This is one of the most frustrating weeks of YOJ for me, and one of my finest. Let me explain. Last week, completely without good inspiration, I googled for a cheat. What I mean is when the subject doesn't conjure pictures for me, I 'll go to google's image search, drop in the phrase for the week, and see if the visuals kick start me somehow. OK, this week I had 3 choices. Cities of the world, lots of pretty cityscape's, but not really my bag. Midnight Stars seems to be the name of some rock group and at least 3 different books. Not a thing for me. So Moonlight Sonata ( which sounds darn pretty but I couldn't get any specific images ), being third was the third search I made. Imagine my surprise when several pics of sheets of music came up, so it's like, oh, it's a song.. alittle research and a quick side trip to You Tube, and I realize it's just about my favorite piece from Beethoven!!!! Gosh I felt stupid. I'm horrible with names, but with the first 3 notes I knew I knew it!!! And boy did that set off a whole cascade of thoughts and images!!!! I made about 5 sketches in rapid response, and scurried up to the beadroom to find the beads I needed to make this wonderful idea a reality.
Time for the frustration. I, who my hubby thinks I own every bead ever made, or at least thinks I've made him carry them at least 3 times, couldn't find the right beads!!!!!!!! argggh!!!!!! I spent a couple of hours on the net trying to find the beads to make this vision of wonderfulness come to life, to no avail. I won't go into the details, because this idea will now lurk in the back of my head until I find the right beads, and whatever the cost, the beads will be mine, and my homage to Beethoven's 14th Sonata will be made!!!!!!!
However this left me up the bead creek without a needle, and I finally just gave up on doing that piece on Saturday. The rest of Saturday, after all my normal chores and all the made up ones that my family comes up with, which means about 3pm, I go up to the bead room and start goofing with wire and such, trying to come up with something, anything for this weeks' theme. (At the bottom of the blog you can see a few of them.) I gave up, and decided I didn't have to be on topic this week after all... it's not mandatory, it's just a guide to get the creative juices flowing, which it had done.. it's not the topic's fault I didn't have the right stinkin' beads to get the job done. (yet!! )
I have a full box of charms, and I decided I'd not made any jewelry lately with the charms, so rummaging through them, I found this double sided moon. That got me thinking about Midnight stars actually.. as in, how do you tell the stars are at night? why, because the moon is out, silly! ( yes, I talk to myself when I create. Yes the beads answer me, the Capri 8mm Roundel Bead on the left has the next question....) So I started to play around with that concept. Somewhere around 1am I got this idea to put the charm on a huge Labradorite bead I had, which then made me remember some wonderful Labradorite beads I bought at Bead & Button this year, and I scribbled a design in my sketch pad. It looked like a moon on a circle for the pendant, with little circles for the necklace. Since my drawing ability sucks, my little circles looked like 2 or 3 circles on top of each other, which made me think of spirals, and a-ha! I'll do spirals on the necklace!!! ( for regular fans, spirals will not be a surprise. For first time readers, I really love spirals in wire.. it's just so much fun and earthy and organic feeling, and they are just plain fun to make!! ) I should have taken a picture of the sketch, it really doesn't resemble the final piece at all, but that's what makes this week's piece so fine!!!! Sometimes the idea in your head is better than what you actually make, and sometimes its so much better than what your head originally says, your not sure how it happened. I got both this week, with the idea I can't do (frustration) and the idea that turned into "Moonlight" (finest)
The spirals on the pendant component are made with 18 GA sterling with crystals ( I've been wanting to try that variation for ages, I love how the double spirals look plain and now I like how they look embellished)
The link components are also 18 GA, along wit the clasp.
I like how the matching earrings ended up, fun to design them, I also made a "plain" pair which I don't have shown here, it's just the lentil beads on a ear wire. Also shown this week are the 2 pairs of cross earrings I made, 1 pair made with 21 GA wire and the other are the vintage crystal crosses. Last is a pendant in bloodstone, I hammered the wire before I put it on the bead, I like the look, but it looks incomplete to me.. like it needs dangles or something... hum.... I wonder what's in the bead stash that would look good with Bloodstone........
I added a vintage crystal from a chandelier. The finish on the crystal has turned slightly yellow with age, which in this piece I think really adds to it! I really like how it turned out, really need to play with this style of wirework more! I'm counting this as week 46. I will be on topic for 47, it's done, just haven't gotten the photo's ready yet, and with the holiday this week I probably won't have a chance til Sunday. I've also got a few pendants and one pair of earrings to show also. The first is a heart pendant,
a quick and easy one with a vintage crystal, fun to make though. The 2nd is carnelian agate 
with black crystals. Earrings are based on an earring I found in Israel, before I made jewelry. It was a broken earring I found on the streets of Tel Aviv, and like a mag-pie I scooped it up. The earring had black glass bead from India instead of the vintage starlight crystal I used. I made my earring longer also, and added the extra scroll/spirals.... again another style to play with more. 
