Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Tickling the Muse

Bleeding Heart Necklace Set

The quickest way to come up with an idea is to stop trying to come up with an idea. At least that is how my muse rolls.

When I sit down with a blank sheet of paper to try to come up with new product ideas, the sheet tends to stay pretty blank. When my mind leaves the task, and I allow my thoughts drift toward something pleasurable, the connections start to appear. This necklace is a perfect example.

My garden is most gorgeous during May and June. One of the things that makes it so gorgeous are the mounds of bleeding hearts that trim out the paths. As I sat admiring one this spring, the flowers started to remind me a of dainty charms dangling from a delicate necklace. A product idea was born.

One rainy afternoon, I played around with sculpting flowers like the ones in my garden. They turned out lovely, but I no idea how I wanted to string them. Mind was blank again. It took several weeks and a trip to my Mom's house to rummage through her bead collection for my muse to return.

It took a while for everything to come to fruition, but this bleeding heart necklace and earring set is now finally listed in my store.

Does your muse show up on command, or is she fickle like mine?

5 comments:

  1. I too find it really difficult to sit down and just start. I usually have to either let my mind wander or start surfing the web to see if anything sparks my imagination. Then I go from there.

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  2. What a beautiful product! I wish I had unlimited funds for jewelry- I would go crazy. It's hard with a toddler to push myself to wear jewelry- I look forward to the day when I can wear a bunch again. What a wonderful blog you have! Hope you are enjoying the 31DBB challenge!

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  3. Bleeding hearts have a shape well suited to polymer clay's flowing nature! I find with making mosaics that taking in lots of visual pleasures makes ideas of pop into my head--my husband and I went to DC on vacation and to 14 museums! I have a storehouse of images and colors to play with now for quite some time. Architecture and quilt shows also spur on my imagination. When I am listening to music, particularly live jazz, I get ideas for mosaics.

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  4. @Jen, the web is such a wonderful inspiration source. Just the other day I was pulled up photos of four-leaf clovers to work with.

    @Natalie, I have a similar problem with jewelry and my cat. He has grabbed a couple necklaces from my neck and snapped the chain.

    @Margaret, DC is an amazing! My husband and I lived there for two years. I spent so much time in the museums.

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Ooh,a comment! How delightful.

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