Mixed Materials Love

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Allegory Gallery, Allegory Gallery Design Challenges, Andrew Thornton, Art beads, The Bead Chest, William Jones

I get some of my best beads from artist Andrew Thornton – his destashes, the shop he owns with William Jones, Allegory Gallery, and the kits he puts together for Allegory Gallery Design Challenges.  Recently I got a strand of paper beads as a prize, and I love them.  I had multiple ideas for them right away.  (They have some similar beads in their etsy store right now.)

Andrew made the polymer faux Moroccan amber beads for a challenge kit. I took apart the necklace I originally made that didn’t do them justice, and I’ve been saving them for something special.  I got some cool, chunky wooden chain from a destash that I knew would find just the right project someday.

After auditioning different metal spacers, I decided to use some I just recently got at Bead & Button.  I added in an enamel Berber bicone bead from The Bead Chest and a large swivel clasp.  I really love how it turned out. It’s a fun mix of materials – paper, polymer clay, metal, wood. Some of these materials have been waiting for the perfect project and some new beads came in handy right away.  I’m already picturing what I will wear it with.

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Frida Kahlo and Mary Harding

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Art Bead Scene, Eden Art Glass, Frida Kahlo, Mary Harding, Shipwreck Dandy Supply, The Bead Chest

I love Frida Kahlo‘s art and also her personal style.  In April, Kahlo’s painting Self- Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird was the inspiration on the Art Bead Scene blog.  Artist Mary Harding, one of the Art Bead Scene blog editors, made beads inspired by Frida Kahlo.  I loved the flowers on first sight and snagged one.

On her blog post that featured these flowers, Mary Harding said when she thinks of Kahlo, she thinks of “big beads, big jewelry and flowers.”  I looked at some pictures of Kahlo wearing jewelry and knew the beads I had in mind would work well with Mary’s Frida Flower to create a Kahlo-inspired necklace of my own.

I got these beautiful Moroccan pottery beads from The Bead Chest.  I think they look perfect with the flower.  I’m so happy with this necklace.  It’s my modern, wearable-for-me take on Frida Kahlo’s beautiful jewelry with the help of Mary Harding.  I even found the perfect clasp in my stash – a rustic twisted wire piece I got in a mixed lot destash box from Shipwreck Dandy Supply along with a twisted jump ring in a patina just the green of the beads from Eden Art Glass.