New Beads and Jewelry-Part 1~Western Designs

We have been working very hard recently to prepare for the onslaught of summer shows.  We sell at the Highland Park Farmers Market every Saturday (schedule permitting) during the summer and early fall, along with other summer festivals and shows thrown in.  Keeping up, in short, is exhausting.  Exhaustion and deadlines can work against creativity, however, it can make you see the looming NEED for what you want to finish also.  I am a procrastinator and it has gotten worse over the past several years.  I find that knowing I have one day, one evening, or one hour left is very good for prodding me to finish what I need to do.

Here, as I mentioned in the last post,  are some of the new designs we have been working on.

Designs by Chris Haussler

Howdy partner!  Wild West Penguins have been added to Chris's repertoire of penguin designs.  Too Funny!  His penguins always have such personality and character to them.  When we prepared for the Ranch Expo (which went VERY well, and we are signed up for next year), we wanted to make some western designs for the folks that live the cowboy way of life.

From upper left clockwise: Rose Gold Cross, Boho Peace, Red Creek Jasper w/feather, Silver & Crystal Cross.

I love to make earrings.  They are quick and the possibilities are endless.  These are a few of the thirty five pair I have made in the past couple weeks.  The rose gold and silver crosses I purchased on clearance at Jo-Ann's a few weeks ago and since I had no findings for rose gold, I was thankful all of those were also on clearance.  I used some rose gold balls as the accent beads and on the silver crosses, Swarovski 4mm bi-cones in blues.  The Boho Peace have a gorgeous peacock finish Czech glass oval bead with antique copper peace sign charms.  The feather earrings have red creek jasper ovals and antique copper Tierracast feather charms.  Red creek jasper is SO my favorite stone to work with.  The variations and matrixing in the stones make it look like each bead is something different!

This set I made using red creek jasper.  I don't normally make and sell "sets", and technically this also wasn't a set, though the gal that purchased it bought both pieces.  I usually design a piece and then move on, but once in awhile something made deserves a pair of earrings or a bracelet to go with the necklace design.  These pieces went together but were individual in the designs.  The earrings had dangles made on a ring from the same chain as the necklace and the dangles were red creek jasper, hematite, gunmetal Czech glass, and smoky quartz.  Then necklace is mostly red creek jasper in several shapes and sizes and seed beads with a bit of hematite, smoky quartz, and Czech glass added to the double strands.  I especially loved the focal which reminds me of an autumn shot of a Nebraska prairie.  The horizon line is visible with trees and sticks poking up through the native grasses tinted in autumn colors.  The wire wrapping was done with vintage bronze and it matched the large/small ring chain.

One last grouping of western designs to share.  I used a few pieces of Lipstick Ranch to create three rustic designs.  The two necklaces are both on leather cord from Julie's which she buys from Leather Cord, USA.  Very nice quality, terrific prices.  I used some raku nuggets on the peace sign necklace along with some large hole crystals, and Unicorne Beads teardrops.  This necklace sold to a lovely young gal.  She helps her mom with their doll clothes business, Giddy Up Girls and we traded the necklace for doll clothes for my niece.  I love trading art for art!  The earrings use smaller L.R. crosses with some turquoise and carnelian rondelles.  The flower power necklace has a large beaded bead (from Auntie's Beads) and miscellaneous other crystals in that gorgeous crimson color.  However, we discovered that this necklace is too short for the sliding knot design I used since it won't go over your head!  Duh, I didn't even try it out!  So I will be fixing that this week, and the necklace and cross earrings will be for sale at the High School Rodeo in Hastings, starting on Wednesday.  The final picture shows a cluster of the new cowboy hat pendant Chris made for the Expo show and those will also be for sale in Hastings.  Julie reserved a booth and we will have our jewelry and things there with other jewelry, quilting items, and Southwestern design gifts.  Stay tuned this week for more of our new jewelry designs!