Egyptian Pillar Bracelet

This is the Egyptian Pillar Bracelet from “Creative Beading” Vol 3 No 2. I only wanted to commit one pack of bicone beads to this project so I made it for my daughter. Since I saw it as a practice piece I didn’t want to sink a lot of time, effort or money in to it. So I skimped on the toggle as well. If I had known ahead of time how pleased I would be with it I would have used one of my sterling silver ones. So then I decided I needed to make one for myself!

I  love the colors but I’m not too keen on the clasp. I need to swap it out for a toggle. Also, I think it would look awesome with copper. I decided I wanted to try something a little different so I made myself another one that I like a lot better.

If you decide to try this at home I made it 20 crystals long. If I do it again I’ll try to find a way to use bead cups to secure it to the link. It will give it a more polished look. This one looks great on!

Larking About

This is my Version of “Larking About” in the Spring issue of “Stringing” Magazine.  I’m not going to order stuff every time I see something I want to make. This one, my daughter fell in love with so I set about trying to find stuff to make it. I found the bird and chain at Joanns.  The quartz and  pearls came from my stash. The bird is the wrong size. It is way to big and  the beads are too small so I had to add a few extra. I don’t care for how it hangs on me, but  it looks good on my 10 yr old daughter. She loves it, so I’m just going to let her keep it. 🙂

Copper!

These were fun to make. I went to the Salt Lake Valley Gem Faire on Friday. I usually go and drool over the faceted briolette gemstone beads. They are so spendy though. so this year I didn’t even look. I wandered around and found a lady with the most unusual copper accent pieces. It added up quickly and before I knew it I was out $62. The ceramic beads are actually from a local craft store. The earrings were easy to throw together. I think I’ll be transitioning into copper for my personal use. I love the color so much more than silver and gold, it is cheaper and it goes well with my favorite color! Turquoise!!

Clover Wreath Earrings and Bracelet

I bought the Bead Fantasies III book just to make this bracelet. I’m so glad that I did. I just love it to pieces. Making it however took some time. I’m notorious for not using what is called for in a pattern and this one I wanted to do right. The garnet beads I compromised a bit on. I ended up getting a strand from Fire Mountain Gems that are slightly different from what it calls for. The result? the beads in the center of the motif don’t always sit perfectly.

The other challenge was finding the 3-cut beads. Art Beads carries them but I wanted the bronze ones. I did find them for a pretty penny else where. Shipping was horrendous and the small tube of beads ended up costing me close to $20. It was totally worth it though, they look beautiful.

I think I was supposed to use something similar to fishing line to string it. I couldn’t get the line through the faceted garnet beads more than once though. I just used regular beading thread. To reinforce it a bit I wove the thread through the outer beads a couple of extra times.