Jewelry Inspiration In Bloom

Last Sunday was our 40th anniversary, so my husband and I decided to take a little road trip down the Oregon coast to celebrate.  A vendor, at a recent show, told me about a state park, in Newport, Oregon, called Shore Acres.  He said it had gorgeous gardens that were well worth seeing.  So we made Shore Acres our end-point destination.

Shore Acres - Newport, Oregon

The entire trip was so much fun. The gardens were amazing and I love the beach, the sand between my toes and the sound of waves crashing.  But today I just want to share some flowers at Shore Acres that inspired some new jewelry.

I noticed a number of flowers with pink and yellow petals. They were so striking and beautiful. The pink and yellow dahlias, pictured below, especially captured my attention.

I couldn't get these flowers out of my mind, so I decided to challenge myself to create a piece of jewelry in pink and yellow.  This was a big challenge for me, because I rarely use pink and I almost never use yellow in my designs.  Now I was challenging myself to use both colors in one piece!

Trying to work outside my comfortable color zone, must have tapped into a different area of my brain, because the necklace that emerged is quite unlike most of my recent work.

I don't even have many yellow beads, but fortunately I'd recently acquired a yellow ceramic pendant from Joan Tucker of Off Center Productions. I managed to find one strand of yellow pearls in my stash and some golden-yellow glass tubes.

I found some yellow and pink glass cubes in my somewhat larger collection of pink beads.  I added  gold colored metal accents and this is what I came up with.  It looks very summery, but I'm a little surprised at how unlike me it is. LOL!  I honestly can't decide if I like it or not.  What do you think?  Be honest!

In any case, it was fun to push myself to experiment with some different colors.  I feel that pushing myself to experiment builds creativity in the same way that exercise builds muscle.  I can feel my "creativity muscle" growing!

If this has inspired your creativity, you might want to check out the great pink and yellow components and jewelry below.  Have fun!

Lampwork Glass by Beads & Botanicals

Ceramic components by Suburban Girl Studio

New polymer clay components from Kristi Bowman Design.

Bronze Flower from THEAElements

Ceramic cab in a creamy yellow glaze with pink highlights

by Starry Road Studio

Polymer Clay by Tree Wings Studio

Enameled Earrings by Melismatic Art Jewelry

What have you done lately to strengthen your "creativity muscle"?  

Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry - ArtFire 

Linda Landig Jewelry - Etsy