On Tips and Tea on Tuesdays, I will cover a topic and hopefully provide you with some tips that will be helpful! And just as an afterthought, tea may occasionally be a cup of Joe!

Tea today, is a new tea, well to me, it is called Himalayan Spring, which is an organic white tea, it has a light and smooth flavor. I love to look at my cup and pot set (in back on the left), but don’t use it much because the cup is so big, it doesn’t fit in the designated spot on my work table. Priorities over beauty I suppose!

Today I have set some time aside to sort through and organize the button bags and boxes, that were set aside for a project but were not used. This is always a happy task for me, as I enjoy looking at them, and resorting them, and bonus I get to revisit old friends. As I am doing this I think of the upcoming pieces that are waiting to be made, or even the ones that have not been imagined yet. I think of the colors, themes, and designs that I will be using and try to find just the right project to put these little gems on, so they have forever home.

Here is an example of an ensemble where I think the buttons, beads, charms, and ribbons are quite happy together! Well at least, I am happy that they were used to make these pieces. The two bracelets (left image) and the necklace (right image), are made from predominantly vintage buttons, with two exceptions, the bright yellow plastic sunflower buttons, and the green plastic leaf charms (bracelet on the right). The ribbon on the necklace, and the vintage earrings were made during the 1940’s-50’s. The felt heart pin was made many, many years ago.

Design Tip: Choosing Colors For a Jewelry Ensemble

• As a starting point, find a colorway, piece of fabric, or another object that has all the colors that you want to work with. In this case I choose a colorway that I call “Crayon Colors”, which are the ones used for the vintage hanky and the pin in the center of the necklace.
• Start collecting your components, choosing colors that match your palette, or are some slight variation of the colors. Notice that the green in the hanky is different from the green in the pin. The bead and button bracelet (left) has a variety of greens, and the leaves on the charm bracelet (right) is a warmer green.
• Choose a color/s that will be used throughout the piece/s to bring some cohesiveness. For this ensemble, it was yellow.
• For consistency choose one color to stitch all of the buttons in place. For the necklace, I choose a red perle cotton.
• Another thing to consider, is that when worn, the pieces in the ensemble will not be next to each other, so a little variation is OK, as long as you feel all the colors work together!

Happy tea drinking and stitching to you! ~Christen

PS: If you have any questions or thoughts, just leave a comment! See Tips, Tricks, the Basics, for more helpful ideas.