Three Piece Dark Denim Set

The inspiration for this set was the colours of the beads themselves. When I looked at them together, I envisioned them worn with jeans, heels, a tailored wool or leather jacket and a mannish white shirt. The juxtaposition of the feminine and masculine elements feels balanced to me. You couldn't wear this set and not be feminine, no matter what you wear with it.

I've been toying with other sets of beads and thinking about another set.

The closure button is a 10mm Swarovski crystal button in a colour called Montana Sapphire that I bought online at Artbeads. The way it finishes the necklace and bracelet is exactly what I wanted.



Three types of beads make up the spiral rope; triangles, Toho hex beads and seed beads.

Where Does The Time Go?

it's hard to believe that it's been almost a month since I last posted here. It's been crazy busy in my life. I'm had either friends or family staying with me for the last three weeks. In the same timeframe, I purchased and investment property, coordinated the trades to get it ready for my new tennant for the first of the month. I've also been working like a slave in my garden and I'm really happy with how it's coming along.

I have been doing some beading, but nothing has been completed except for a few of earrings that I managed to squeeze in. Anyway, here is the piece I've been working on. Those are glass pearls I'm using.



The stone is captured in peyote stitch and it's the first time I've had a success at it. Though I did rip out the first version as it didn't fit the stone properly. There are two secrets to success with doing a peyote bezel...first, use a strip of paper and wrap it around the stone to find out the exact length of beads to string to start. I've been using a strip out of my shredder. Secondly, size 15 beads. The bezel needs no decreases when you start with a larger bead and decrease the bead size. I started with #11 Toho seed beads then went down to #11 Delicas and finally down to the #15 Toho seed beads.



The necklace is in progress and it's taking a lot longer than I expected it would. I'll be taking it with me when I leave for holidays on Wednesday. (Another thing to make my life hectic!)

Fresh Fruit Salad Bracelet

When I was working on this bracelet the colours made me think of a fresh fruit salad...and so the name. This is the second bracelet I've made recently that was inspired by a Toho Seed Bead Mix called "Earth Tone" from Artbeads.com. I love the variety of beads in the mix. There are seed beads in different colours and sizes, hexagon beads and bugle beads. The best part about working with this bead mix is that it forced me out of my comfort zone. This is not a combination of colours I'd have chosen to work with, however, I'm very happy with the result.



Here's my recipe for this bracelet:

2 - 8g packages of Earth Tone Toho Seed Bead Mix
1 - 10g package of coordinating seed beads
20 - coordinating drop beads
25 - coordinating #8 beads
2 - lampworked beads (I got mine here.)

Mix the beads together well using 2 drop peyote stitch. Finish the outside edge with picot stitch and add two lampworked beads with loops as a closure. Enjoy on your wrist!





The bracelet is available for sale in my Etsy Shop.

White Freeform Peyote Bracelet

About a week ago, in this post, I showed you the beginning of this bracelet. Sometimes it's a good thing when a project waits to be finished. When I take a break part way through, I'm often inspired to go a different direction than my original idea for the piece. That's what happened with this bracelet. When I went back to it, I knew that I wanted to include the Swarovski pearls and I saw that there were already obvious places on the bracelet that were perfect for those pearls.

Choosing the combination of beads that I'd use to support the pearls was simple because I used a Toho Seed Bead Mix called Winter Frost. Sometimes when I use these mixes, I add several other beads from my collection. This time, all of the beads I used were part of the mix. I especially love the consistent quality of these mixes.



The bracelet is available for sale in my Etsy Shop.