About Me

Lindsay M Starr is a beadwork and mixed media artist currently based in Nashville, TN. She spent her early childhood in Alaska, and her school age and college years in Oregon. Lindsay has a great appreciation for history, science, and nature and is consistently inspired by insects, sea life, color, and the significance of beads and beadwork throughout human history. She spends her days beading, walking at the zoo, and practicing yoga. Lindsay loves to share her knowledge and passion for beads and beadwork to hobbyists of all skill levels.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

AJE Eye Love Beads Challenge Reveal

I'm not quite sure how it got here so fast, but it's time for another Art Jewelry Elements Challenge Reveal!  This month we were all inspired to create with an Eye theme for the challenge!  I had so much inspEYEration...but not so much free time.  Man, life is good right now...but finding time for beading is not happening much.  I did sit down a few days ago to rummage through my stash of eyes (if you didn't see earlier in the month, I shared over here) and whipped up a little beauty:
 I love these little Czech glass eyes so much, and had been wanting to make a small pendant with one for awhile.  
The cab is fully captured using delicas and 15/0 to 18/0 seed beads, then embellished with a row of drops and a row of little triangle shaped O beads.  So much bling!
I wanted to make the pendant a bit more substantial because the eye cab was so thin on the edges - it's hard to stitch a good capture when the edge of your cab is thin.  So I glued 2 cabs together!  The eye was a match in size (18mm) for some vintage glass coin cabochons I had.  This pairing also reminded me of the ancient Greek tradition of placing coins on the eyes of the deceased, intended to pay Charon, the boatman of the river Styx.  This extra thickness allowed me to stitch a nice solid capture, and makes the back of the pendant just as interesting as the front!  Sometimes on a small pendant like this, I don't like adding a beaded bail - they feel a little chunky somehow, and interrupt the continuous flow of the embellishment.  I stitched on a little soldered "8" ring instead - the smaller loop is stitched to the pendant, the larger is free to hang on a chain.  
Next on my plate will be this fantastic cab from Kristie Roeder of Artisan Clay.  I wound up with not enough time to tackle an embroidery project this time...but soon!  The days are getting longer!

 Thank you so much for looking!  I hope you will hope along and check out how everyone else was inspEYEred by the challenge this month!  Please click the links below to redirect to their blogs!
Guests - 

AJE Members - 

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