A Designer’s Day

Recently I packed my son into the car and we adventured out to the local mall. My goal was to do some serious indoor walking for exercise since it was too cold to walk outdoors. We loaded up the stroller with toys and treats and a spare bottle, and we were off! This is a good time to be a mall walker, since the Christmas and Valentine’s Day blaring red has been packed away, and now there are subtle greens for St. Patrick’s Day and a bevy of pastels for Easter dripping from all the store windows. Spring is coming! Hooray!

Walking by the large picture windows full of mannequins and clothes was refreshing. The styles are changing a bit, and I was intrigued by the colors and fabrics. Coral and brown are hot, hot, hot. Navy and turquoise look great together, and splashy prints rule over shorts and shirts a like. I saw plaid shorts and a striped top paired together in similar colors, definitely a Vogue don’t from years past… but somehow it works today. And it looked pretty good, I must admit. The mannequins were jeweled in fantastic beads, as well. Big baubles are still hot, so feel safe matching up your lucite to your capri pants this spring! And long, swaying chain necklaces with big bauble beads spaced every few inches look great over dresses or even tanks.

I hoofed it down to Nordstrom to take a gander at their jewelry counter. I found a section of blinding crystal in multiple colors mixed in with chain that was utterly spectacular. And speaking of chain, it’s hot! I mean big, chunky chain… and in layers. Mixing and matching gold and silver and copper. Stuff for your arms, neck, ankles, wrists, even in your hair with metal looking headbands. And you can get a purse to match, with buckles, straps, pockets and all kinds of doo-hickies on it. Glam is in!

Next I went to Sears to see if there would be a big contradiction in styles. Do Nordstrom's customers shop at Sears and visa-versa? I’d soon find out. Yes, they do. Only the styles were toned down a bit. At Macy’s it was glam up the wazoo. Gold and silver lamé, leopard, alligator and snake patterns, and layered leather on shoes, bags and purses. The jewelry was big and bold and made a statement. This is going to be a very fun summer!

I was making mental notes for my sketchbook at home. Its seen a lot of action lately, since everything seems to be inspiring to me. On Oscar night my sketchbook was frothing at the mouth. I couldn’t get the ideas down fast enough! Looking back at it now, I have just enough info in there to create some new idea without it being too close to the original. I love to do that. Gather up some great styles and then combine them into one work. There is inspiration everywhere!

My Mother-in-law recently shared a copy of Vogue magazine with me, with Jennifer Hudson on the cover. If you didn’t see Dreamgirls yet, then shame on you. Its wonderful. Anyway, I went page by page looking for the article about her, and got exposed to some of the weirdest fashion I’ve ever laid eyes on. Some things were outright hilarious! I learned a lot from it… texture and color and shape. Very interesting stuff when you’re putting together beads with the same attributes. But I must admit, I found jewelry on ONE page in there, and that’s almost 700 pages long. Why doesn’t Vogue have jewelry? Is it out of style?? Of course not! I concluded that Vogue is about fabric fashion. So you know where I find a TON of ideas for jewelry design? From my neighbor Lynda who shares her catalog mail with me. She loves to shop on line or by mail, and has a million catalogs in her mailbox every day because of it! So she looks them over and then brings them to me. I love thumbing through them to see what’s popular right now in clothing and shoes and knick-knacks… and there’s tons of jewelry in there. I clip out the pieces and keep them in a folder. I plan to get some notebooks and clear pages so I can organize them by subject matter: bracelets, necklaces, earrings, misc. and non-jewelry items. Then when I need inspiration I can just thumb through there. Its so easy and inspiring.

So how are you getting your motor revving up this spring? If your stuck you can stop by the store and see what we’ve got up our sleeve. There are some great new bead out, and the colors will make your head spin. Time to change things up! And bring your stuff by to show us… we love that!

Happy Beading!

The Bead Belle