I made a new bracelet, and I thought I would talk a little about how my pieces come about. I had drawn a design for a bracelet inspired by a random bracelet on Pinterest, where I had also seen some of my Malin de Koning pins. I love the way she puts things together. It’s like every bead she uses is elevated by every other bead she uses with it.
I was in my studio looking for beads I had in mind for the design I had drawn. Instead, I came upon some beautiful vintage glass “lemon” beads. I thought they’d be good in a bracelet, so I switched off the one I had drawn, and had Malin in the back of my mind. In the same box as the lemons were taupe German glass beads, which caught my eye because I have more German glass in that color, but it is in my Czech glass box (? I know) and I thought I should unite them. But as long as I had them out, I thought how well they went with the lemons. Then I started considering focals, even though I only went upstairs for a minute to put something in the studio and then get ready for bed. So I got out some lampwork and spotted a baggie of the most fabulous glass beads from Trinket Foundry. They were smaller than I’d been thinking for a focal….
At this point, the cat wandered into the studio where she is no longer allowed after ingesting a non-food item. I had left the door open slightly since I was only going to be in there “for a second”. I decided to go to bed as long as I had to get up to shoo the cat out, so of course I went downstairs and hopped on the computer to get sucked into Pinterest looking at turquoise, yellow and taupe color combinations based on the beads on my table.
The next morning I saw Malin’s latest post on Earrings Everyday. Yep, her stuff is still great. Later, I went upstairs to take a shower and thought I’d quick look at those beads I’d gotten out. I realized they were really just perfect together and, even though I wasn’t wearing my glasses since I’d just gone up for a shower, I’d quick make the bracelet. I found a stray piece of beading wire on my bead table, and some nearby seed beads in a an approximate color from the focal and a couple of larger seed beads (that had spilled on my table) for the larger lampwork holes. When I picked the clasp, I had to resize my original design. I removed a German glass bead and substituted a square Swarovski crystal sitting on my bead table. Because I was making this quickly and without my glasses, I left a little too much slack in the wire when crimping, so I covered up that “happy accident” (Bob Ross) with some gold jump rings in a nod to the gold stripes in the lemon beads. Ta-da!
I really love the bracelet. I have come to embrace my casual design style. I think it even works in my favor because if I didn’t get distracted from my original idea, I wouldn’t have this bracelet! The lampwork bead is so happy, as are the lemons. I love German glass, but I normally wouldn’t have put taupe with yellow, thinking it is not colorful enough. But with Malin in the back of my mind, I decided to just use things I really love, and it worked for me.
Ok, now on to the winner of my Bits and Bobs giveaway: Ann Morgan
Congrats! Please contact me with your mailing address.
Bead Love 