Two necklaces

Necklace - Snow

• Gorgeous gorgeous shadow box porcelain pendant - Round Rabbit
• Milky white 6-sided long glass beads
• Sea foam/light topaz 6/0 seed beads
• Pale yellow 15/0 seed beads
• Opal white gilt lined 6/0 seed beads
• Lobster clasp and findings in antiqued silver
• Copper heart (hidden inside the shadow box) - DaisyChainExtra
• Flexible beading wire

Necklace - TriColor

This is a super long necklace strung on waxed cotton cord. Using 6/0 seed beads, small pale blue wooden rounds and a variation of lucite, resin and glass beads. A magnetic ball clasp in silver color, and a silvery oval bead also. Bead colors are ivory, dark orange and turquoise blue.

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All my jewelry pieces are available for purchasing, even though I might not yet have listed them in my Etsy Shop. Please let me know if you are interested in any of them. Contact me at: malindekoning[at]hotmail.com

All my best,

Malin

2 Bracelets and 2 Necklaces

Two new bracelets. And 2 necklaces I made back in January, but haven't properly presented yet.

Bracelet 1 - Seeds and Brass

• Buri seeds
• Etched brass beads
• Polymer Clay disc bead by Pam Wynn
• Very light blue metallic seed beads
• Pale green waxed linen cord

Bracelet 2 - Blue Flower

• Blue Raku fired Ceramic Flower by Jubilee
• Translucent smoke colored glass nuggets
• Copper Clasp by Higher Chakra/Metal Fuze
• Blue waxed linen cord

Very Long Necklace 1 - Bee

• Ceramic Bee Bead by Nancy Schindler of Round Rabbit
• Matte Pale Blue Wooden Rounds
• Pale Green Waxed Linen Cording
• Large Vintaj Jump Rings
• Vintage Chain 

Very Long Necklace 2 - Yellow Flying

Yellow Bird Pendant by Jade Scott

Yellow Matte Irregular Seed Beads

Vintaj Brass Clasp

Vintaj Brass Jump Rings

All my jewelry is available for purchasing, even though I might not yet have listed them in my Etsy Shop. Please let me know if you are interested in any of them. :-)

All my best,

Malin

Love, passion and thrill (and a necklace and a bracelet)

It feels to me like I haven't been all that productive with my jewelry making over the last couple of months. That is not all true, I know, because I HAVE made pieces here and there, but I haven't been at all as productive as I would have been if I hadn't had a few distractions going on around me in my life. I have missed my jewelry making. Big time actually. I have still had my hands occupied with making beaded beads, tons of them actually ... but more about that in another post coming up soon(-ish).

I have missed my beads, I have missed to just be looking at them, fondling them, combining them and so on. Communicating with them, and via them. You know what I mean, don't you. I realize what an extraordinary strong love affair I have with my beads. Serious serious love. And an addiction. Now again I feel so content, so stimulated and so lustful. Passionate. And still lusting for more.

Over the last few days I have been finding myself spending more and more time in my beading studio again. I mean not just popping in there every now and then, but sessions going on for many hours. I made a smaller clean up of my messy work area, and I sorted a lot of the beads just laying around in different piles previously created as a result of how my ideas processes work.

I have so many wonderful wonderful beads in my stash. And I guess it in a way sometimes might be good to not hang with them for a while, because when you meet up again, you sort of re-discover them with a clean mind. That is how I feel now at least.

Look at those large shell beads in the necklace below! They are about 22 mm across, but not heavy at all. I bought them about 6 months ago. From HappyMangoBeads. I thought they were a bit on the expensive side for me to be honest, I mean for what you get. And I hesitated for more than a week before I finally made up my mind. Oh, how glad I am that they ended up with me. They are simply absolutely gorgeous, worth every penny. My idea at the time was that they would end up in a chunky and summery bracelet. But look at that necklace I made the other day instead. It was one of those you know, that sort of designs itself and your hands seem to be simply just a tool for some higher power. May I say myself that I adore it? It looks absolutely fantastic on (sorry I don't have a good picture of that yet.) And it is also packed with a bunch of art beads and components from some of my favorite bead artisans. I think it has a strong wintery holiday feel to it. What do you think?

It will be for sale in my Etsy shop in a not too far future. (Or you are very welcome to contact me already now if you are interested in buying it.)

• Verdigris Loop 'T' Loop by Staci Louise of SLArtisanAccents
• Kiwi green ceramic round by Elaine Ray
• Dark green erudite facetted polymer clay nuggets by Barbara Bechtel of SecondSurf
• White cylindrical ceramic bead from EarthButterStudio
• Aqua blue green crackle glaze large ceramic round from EarthButterStudio
• Green ceramic wheel disc by Round Rabbit
• Shell beads from Happy Mango Beads
• Round rosey copper link by E2SSupplies
• Orange waxed linen cord
• Chocolate brown silk ribbon

And a humble(-ish) bracelet with facetted oval glass beads with some sort of coating that make them sparkle a bit more and look a little milky too, and a copper leaf link by Joanne Tinley of DaisyChains. It also has a winter holiday feel to it, don't you think. This one will also turn up in my Etsy shop very soon.

