Neutral Schmeutral....

At the request of a customer, I went neutral. Well, as neutral as I could...black, white, tan...but sooooo not boring! My first dig through my stash took me into the black and white with some bone starry discs and some variegated agate. I love the asymmetry and the way the stones work together in the pattern.

Then, I couldn't resist these cool black and white "dalmation" beans that I picked up at the Philly BeadFest Expo from the Colombian Craft Connection. They had a huge selection of natural materials and terra cotta. I just love the black and white with the red glass beads. Plus, a fun round bit of lava rock brings it to a spiraling finish.

I was still feeling the Colombian mood with some brown terracotta spacers that I mixed up in a s'morish way with some smoky quartz, bleached bone, and some quartz chips. The coolest bit of work here, though, is a little practice in my new fun technique...hammered silver links. Up in Philly, I got a great opportunity to learn hammering metal from artist Noel Yovovich. I think you'll see plenty more hammered bits falling into places in my pieces.

And, finally, I was back in my bags from Philly and brought a little green into my neutral palette. These are gorgeous porcelain beads made by 3C Studios. I was following an ad that I was carrying around, torn out of the back of a magazine, to see their booth at the expo. I had flashbacks to when I was a little girl and couldn't pick just one flavor of tootsie roll at the candy store, so I ended up with handfuls...handfuls of beads in this case! I mixed up these soft green rounds with a few wonderful glass discs from HMB Studios.

To finish out my work day, I used a scrap of silver to create this big chunk of a hammered spiral and mixed it up with some stones and shell for a beautifully simple pendant on a steel wire choker.

What a great morning!!!

Thanks for the "neutral" inspiration!!!