Beautiful Losers...

I had just come off of a winning streak and snagged top spots in several design competitions, when someone asked me, "What's your secret to winning?"

My response was as follows:

"No one wins everything all the time.  Sometimes you win.  Sometimes you lose.  Depending on what the judges are looking for and their personal aesthetics and the judging criteria, even the most stunning creations might not place.  One thing is for certain:  If you don't enter, you can't win.  So give it a try and cross your fingers!"

Here are some pieces that I recently made for a competition.  None of them placed.  Even though none of them won anything, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out and think that they're just lovely.  I had a lot of fun making them and developed some new tricks along the way!

And without further ado, here are my beautiful losers:

When I made this necklace, it was in height of "leaf-peeking season".  I didn't want to do the traditional autumnal color palette, and instead went with shades of garnet, lavender, opalescent rose, and silver.  I think the necklace turned out very juicy and I love feel of this piece.  I could play with it all day.

The technique on this necklace is pretty simple.  The chain is embellished with wire-wrapped dangles.  The trick of this piece is getting the balance just right.  You have to build up the bulk of clusters and then gently gradate outwards. 

In this piece, I used Czech glass rondelles, maple leaves, and faceted polygon beads.  I like how it's both warm and rich, but tempered by the coolness of the silver.  It's certainly sparkly, but not over-the-top.  I imagine that this piece could be worn to a more formal event or with just a t-shirt and jeans.

This piece featured concave "piggy" beads.  I incorporated them into this bracelet with a spiral stitch.  It took a little figuring to get the bead proportions right, but eventually I came up with a way to get the beads to fit together and create this "studded sea urchin look".

Here's a close-up.  I do like the cool color palette of the blues, amethyst and silver.  In hindsight, I wish that I would have flanked the drop beads with tiny galvanized size 15 seed beads to integrate the silver tones more and give it a metallic pop.  I think the end result is pretty neat though.  It's a little funky and makes good use of the piggy beads.

This was my last submission for this competition.  I made them for the earring category.  I had these cube beads with a retro mix of white and olive green.  They aren't crazy complicated, but I think they're pretty fun.  Since the design wasn't overly elaborate, I didn't necessarily have super high hopes for them winning anything.  But half the battle is showing up to the party!