• Oxidized copper leaf link from DaisyChainExtra
• Facetted oval glass bead crystal clear with a coating
• Round pearl coated white bead
• Green enameled bead caps
• Red round small glass bead
• Copper hook
• Pale cellery green waxed linen cord

All my best,Malin de Koning

ABS June Challenge Necklace - Somewhere Down The Crazy River

My contribution for the June Challenge at Art Bead Scene became a necklace. It has undergone a few transformations on it's journey to the final piece. Started off as a bracelet with Gaea's green button as the clasp and center piece. 7 strands of waxed linen cord strung with Delica beads size 11/0. But I couldn't make the clasp solution look good. Gave up after trying about 10 different ways. Moody about it of course. I really like all those strands.
One of the first things I picked out from my stash when starting on the challenge piece was the multi-holed pendant from RoundRabbit. Hey, look at that. I can combine them! I like!!!!

Also tried quite a few different solutions for the chain/ribbon part. Ended up simplifying it more and more. Now it's only a chain and a leather ribbon. And I kept shortening it too. I generally don't make necklaces as short as this one. But with a pendant like this you want it to sit higher. And you want the fringy bit to hang by the clevage.
Here's another pathetic try by me to take a photograph with myself as the model. This was the least bad one anyway. I might have a new solution to this "show the piece on" problem. Will see tomorrow how it works. Now I must add a note to this paragraph. I just realized this particular photo wasn't taken by myself at all. My 7 year old daughter took it for me. I guess she didn't keep her hand all that steady either ... Sorry for being unclear.

Below is the art piece by Odilon Redon we are supposed to be inspired by. It's a lovely lovely painting/pastel. And it was very easy to be inspired by it. I do have some more things simmering on my bead table for more contributions. We'll see if I finish any more of them off.Here on flickr you can see some more contributions from other jewelry artists. More will be added through until the end of the month. So keep coming back if you are the curious kind.

All my best!

Malin

ABS May Challenge - Bracelet

My contribution for Art Bead Scene's May challenge is a bracelet. I named it "Hide and Seek", just like the painting by Berthe Morisot. Read about the piece and the challenge here.

I just completely fell for the color scheme of strong green, very light grey and touches of ochre in this painting. Or at least those where the colors that stood out to me as the ones I wanted to work with. A somewhat unusual combo in a jewelry piece maybe. But oh so yummie!

I am very pleased and excited about the solution with the three leather ribbons/bands going in and out of Round Rabbit's beautiful porcelain rings. They are playing hide and seek with each other :-) .

Look, I tried to take a Lorelei Eurto-esque picture of the bracelet on me. I really like her style when she photographs the pieces on herself. No one was there to help me, so I ended up with a bunch of pictures of the wall behind me and a little bit of my nose in one corner. I didn't bother with setting up the camera or programming it for delayed exposure. Simply held it myself with a stretched out arm. This one worked out ok anyway.

The pattern on the porcelain rings works perfectly to capture the romantic atmosphere in the painting, don't you agree.

The green dangle bead is a Swarovski milky green facetted round. The rest is copper components.

If you wanna see all the current contributions for the challenge go here.

And don't miss the blog hop about all the contributions that has been blogged about, starting at Art Bead Scene at the end of the month.

All my best! Have a great weekend. Mine will be very busy :-)

Shop or not shop - Amazing feedback pt 1. And a new bracelet.

Oh the feedback I got from my last post. Absolutely fantastic! So many good ideas there, and ways of thinking, and angles and ... I got more than I ever could have imagined. There are things there I have never thought of. You are simply the best! Now I need a few days to think through it all, and come up with my plan. More likely I need a week or so. Well, I think I already know the basic structure of it all, but the details, the details ...

You have no idea how helpful your comments have been, and will be. You, and they, will make all the difference for me in the future. I am ever so grateful. Thank you thank you thank you!

Speaking of details, Michelle Mach, who's blog is my latest discovery and which I scrutinize every post of (coz she is excellent), wrote about details a few days ago. She is doing a "letter series" of posts paraphrasing Sue Grafton, an author I like to read. Anyway you should check this post "D is for Details". And that picture!

Her post relates strangely and strongly to one of my latest pieces. The bracelet you see in the pictures. I had the basic design laid out very quickly. Actually it was the two beads you see centrally in the image below, that happened to lay next to each other on my table. And BAM! I loved how they looked together. How about Nancy's, RoundRabbit, teal porcelain link to go with that? I've been so eager to use it ever since I got it a few weeks ago. Yes, it looks great! The rest came by itself. Lilac, teal and brass.

But, what about details then? Well, I have assembled, reassembled, assembled, took all the photographs, saw that something was missing on the chain part, took it apart, took it all apart, coz there were more details I wasn't happy with, like the string I had used was too stiff, and the large beads were sort of turned the wrong way, and also the dangles and so on. Why is it that sometimes the details just get right from the beginning, but then sometimes you have to redo and redo until it is all right. I took all the pictures again today, but of course I managed to smear the lens with my thumb after half of the session. Something I only noticed once I had uploaded them to my computer. No, I am not taking a third set of photos. Now these will have to do.

I haven't given the bracelet a name yet. Currently I call it XX.

All my best, and again a HUGE thank you for your support! I shall come up with some kind of give-away for you. Tomorrow I'm going to Ikea.

Ring - Going To the Art Gallery

Made this ring yesterday. I named it "Going To the Art Gallery". It's the opening day, and you walk around there looking at paintings whilst sipping on your white wine. Of course you need a large ring, a boho chic looking one. Black ceramic disk by RoundRabbit, green ceramic disk, dark ceramic round by Gaea, brass wire, black fiber/yarn.

I was inspired by the works of Maire Dodd and Amanda Davie.