Ladies Who Lunch Ring

Today I listed a new piece in my Etsy shop.

This is another piece I've made with the glass cabochons I've been making. I love this picture. It reminds me of a woman who has time to get dressed up and lunch with her friends. This woman is not me, but I'd like to be her sometimes. So even if you don't get to lunch with your friends (while wearing your long white gloves), you can wear this ring and dream it.

The ring is embroidered with red and purple seed beads. The beadwork is attached to a silver plated adjustable ring. The underside of the ring is covered in red ultrasuede.

You can check out more pictures of it here.

Happy 4th of July and Some More Red, White, and Blue

I decided to search Etsy for some more red, white, and blue. Here's what caught my eye.

The first are Czech glass flower cone beads from sultryaffairbeads.

The second comes from goosegrease, custom wedding cake toppers. 

And finally, these beautiful blue lampwork disks from hmbstudios.

I hope you'll take a minute to check out these Etsy shops. 

Have a happy and safe 4th of July! I'll be weeding and beading.

Red, White, and Blue

Since I didn't have anything red, white, and blue to feature I went searching on Etsy. I stumbled upon this beautiful watercolor print. The print is from the shop of LaBerge. The print reminded me of all the strawberries we've been picking from our patch and the wild ones growing in our fields. 

If you have a minute go check out LeBerge's shop. She has a wide variety of prints and original artwork. Enjoy.

Red, Purple, and Bronze

I was hoping to post something in red, white, and blue, but unfortunately, I don't have anything in those colors. So the closest were these earrings. The center is an oblong piece of red glass that is surrounded by pale purple and bronze seed beads. A small bronze flower bead cap was sewn at the top. Red daggers and purple Czech glass beads make up the fringe at the bottom. 

These are fun, flirty earrings. They are pretty long, but very light weight. 

Custom Order

A friend of mine wanted a simple pendant that she could wear every day with just about everything. She picked a fossilized coral bead for the center. The one she picked is incredible. It is very detailed. It looks like tiny little flowers. We decided to keep the focus on the beautiful bead and surrounded it with various black seed beads. I alternated between shiny and matte to give the piece some added detail. The pendant hangs from a leather cord that has added beads on either side. The pendant is small, only about 1 1/2 inches wide. I delivered the piece to her this morning and she was very happy. So I'm happy too.

Tiger Lilies

This past weekend the tiger lilies bloomed. They are everywhere. We have a line that surrounds our small garden near our house, but you can see them everywhere along the roads right now too. 

Orange and yellow are not at the top of my list of favorite colors, but I can't deny that these are beautiful flowers. I now feel challenged to try beading something using the same color combination as these lilies. I find yellow a really difficult color to work with in beading. I'm sure that is because it is not one of my favorite colors, but I also struggle to figure out how to complement it with other colors. I took a few moments over the weekend to study these flowers and I'm warming to the idea of yellow and orange. Maybe it is the deep red that separates the two. I have a few other projects in the works, but my head is now filled with a number of ideas. Oh, only to have more time to bead.

Is there a color that you find hard to incorporate? Have you been able to overcome it?

Pursing Purple

These lovely flowers are blooming all over our property. I have no idea what they are, but I love them. We also have these incredible purple irises that just opened the other day. The thing is that I feel like I am surrounded by purple flowers right now. It makes sense that my newest project would use purple as the primary color.

After the road trip and spending Memorial Day weekend planting the vegetable garden, I finally got to do some beading. 

As I mentioned in a previous post my next project was going to be a cuff.  I decided to use an oval purple cat's eye cabochon as the centerpiece. I've used 4 sizes of seed beads, bugle beads, pearls, pewter beads, and glass beads to embellish the cuff. The cuff is primarily shades of purple with hints of silver, gray, and reds. Whenever I use a lot of different beads, the end result always reminds me of a crazy quilt.  

P.S. If you know what the flowers (picture above) are, please let me know. Thanks.

Finished

The project I showed you last week is finished. I found a little time on Sunday to complete the pendant. I used four different colors of seed beads on the top and bottom sections. The top is enhanced with gold glass pearls. The bottom was embellished with cranberry colored pearls. I backed the pendant with black ultrasuede and attached it to black leather cord. I'm pleased with how it turned out. I hope that my friend is happy too. 

What do you think?

Start of a New Project

Last week I met with a friend to begin a custom piece. The end product will be a pendant. She picked these beautiful fossilized coral beads and a gold coin pearl. 

I found these fossilized coral beads at the Bead Mercantile Show that was in Pittsburgh in March. They are really unique. I love the detail in the beads and each one is different. The one she picked is especially pretty. It reminds me of a flower.