I'm a little too embarrassed to show you my actual workspace right now, I really let myself go. I'm in the middle of a mass exodus of bead-sorting and material-purging, some may find itself for sale on my Etsy shop. I'm also happy for the opportunity to review what I have in my own stash and focus on what materials I've been using the most lately. You know what they say, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." This stuff certainly isn't trash, it just got lost in the mix and, consequently, I lost interest. There are a few that, with fresh eyes, I find new ideas and stash it away for later, like these ones here!
These chunky acrylic beads came from a necklace and bracelet set a friend had gifted me, with the intention to tear apart and make anew. (She works at a popular accessory store and constantly finds me stuff to tear apart. She gets a good stash going by Christmas, which makes me easy to shop for!) The wooden roundelle beads I had purchased from Artbeads.com; this was a purchase that got me in trouble in the first place; I thought they looked cool, but I didn't know what I was going to use them for. These came across the sorting pile at the right time for me to see that they worked together. The swirling texture in the acrylic beads echoed the grain detail in the wooden roundelle beads, both with visual textures that flowed together quite nicely. The wood also tied in a more organic element to the acrylic beads, which were featured on their own in their original design. The cool and warm colours grounded by the wood, 'natural flaws' in the acrylic nuggets all present. I had fed the wooden roundelles with brass eyepins when I tried a different idea that didn't pan out the way I wanted. I had left them for now, figure it was inconsequential whether they were used or not; it was the bead I was after.
I set these aside, continued sorting through the melee of bead explosions in my workspace. No sooner did I leave that bead sorting - which was really starting to frustrate me - and put together an idea I saw in my head.
Here it is! I call it the Rockslide necklace.
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In that stash of acrylic beads were long spacer beads with two holes, which gave me the inception for this chunky statement two-strand necklace. I fished out some black glass beads and kept with the bronze findings; it suited the colour palate more, especially with the hints of antiqued gold in the acrylic beads, and it saved me work from fishing out all the eyepins from the wooden roundelles. This turned out quite awesome, I'll need to put this together in an outfit to really show it off.
You know, after I made this necklace, I felt a lot better. I didn't go back to organizing beads, though - I didn't feel that much better.
Check out Bead Table Wednesday on Flickr to see what beaders and jewelry makers around the world are using in their latest projects! I've also created a button you can use on your own blog to link you to the Flickr group - don't forget to join yourself, and let me know in the comments below if you use the button!
Happy beading, everybody!
Yay! - glad to see i'm not the only one who's bead table doesn't bear close scrutiny Cassandra. Love the Rockslide.
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