Another Oddment necklace

Tags

art bead, boho, bronze, Cate van Alphen, gold, handmade, lampwork beads, necklace, polymer clay beads, purple

I had so much fun making my Oddment necklace, I made another one in slightly different colours. This necklace includes polymer clay beads made by Rebekah Payne which I won back at the start of 2014. Can you spot them?

Bronze and Gold Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

I also included polymer clay beads that I made myself, glass lampwork beads and filigree metal beads which I reclaimed from jewellery that I found in the charity shop.

Oddment beads by Cate van Alphen

Here are a few more photos since the necklace looks quite different depending on the rotation around the neck.

Bronze and Gold Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

Some of the beads I used to make this necklace are currently available in my Etsy bead shop.

Bronze and Gold Oddment necklace by Cate van Alphen

I’m collecting up a few more stashes of beads so I expect there will be more of these necklaces soon 😉

ABS July wishlist

Tags

art bead, bead, black, components, green, head pins, lampwork, lampwork beads, polymer clay, polymer clay beads, silk, teal, toggle

I love the colours in this month’s Art Bead Scene challenge, so since I am spending time posting to my new Etsy shop, I decided to make a treasury wishlist.

Portrait of Olga in the Armchair, 1917
Pablo Picasso
Oil on Canvas 130 × 88.8 cm

‘ABS July wishlist’ by Fulgorine

This is my wishlist of beads for the Art Bead Scene July challenge.

Blue Black and Clear XL Lent… artforms $25	Head pins – helix teardrops … IcedMoments $5.2	Two Hole Peacock Feather Ins… 2GoodClaymates $18	10% SALE Premium Recycled Sa… SilkDivine $8.55
3/4″ Teal black Art Nou… JLynnJewels $12.5	Vintage Foil Glass Beads Tea… thecuriousbead $9.5	One Enameled Ivy Leaf Pair /… GardanneBeads $7	Teal Crystal Dangle Charms S… UncleBobsBeadS… $5
On Sale Etched Copper Metal … carolynsbeads $10.4	Needle Felted Balls — Carib… NotSoShabbyChi… $6	Polymer Clay Beads, Round Be… tooaquarius $15	Light, Medium, and Dark Gree… BeadSwedeSuppl… $12
Lampwork Beads – Boro Beads … Firelily $26	ON SALE 50% OFF Glass Lampwo… gracebeads $11.5	Textured Brass Bead Caps, Tu… MetalMeThis $5.5	Lampwork glass bead pair, ha… rufusandroxy $8

Earrings are like a box of chocolates

Tags

beads, colour, ear-wire, earrings, fulgorine, lampwork beads, pink wire, shop, tassel, wire, wire wrap, yellow beads

I have been making a lot of earrings lately. I have a tiny window of time in the evenings after baby has gone to sleep (IF she goes to sleep quickly) and it is really satisfying to be able to complete a project in that time. I have discovered that making earrings is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get, and you can’t stop after one. I’ll show you what I mean with some (clumsily) edited images as I didn’t take photos along the way.

First I made a pair of earrings using lampwork beads on dark pink coloured wire. I framed the focal beads with baby pink seed beads, which I also added to a pink niobium ear-wire. I love using niobium ear-wires because they come in different colours and they have the bonus of being hypo-allergenic.

This time the colour of the niobium ear-wire worried me as it didn’t quite match the wire I had used to wrap the beads – it was more of a dusty purple pink and looked a bit dull in comparison to the wire. As there were touches of silver visible in the lampwork bead I changed the ear-wires to titanium.

I liked the combination of the pink seed beads with a pair of white beads that had orange and yellow speckles. I decided if I was adding pink, I’d really pink it up, so I used super bright pink wire. I had planned to frame the focal bead with the pink seed beads, but while I was wrapping the beads I decided that the yellow beads looked better on the pink wire. I added a tassel of bead charms (including pink) to the bottom of the earrings to link with the pink beads on the ear-wires.

Now the pink beads didn’t look right on the ear-wires since I had framed the focal beads with yellow beads. Therefore I made some new ear-wires with yellow beads on instead.

The dusty pink colour of the ear-wire still didn’t look right to me so I changed the ear-wires again. This time I used purple ear-wires (the brightness levels matched) with a coil of the pink wire I had used to wrap the beads.

Now if you’ve been keeping track you will realise I had two pairs of unused pink ear-wires (one with pink beads and another with yellow). So I made another two pairs of earrings…

The tassel on the long earrings went through a few iterations before I was happy, but the earrings with the yellow, purple and clear rectangle came together on the first try. And that’s how one pair of earrings became four.

Here are some of the other earrings I am in the process of listing in my shops – Zibbet (listings are in USD) and Folksy (listings are in GBP).

Bead Side Salad Reveal

Tags

52 earrings, bead salad, beads, earring, lampwork beads, necklace, polymer clay, polymer clay beads, wire

I set myself a challenge to use beads my mom had given me and post my results on 3 March. I wanted to achieve two things: firstly to make something with a definite focal, and secondly to have an interesting clasp. This is what I started out with:

I made a pair of simple earrings by way of a warm up and as part of my 52 earrings challenge.

Next I decided to focus on the focal. I stacked the two lampwork beads together, and gave them a belt of silver glass beads around the middle. I had a vague idea of making it into a sort of tassel pendant, but it lacked punch. So I framed this with the two large oval beads with the idea of making it into a bracelet. I used wire to make a rigid curved oval and had a chain running from each corner. Now while I loved the focal this proved hopeless as a bracelet – the weight of the glass beads meant it instantly slipped to the underside of the wrist when worn.

So off with the chain, and because I am moving house* I discovered an old (broken) hair clip while unpacking. The broken hair clip was a kind of filigree nest to go over a bun with a stick to hold it in place. Some of the filigree had broken off from the nest but the stick was still fine and matched beautifully – magically my failed bracelet focal was the perfect hair clip.

After this success I knew I wanted to make a pair of matching earrings. While making the hair clip I hadn’t had a clear picture of what I wanted to do and it had almost seemed to make itself, the opposite was true for the earrings. I knew exactly what I wanted (i.e. Art Deco Chinoiserie Lace) and it took many iterations of making, undoing and remaking to get something like what I had in mind. (There were many variations that looked like dreadlocks or spider’s legs!) I ended up making polymer clay beads to match the black oval ones in the hair clip and actually only ended up using the red beads from the original bead salad.

My next challenge was to make a pretty clasp. It would have been easier to make a toggle using polymer clay, but I was determined to use some of the salad beads. Again I struggled with this for a while until the coloured wire I had ordered arrived. Suddenly by using pink wire the green bead and wire toggle was pretty, the lampwork beads with pink flowers suddenly matched and their black cores made a link to the lava beads.

And my baby daughter thinks the toggle is delicious!

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*Moving house is also why these pictures are poor – I haven’t got my usual photography setup available (it’s 300 miles away).