Guest Post: Antiquity Travelers

Hello and Welcome to Cynthia, with her first Guest Post here on Handcrafted Pretty. I'm happy to share with you her art infused post!   

Visit Cynthia's blog to see more beautiful jewelry inspired by her love of gemstones, history, and travel and to read the colorful, funny, and realistic stories.   Thanks, Cynthia! 

Vincent Van Gogh is an artist who had periods of visionary creativity juxtaposed with times of deep despair. Such a complex story, but then that is what this series is about. Taking certain aspects of his life and using that as creative juices.

You might recall that I mentioned having a bowl of earring 'singles.' I have this bad habit of creating only one earring because I love the creative process, and then I grow tired of duplicating my efforts. As inspiration, I've chosen Van Gogh and his rich use of color to motivate me.

Van Gogh moved to Arles, France in 1888 where he was enchanted by the local landscape and light. His works from this period are deeply influence by intensity of color and light on his subject. Yellow is a prominent color in his paintings of the wheat field series and sunflowers.  He also painted the nearby old mill and haystacks. A letter home from Vincent to his brother Theo noted of painting bunches of sunflowers on multiple panels "the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow." He worked on it from early sunrise to afternoon when he lost the light on the flowers. You can see the richness of color throughout his many paintings during this period. And as a little inspiration I created an Etsy Treasury as a tribute to Van Gogh's sunflower yellows. 

I picked up my unfinished pair of lemon quartz dangle earrings. I love this color, but wanted to add a rich secondary color with them as the quartz can be a little timid. I don't normally mix and match colors like this, but I was going with it from Vincent's influence. I added ruby rondelles to mimic the deep richness of the center of the sunflowers which play off the yellow. That is influence for this pair that you'll find finally posted in my Etsy shop!

Yellow and Orange Summer Treats from Sellers on Etsy

One more Etsy Treasury to show you some sizzling items beautifully designed by sellers on Etsy.  Yellow and orange are a great combination as you can see from this and the previous treasuries.  A little candy corn sneaked into this treasury, typically it's a Halloween or autumn treat, but the colors are the important focus.  Even the dog gets into the act with the orange and yellow collar.  

Clickable Treasury:

What's Orange and Yellow and Gorgeous All Over?

We're halfway through July, can school shopping be that close?  Here's a selection of items from sellers on Etsy to keep you in the summertime groove.

Clickable Version:

Shades of Yellow and Orange from Sellers on Etsy

Sun, sun, heat and humidity- that's what a lot of us are living with in the USA at the moment.  Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the wildfires in the west and the flooding in the south.

Here's an Etsy Treasury featuring those two hot and bright summer colors of yellow and orange.

Clickable version:

Sizzling Orange and Yellow from Etsy Sellers

It's sizzling with heat and humidity in most of the country.  Hot and refreshing colors to ponder in this treasury of a selection of seller items from Etsy.

Clickable version:

Gwynneth Rixon Ceramics

Gwynneth Rixon Ceramics

Yarn bowl

Gwynneth Rixon is a gallery-featured artisan potter based in Cwmcarn, south east Wales. There she makes hand-thrown functional stoneware, decorated using a variety of methods including slip decoration and salt glaze.

Small domed lid box

I am part of the Black Mountain Circle and our work is always for sale at our cooperative gallery,The Court Cupboard near Abergavenny.

Dear Diary, One Order of Paint Chips and More

How do you keep a record of your home decorating items?  Do you keep the name of the paint you used in each room just in case you want to get more of the same paint?  What about fabric swatches to take to the store or parts and product numbers that might need to be used again or replaced when the thing goes splat, kablooie, kaput, and kerfluffled...

Jennifer at The Home Daybook  has a great idea to make a Deco Book to keep a record of these items and more.   Visit her blog to see what's inside this photo book repurposed as a home decorating diary.

BeOdd by Littlemissindi

BeOdd by Littlemissindi

Welsh Lovespoon Card

I love colour and texture...I also enjoy stamping and cutting out..I am an avid collector of all things, because I cannot resist altering, recycling and putting my own stamp on things...there was only one thing for it....to start creating...and this is the result...

Knitted Heart Cushion

This solitary Knit Fest all began....because I needed to have a very large sumptuously soft squidgy cushion in my life....and I couldn't find one in the shops. Nothing worse than a flat as a pancake cushion, so I started on the inside and worked out....it also needed to be grey and I wasn't going to knit with ANY old yarn it had to be soft and cwtchy....as we say in Wales...and so the journey began....I can't stop knitting !!!!!!!