Artbeads.com presented another challenge which I simply could not wait to partake in! The challenge called to design pieces that represent what you find beautiful or inspirational about the winter season. Well, glistening ice certainly comes to mind for me! I hate the cold, but I love translucent, glistening ice! After a hard starting, the final pieces worked out beautifully. You see, sometimes when designing jewelry, things don't always work out the way you sketch out your design. Designing jewelry is somewhat like architecture: the foundation must be solid or it will all topple down. Well, my original design worked out great on paper, but made for an unstable piece that just did not drape well. So, after disassembling and redesigning, here are the results:
The major components of the pieces (outside of the antique buttons) is the fire polish beads and the silver plated clasp in the front.
One of my favorite choices in creating pieces are Czech Fire Polish Beads. They come in many sizes and finishes and really pack a punch in the sparkle factor!
For these pieces, I actually chose a few Fire Polish Bead Mix. I really appreciate the bead mixes as they combine great colors together around a theme and allows you to sample all the colors without having to invest in full packages of each color and each mix comes in packages of 100, so there are plenty of beads to work with. As for quality, these beads are made by hand in small batches, so they have the high quality of handmade beads but yet, ever so slight "differences" that makes handmade so charming. For being hand made, they are very uniform and the differences are really so slight that you have to really study them to find them, if you can even do that.
In these pieces, I used the fire polish beads in bead woven "beads", as well as hand wire wrapped them into components and strung on tiger tail. In all three applications, the beads were just a dream to work with. In fact, I could not stop designing after the necklace and made a bracelet, earrings and a ring with the left-over fire polish beads!
The second major component used was a silver plated base metal clasp, which can be found in the Base Metal Clasps. This particular clasp is the Antiqued Silver Vintage Heritage clasp, and I really wanted to design the piece so the clasp is part of the focal point.
After ironing out my design flaw, the clasp is acceptable as a front hooking clasp that remains part of the design. In fact, I think the boldness and the vintage look really pull this piece together. It was certainly inspiration for the earrings that I created with remaining fire polish beads.
The antiqued silver plating just goes so well with the fire polish beads.
I am very pleased how these pieces worked out, despite the fact that the original design had to be altered.
So, at this stage of the game, the pieces reflect more of the melting ice from winter. Oh well, either way, they did turn out gorgeous!
Now is the time to shop at Artbeads.com. Order $60 or more in supplies and get $20 off! Sale ends at midnight tonight!
****This post is NOT a paid post. All supplies were furnished by Artbeads.com at no cost to me in exchange for a review of the parts used in conjunction with their blogging program. I was not paid or compensated in any way from Artbeads.com.****
Necklace
The major components of the pieces (outside of the antique buttons) is the fire polish beads and the silver plated clasp in the front.
One of my favorite choices in creating pieces are Czech Fire Polish Beads. They come in many sizes and finishes and really pack a punch in the sparkle factor!
Necklace
For these pieces, I actually chose a few Fire Polish Bead Mix. I really appreciate the bead mixes as they combine great colors together around a theme and allows you to sample all the colors without having to invest in full packages of each color and each mix comes in packages of 100, so there are plenty of beads to work with. As for quality, these beads are made by hand in small batches, so they have the high quality of handmade beads but yet, ever so slight "differences" that makes handmade so charming. For being hand made, they are very uniform and the differences are really so slight that you have to really study them to find them, if you can even do that.
Bracelet
In these pieces, I used the fire polish beads in bead woven "beads", as well as hand wire wrapped them into components and strung on tiger tail. In all three applications, the beads were just a dream to work with. In fact, I could not stop designing after the necklace and made a bracelet, earrings and a ring with the left-over fire polish beads!
The second major component used was a silver plated base metal clasp, which can be found in the Base Metal Clasps. This particular clasp is the Antiqued Silver Vintage Heritage clasp, and I really wanted to design the piece so the clasp is part of the focal point.
After ironing out my design flaw, the clasp is acceptable as a front hooking clasp that remains part of the design. In fact, I think the boldness and the vintage look really pull this piece together. It was certainly inspiration for the earrings that I created with remaining fire polish beads.
Earrings
Earrings
All of the pieces were wired with silver plated wire to give it that added icy sparkle.
So, at this stage of the game, the pieces reflect more of the melting ice from winter. Oh well, either way, they did turn out gorgeous!
Now is the time to shop at Artbeads.com. Order $60 or more in supplies and get $20 off! Sale ends at midnight tonight!
****This post is NOT a paid post. All supplies were furnished by Artbeads.com at no cost to me in exchange for a review of the parts used in conjunction with their blogging program. I was not paid or compensated in any way from Artbeads.com.****
