Wonder and Whimsy Monthly Challenge - June Reveal

Here it is... the reveal for this month's Wonder and Whimsy Monthly Challenge! Yay!

As a reminder, the theme for my challenge for this month was Creative Chaos. 

This challenge was roughly based on the Bead Ruckus--the fun challenge that I was part of several years ago, which involved five designers picking a random jewelry-making component and then making something incorporating all of those components. 

To emulate the randomness of the designers picking different beads and findings, I just reached into my bag of to-be-sorted-beads...

...and came out with these random selections:

Here's what they look like outside of their respective baggies:

...Heh. Yeah, not things that I would normally put together. That mix includes paper beads (not made by me), vintage acrylic, and glass. 

Now, four out of six of those components are super chunky, so I struggled to find a way to balance them all. Add to that the fact that the color combination was a bit tricky... While quite a few of the colors are actually rather similar--the vintage acrylic, the large glass beads--the red really threw me off. 

Still, I persevered... and here is what I made!

Knotted on waxed linen, this necklace incorporates all six of the random components. I only added the findings, the central ring (in an attempt to balance the focal) and a few other sizes of the vintage acrylic beads (they were salvaged from a vintage necklace, so I had a few sizes to choose from). 

...And it is a very, very chunky necklace.

Honestly, though, I kind of love it. It is certainly not my normal style--and I would have never dreamed of putting those components together--but it was so much fun to experiment and play... and it is super satisfying to take things that I didn't think went together, and make something that looks pretty cool. :)

...and now, it's time for the bonus round!

Yesterday, I had a little free time, and decided to do another random bead drawing. These are the selections that I drew from the bag:

That is a collection of vintage acrylic (the purple saucers and pearly potato chips), Czech glass, India agate, and glass.

...And, honestly, I was feeling pretty confident with that collection until I drew out the purple. Gah! Everything else is sort of in a similar colorway--golden, rich colors. The purple, though? It's pastel and bright and doesn't match. 

Yet, in the spirit of the challenge, I pushed on. After all, it's supposed to be random. :)

After some putzing and designing (and re-designing), this is what I made: 

This necklace is made completely with the random components, with only the findings and two mother-of-pearl rounds added (one in the focal, and one in the dangle).

Truth be told, I'm still not completely sold on the purple... but, otherwise, I think it works. (Something interesting? Looking at this necklace now, I realize that I put complementary colors next to each other without realizing it--the reds are always next to a green, and the purple is always next to the yellowish cream. My subconscious apparently likes color theory. Heh.)

So, ta-da! That's what I made for this month's Creative Chaos challenge. It was so extremely fun to play around and stretch my designing muscles--working with different sizes and color combinations, and just allowing myself to not make something perfect. And who knows? Maybe I'll even do a few more of these, while I work on sorting through that giant bag of goodies.

Thanks so much for stopping by today to see what I made... I really appreciate all of you who take the time to read my blog.

Have a wonderful weekend, and end of June, everyone!