Neutral Green with Fuchsia Pop Jewelry Grouping

I like to change up the colors that I'm using a few times a year.  I knew I needed a change but to break away I turned to Pinterest to get inspired by new colors. I still dabble in tracking current fashion so among my "pins" for 2023 a lovely blend of neutral greens with a pop of bright fuchsias called to me. It's not a big shift for me because I'm using my favorite greens, but it's a nice big break from navy blues and purples.

Tiny Pod Earrings for sale HERE

Tiny Pod Earrings 2 for sale HERE

I wear the tiny pod earrings at work all the time, so I seem to start there with my color play these days. I found a movement variation that I liked and made a simple St. Petersburg Chain bracelet with that same color flow. 

St. Petersburg Chain Simple Fade Bracelet for sale HERE

Medium Open Pod Earrings for sale HERE

Then on to leaves. I might still be playing with these colors but I wanted to get these posted and up for sale on my website. I'm getting very nice responses on my social media about this set, why let people wait? 

Leaf Clasp Bracelet for sale HERE

Mixed Stitches Curve Bangle (Experimental)

This piece started with my desire to get a curved St. Petersburg chain into my bangle design.  In it, not just attached to it. I started sketching and doodling, but at the end of the day I don't have a specific method of integrating these two ideas so I had to start making pieces.

First I didn't know what I wanted the middle accent bead of the curved pieces to be so I started there.  I knew I wanted to use the navy blue 15/0's as the main color and just started stitching rows with the different accent beads I had chosen.

I picked a middle faceted seed bead for the navy St. Petersburg chain and proceeded to start making short strips of it.  I had figured how much arching it could possibly take in this size and about the right length.  I also figured only 4 total would fit within the bangle structure I was planning, 2 on each side. This was way more planning than I usually like to do with my beading but I really really needed this design idea to get out of my head and into an actual form. I didn't know if it would "work" or not.

I tried to keep the bangles designs for the outside parts easy and not too busy. Working a kind-of blended horizontal stripe in the colors of the dress I was matching, I prepared these pieces separately. Eventually it was pieced together and its...ok.  I stopped before I got to filling in the whole piece with beads (which was my original plan). Leaving it open allowed for the St. Petersburg Chain arches to try to hold their own. If I kept beading and filled it in the chain would have gotten lost and there would have been no point putting in all the extra effort to make it in this way. I think. I could be wrong. 

It was as finished as I thought it should be. I let it sit, I wore it to Abigail's wedding layered with some other beaded pieces. It's fine but I'm not in love with it. I thought it had the potential to be a piece I could submit to exhibits but it's not there and the design kind-of fell flat for me. Sometimes our ideas are much more glorious in our minds and the reality isn't as exciting. I'm perfectly fine with not-exciting though. I think it's going to grow on me a bit more and it could be that start to something else in the future. It is time to move on to another project with different colors. I think I've been looking a blends of blues and purples for too long now and they're wearing on me. Onward and upward.

Abigail's Wedding Hair Pins

I dabble in bead embroidery when it's needed for specific pieces. In these cases I'm usually matching or complimenting some other design.  For example the bead embroidered Tiara piece that I created for Helen a few years ago. When some of my dear friends announce that they are getting married I offer to bead something for them for their wedding outfit if it calls for it. Not everyone takes me up on it, and if I don't think I can do what they want I let them know. 

Detail photo I was working off of from Abigail

Abigail asked if it was possible to do some beadwork for her hair that went with her dress. She sent me plenty of photos of the beadwork on her dress and sizes of beads and sequins to work with. I wasn't sure I could do it since I've never worked with sequins before but I started researching and playing. As I went down the sequin rabbit-hole I found this fabulous website to purchase sequins. 

I stitched a few pieces at a time on one piece of satin

I compiled white, off white and silver beads from my stash along with ordering a few different sequins that I thought would hopefully work. I mailed the sequin samples to Abigail to compare to her dress...whites and the various finishes are so hard to photograph and guess at! Once I had enough information and color options I started stitching. 

I always think that I don't like bead embroidery but these were super-fun. I was really amazed at how well they clustered together in Abigail's hair for her wedding. Her hair dresser did an amazing job at making the ones she chose to use look like they were all one piece. Her hair dresser had requested I put them on 2 inch U-pins which I ordered from Amazon. 

Abigail's Wedding Hair!

We had such a great time at all of the wedding festivities and getting to catch up with friends old and new. I'm always honored to have something that I handmade as part of a friend's wedding. Thank you for including us and congrats Abigail and Juan!

Lastly, I loved photographing these. I wished I had a macro lens to really get better detail of the sequins and beads together.  I'm am by no means a professional photographer but I took a lot of photos as close as I could get.  The shapes drew me in. So this blog post has extra photos!