovely Swarovski crystal bicones in Caribbean blue opal. The color on these little glass beads is amazingly dramatic for such small beads. You can always count on Swarovski for fabulousness. Swarovski may actually mean "fabulous" in Czech. . .

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Eighteen

I am just knocking them down, huh? I'm making a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the epic Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." And line eighteen goes like this:

"Working for awhile on a fishing boat right outside of Delacroix."

I've had this marvelous little articulated fish charm for awhile, swimming around in my charm box. So, I put together a mix of ocean blue glass beads, including more fish, for a bracelet packed with glorious fishy joy!

Articulated, by the way, means "with pivoting parts: made up of two or more sections connected by a joint that can pivot." I thought it meant well-spoken and with an impressive vocabulary, but the fish does not speak. He only bends and wiggles in a great fishy way.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Seventeen

To keep everyone in the blue loop, I'm fashioning a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the wonderful Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." And here is line seventeen:

"So I drifted down to New Orleans where I happened to be employed. . ."

A couple of things about this line--first off, I always thought that he was singing, "where I was lucky enough to be employed." Secondly, a little strange that I made this bracelet on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I've had lots of intriguing little coincidences going on lately.

So, I used the oceanic blue pressed glass beads from CaladoniaMarch on etsy. Then, I rooted through my charm stash, looking for New Orleans related items. Here's what I found: a crown for the King of Mardi Gras, a corss, a scallop seashell, a really lovely detailed cross, a scaly chameleon, a spooky voodoo skull, a cherub, and a tiny fleur de lys.

I visited New Orleans awhile back, and fell in love with the city. It felt more European than American, and I would love to return some day, to revisit. Unusual and charming.

The Tangled up in Blue Experiment, Part Sixteen

More blue! More blue! I'm making a piece of jewelry inspired by each and every line of Bob Dylan's song, "Tangled up in Blue." I have to say, this is my favorite piece yet to come out of this little experiment.

Line sixteen:

"But I never did like it all that much, and one day the axe just fell."

I didn't have an axe, but I did have this super cool vintage penknife that's been rattling around in my pendant box, just waiting for its moment in the sun. The knife is very old, but it does still open. I didn't check the sharpness, because sharp things and I sometimes do not get along. The sharp thing always wins.

I used this delicate filigree pendant behind the penknife. They looked interesting together. And then I added the turquoise glass beads and the yummy gold crystals. I'm kind of loving this one. It's quirky, but still pretty.

Stay tuned for more blue.

Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat was a French Impressionist painter who developed his own offshoot of Impressionism, called Pointilism. In Pointilist paintings, the artist applies distinct dots of individual colors directly to the canvas, and the colors are then blended by the viewer's vision. The example here is a detail from Seurat's La Parade de Cirque. It prefigures pixels, and is almost as scientific as it is artistic.



The color wheel had just been developed when Seurat came up with the concept of pointilism. He believed that color could be used to produce different types of harmony in a painting, and that would then produce different types of emotions in the viewer.



According to Seurat, "Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of the contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, considered according to their dominance and under the influence of light, in gay, calm or sad combinations."



His most well-known painting is Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. This painting hangs at The Art Institute of Chicago. I have to admit, the first time I saw this painting, I cried. It's huge (81.7 inches by 121.25 inches), so huge that it's emotionally overpowering. He spent over two years working on this one piece, including many preliminary sketches. It's also surrounded by a frame of painted dots. To this day, it remains one of the most beautiful and inspiring objects that I have ever seen in my life.





I have a print of this hanging over my kitchen sink. No, really, I wash dishes to La Grande Jatte. Tonight, I'm going to take it off the wall and set it on my bead board. I don't know if there's a way to translate the vivid technique of Pointilism to my jewelry, but I would love to be somehow inspired by this genius. He only lived to be thirty-one. Wow. And he spent two years of his short life creating this one masterpiece. That's what I call inspiring.

I'm going to try for harmony.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Fifteen

Here we are at line fifteen of the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by every line from the song.

Line fifteen goes like this:

"I had a job in the great north woods, working as a cook for a spell."

I have to confess that my idea of cooking usually involves a can opener and/or a microwave, so I went with the north woods angle. Plus, I had this great little brass bear charm that's been calling to me. He's a bear from the north woods, you see, possibly a grizzly bear, and he's so cool. I combined him with these bright blue to green to white rectangular table cut beads from Caladnoia March on etsy, and some sweet little brown freshwater pearls.

He looks like a happy little bear, doesn't he? Like he just raided a really great dumpster somewhere.

The "Tangled up in Blue" experiment, part fourteen

I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the Bob Dylan song "Tangled up in Blue." Have I mentioned that this is a really long song? Okay, just checking. So, we've reached the hook again, line fourteen: "Tangled up in bluuuuue. . ."

I put together this sweet little two strand bracelet, with aqua and blue glass beads, hearts, and crystals, a little bit of silver and a sprinkling of white glass pearls. Two strands = tangled up! Blue = blue. See, it's just that easy!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, part thirteen

Yay, it's lucky number thirteen. So, here's the lowdown on this whole crazy thing. I'm creating one piece of jewelry to correspond with each line of the wonderful Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." Some are a bit more representative than others.

And lucky line thirteen goes like this:

"I heard her say over my shoulder, 'We'll meet again someday on the avenue. . .'"

I just picked up this compass motif silver charm this weekend. I paired it with a coppery aged Vintaj blank round pendant, and thought that looked kind of groovy. Then, I used those rectangular table cut glass beads from CaladoniaMarch that I'm so into right now. These are an incredible oceanic blue hue. Throw in some little coppery faceted crystals and some dark twisted bugle beads, and we have a necklace. Oh, and a silver mermaid toggle.

Onward, into the blueness!