Artbeads .com enlisted their partner designers to interpret "The Beauty of Spring" in a jewelry design. Immediately after I learned of the challenge, charming visions of pink, purples, blues and yellows with a little twisted wire danced in my head. Oh, and of course, you knew I had to throw in a few vintage painted glass collectible buttons in the mix!
Miyuki Delica seed beads in Peachy Coral, Turquoise Green and Light Lilac were used to create the vintage button bead woven charms as well as the bead woven beads. Every bead weaver knows that Miyuki Delica beads are the beads of choice for techniques such as peyote as the sizes are very uniform which makes your rows line up perfectly every time. However, Miyuki Delica's prove to be perfect for other bead weaving techniques. The large holes accommodate for many more passes of the needle than other seed beads, which can only accommodate several. If too many passes are made, the bead breaks forcing the designer to start the piece all over.After creating the beaded components, I used pressed Czech bell flower glass beads to create the remaining dangles. They were hand wired with 22 gauge artistic wire in rose and random beads. The chain of the bracelet was hand wired using 18 gauge artistic wire in rose, also. I was dying to try this wire as a lot of craft and jewelry wires prove to be too soft to hold up to the demands of a bracelet. I was quite pleased to find the 18 gauge wire to be sufficiently hard enough to make jump rings and a hook clasp without fear of the wire stretching and thus leading to the components to fall apart. The 22 gauge wire seemed a little softer than other 22 gauge wire brands, however, the wire worked well for the purpose of charm components. I would be afraid of the wire bending out of shape in using for ear wires or other components that need a stiffer wire to hold it's shape, but the 18 gauge was surprisingly stiff enough to ensure to me the shape will hold. The color quality of both the wires really impressed me. With many colored wires, the color scratches off when using hand tools. In both cases, the color did not scratch off at all. The package states that the wire is silver coated; perhaps this is the secret to good color quality. I plan on using this wire much more in the future as it turns out the wire was my favorite material out of all those used in the creation of this piece.
One final part that deserves mention is the vintage glass leaf brass head pins. I absolutely love working with vintage beads and components. They have that old-fashioned flair that is so hard to reproduce. Upon doing a search for "vintage" on the Artbeads.com website, the search turned up a whole slew of vintage beads and components. Since my piece was tied around spring and I knew flowers were going to be involved, I simply had to incorporate some of the vintage head pins into the design. I was impressed with the quality of the head pins. The wire was a little thin, maybe 26 gauge, but the wire was certainly brass and parts of the wire had a great patina. They were great to work with and as you can see, added the perfect icing on the cake.
I have offered this piece to the public and it can be found in my Etsy shop, Alterity Button Jewelry and Gifts. What a great addition to your spring ensembles! And you will love the jangle of the whole charm concept, too!
I also want to mention that Artbeads.com is currently offering a Tax Relief Sale, where the more you buy, the better your savings! Be sure to stop by the website and check it out!
Disclosure: Artbeads kindly provided, free-of-charge, the materials reviewed above within the frames of Artbeads.com Design Partner blogging program. The review of the materials in this article is based on my own honest, personal opinion of working with them. I, the author, have received no payment from Artbeads.com for this review.
