Reveal - SJ Designs Jewelry Honey Do List May Design Challenge!

Every month, Sarajo Wentling over at SJ Designs Jewelry hosts the Honey Do List Challenge. What is the Honey Do List Challenge? It's where her husband, Eric, issues her a beading challenge--with the intent that she use up some of her bead stash and get out of her comfort zone. Luckily for me, she lets others play along, too! 

This month's inspiration was a photo taken by Eric on a recent trip to Virginia and D.C.:

Here is what Eric said about this photo:
For this month's piece I wanted to use a shot from our recent trip to Virginia and D.C.  With the recent big storm, most of the cherry blossoms were long gone, but we found this single tree with some pink flowers!  I liked the movement of the dried grasses, the metal scrollwork of the sculpture, and the pop of color from the flowers.  

When I first looked at this picture, I was struck by the pop of magenta against a backdrop of creams and browns--and so, that's what I decided to focus on for my jewelry. (Obviously, there are other colors there... those are just the first ones that jumped out at me.) 

Luckily for me, digging around in my stash yielded just the right beads for what I had in mind--and so, I made this necklace:

In addition to brass and gold-tone findings, the materials are shell (the light cream rounds), pearl (the magenta beads), Dzi-style agate (brown patterned rounds), and coconut shell (the leaf pendant).

...I was particularly pleased with how the patterning on the agate reflected the patterning on the sculpture in the inspiration photo.

I picked the leaf pendant both because of the trees in the photo, and because its curve echoes the curves of the sculpture.

Also! A fun fact about the pendant: it's actually a button. The beads dangling in front of it hide the holes. I honestly debated about adding the dangle or not... I ultimately decided that the extra pop of color brought the design together, and reflected my initial response to the photo.

And so, there you go! That is the necklace that I made for this month's Honey Do Challenge. Thank you, Sarajo and Eric, for continuing to let me play along... And thank you, readers, for stopping by to see my creation! Be sure to swing by SJ Designs Jewelry to see what everyone else made!

Until next time, have a wonderful day everyone!