Wonder and Whimsy Monthly Challenge - January 2021 Reveal

It's hard to believe that January is already almost over. Time has just flown by!

And, since it's the last Friday of the month, that also means that it's reveal time! Yay! I'm excited to show what I made for this month's Wonder and Whimsy challenge. As a refresher, I decided that I would try to make something with the Pantone 2021 Colors of the Year:

Not my photo! 
This, and a description of the thought process behind the color choices, can be found here.

All told, I made three items. Not bad, considering this was definitely a bit of a stretch for my designing muscles! 

And, for fun, I'll share them in the order that I made them. And I worked right up to the end--the last necklace I just finished this morning! *grin*

Necklace #1

This is the first necklace that I made for this challenge. I kept the design simple, to really showcase the colors. 

Speaking of colors, this is also the project where I was most careful to stay as true to the inspiration colors as I possibly could. The materials include pearls, black shell (focal), yellow Swarovski crystals, faceted glass, and silvertone metal.

All in all, a promising start to this challenge!

Necklace #2

For this one, I took a little bit of liberties with the color. After reading the comments to my introduction post, I decided to take Divya's suggestion of substituting silver for grey and gold for yellow, and this necklace just came together. (Divya is a very talented designer and has a blog over at Jewels of Sayuri--do check her out!)  

Oh, and I did make the chain. 

I've been playing around with Viking Knit this month, and had a lot of fun weaving this together. Looking at it, I can see some imperfections--but it's not bad for my second attempt at this technique. Ever. And I think this is one of those skills where you just get better and better at it the more you do it, so that just means I need to do it more. I think that can be arranged! *grin*

So, yes. I'm very proud of this necklace. 

Necklace #3

And, yes, I made a tassel. I do love making tassels, and this color scheme just asked to be made into one. I couldn't help it!

The focal bead is lampwork made by Carol Christensen-Day. I know I use her beads a lot, but I can't help it--they're just so cool! And, honestly, it just matched the color scheme too perfectly. 

Other materials include: vintage acrylic, wood, Czech glass, regular glass, and silvertone metal. 

The result is a surprisingly light necklace. Given its dimensions, you'd think it would be super heavy... instead, it's lightweight and full of movement--and incredibly striking, and modern, when worn.

So, ta-da! Those are the three projects that I made for this month's challenge. 

As suspected, yellow and grey proved a little challenging to work with for me--but I think that was mostly due to the beads that I had on hand. (I definitely had to buy more yellow beads, hah! Most of the yellow that I had was more pastel, and not sunshine-bright.) 

Also, it really was a bit of a balancing act. Those colors are so opposite... that shade of yellow is such a dominant, bright color and that shade of grey is so subdued. Finding the right balance took some time, where neither color truly out-shone the other. But that is the nature of jewelry design, isn't it--finding an aesthetically pleasing balance? At least, that's how I approach design. *grin*

Thank you so, so much for stopping by today to see what I made... I really appreciate you letting me share the things that I've been working on.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!