Spring Awakening Challenge Reveal...

If you're like me, after such a long winter, this time of year is breath of much needed fresh air. The sun has come out, the clouds have parted, and the land is finally coming alive again. And it truly is a beautiful thing! Today is the reveal for the Spring Awakening Challenge and heralds the start of the season!

If you're not familiar with the challenges, I gather an assortment of components and put together a kit. The kits go out all over the world and people make things with what they receive. It's so interesting to see how different the pieces turn out!

While there are a few guidelines, it's really just a fun exercise to play creatively. All of the kits are nearly identical and from there, so many choices can be made.

Putting together the kits, I try to hold an image in my mind. It helps to guide my hand in selecting things. One false move and it means hours of picking beads out of a mix or restringing! For this challenge, I thought of spring and the power of the world coming back to life. Where I live, during the winter, it's pretty monochromatic and gray. (There's a little bit of brown, but with the overcast skies, everything becomes muted and a hush falls over everything.) When spring finally emerges, there's a shock of color! The snow melts, the grass starts to turn green and the blue of the sky returns. When I was growing up in Florida, I didn't fully appreciate how magical this time of year can be. Now... I fully appreciate the rising temperatures and the landscape thawing out and coming back to life. To find out more about the kit, CLICK HERE.

Each of the kits include a Mystery Component! For this challenge, I included this polymer clay floral pendant in springy shades of blue and green.
And without further ado... here's the REVEAL:

I made this bracelet! I embellished a length of chain with wire-wrapped dangles. I strung vintage Czech glass, Swarovski crystals, amazonite, and apatite onto the soldered silver chain. To pull it all together, I used a small flower clasp from my family at Green Girl Studios. The bracelets has a lot of movement and because of the oversized chain, the configuration of the dangles is constantly changing. It's almost as if the bracelet is alive!
But wait... there's more to see! Please swing by the blogs of the other participants of the Spring Awakening Challenge! Check out what they made and make sure to leave lots of comments!
Paula Kramer Jeanne Steck Christina Porter Ann Schroeder Michelle McCarthy of Playing with Clay Lennis Carrier Alison Herrington Andrew Thornton

Up next is the Catch Up Reveal. I'll post more information about it soon! Then it's the Frenzied Motion Challenge! The reveal is set for Thursday, April 16th 2015! Make sure to stop by and see all the wonderful creations!