We're All Ears :: January Inspiration

Happy New Year ear peeps!

The December We're All Ears was our fun annual Use Your Leftovers challenge. I promised a giveaway of some earring components....the random winner is......

Ann Schroeder of Bead Love!

Congratulations! I will contact you and put together a fun package of some earring-making fun just for you!

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For January I am going to keep true to form for the annual Color of the Year challenge.

Want to see the challenges from the past?   2015     +      2016

So...have you seen what the color of 2017 is? Say hello to.....

According to the Pantone website: 

A refreshing and revitalizing shade, Greenery is symbolic of new beginnings.

Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.

Greenery is nature’s neutral. The more submerged people are in modern life, the greater their innate craving to immerse themselves in the physical beauty and inherent unity of the natural world. This shift is reflected by the proliferation of all things expressive of Greenery in daily lives through urban planning, architecture, lifestyle and design choices globally. A constant on the periphery, Greenery is now being pulled to the forefront - it is an omnipresent hue around the world.

A life-affirming shade, Greenery is also emblematic of the pursuit of personal passions and vitality.

I don't know about you, but I am ready for new beginnings.

What I like most about this color is that it is called 'nature's neutral.' This is the green that is so prevalent in the world (of course, not now, as it is blanketed in white, at least where I live). This seems like a very hope-full color, and I think that we can all use a bit more hope in our lives. It feels fresh and lush and all-encompassing. 

Pantone created a set of 10 different color palettes, all of which feature the color Greenery. They say that this color can be paired with everything from neutrals and pastels, brights and deeper shades as well as metallics. 

Here are my favorites:

These are endlessly fascinating palettes and I can see myself happily creating in these colors for the entirety of 2017

I am off to find some beads to match the palettes!

What colors do YOU like from the 2017 Pantone Spring color forecast?
What will you be wearing - or creating with - in the coming year?

Create your best GREENERY earrings and then come back and share your earrings at our blog hop on Friday, January 13th!

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Avoiding A Girly Look With Rose Quartz Pink

According to the color experts at Pantone, the two big colors for Spring and Summer of 2016 are Rose Quartz Pink and Serenity Blue.  For all the world, those two look like traditional nursery room colors to me.  Gah!  I really dislike the stereotyping that starts right at birth or even earlier, when the gender is known.  Women of my age (uh-hum) worked really hard to break down the narrow definitions of what women (and men) can or should do.  I used to know a very nice bead shop owner, who always referred to her staff as "My girls".  I had the same knee jerk reaction to that as to the baby colors.  OK, I know that lots of people will disagree with me and I also know that many people  don't feel as strongly as I do about calling women, girls or using baby pink.  I'm just speaking for me and I wanted to give you the back-story for today's earrings.

I decided to challenge myself to create something in Rose Quartz Pink that I would be comfortable wearing!

 Copper has a pink tinge to it, so I started with that.  These copper charms were made by Melinda Orr of ORRTEC.  I topped Melinda's copper with some speckled pink Czech glass from my stash.  The speckled effect helps tone a color down a bit.

Then I added some twisted wire jump rings and topped them off with matte purple lampwork glass beads from Paradise Beads.  I added a couple of loops of antiqued brass wire work to up the rustic look.  And for a final touch I added some hand dyed lace trim.  The dye is purposely spotty with patches of creamy white and hints of orange, mixed in with the pink.  It is not old lace, but it appears vintage.

So do you think I pulled this off?  Pink with out the cutesy, baby stuff?  What colors do you dislike?  Have you ever challenged yourself to use them despite your feelings?

These earrings are available here:  Pink Lace Earrings

 

Linda Landig