Tuesday Tidbits - River Rock Concepts 2 & 3
As I mentioned before, Heather at The Beadin' Path sent me some glass River Rocks to create some designs with as one of their design partners. I made the first one with the amber rocks pretty soon after I got them, but the yellow ones were harder for me, as it's not a color I work with much.
I gave the rocks a lot of attention over the weekend. Finally I got an idea to jumpstart my imagination. I pulled out my Soft Flex Yellow Lemon Quartz (also comes in the Harmony Trio) beading wire and played around with clear and yellow beads, but didn't like anything I was seeing.
Then, after I'd spent some time reading Margie Deeb's Fall/Winter 2009 Color Report, I pulled out my green aventurine beads but ended up not happy with the combination of just the two colors. So I decided to try some multi-stone bead chips I'd had in my stash forever because I hoped the variety of colors would be a better balance against the large, strong bright yellow.
I strung just the chips and the River Rocks but it wasn't clicking. I got the aventurine out again and decided to use the large round beads. Still not quite it but really close. Finally, I thought I'd add one or two bright pink chips and big pink glass beads. Almost there! Made a simple pendant by using two strands of Soft Flex and more chips and curled the wires. I didn't string the large green and pink beads symmetrically on the necklace and I'm debating re-stringing them so they follow the same pattern on both sides. That's why I haven't added the clasp to this one yet. I'm really happy with the pendant, though! I'm tempted to do another necklace with just River Rocks now and a similar pendant.
The next River Rock necklace is an attempt to 'dress up' the rough glass, which I used as a solo focal this time, with some faceted glass beads, some tiger eye beads, some gold freshwater pearl disks and other miscellaneous amber/bronze/browns. I strung a length of dark amber, 3 or 4mm faceted glass rounds and twirled them around the strand.
I don't have any gold tone cones to cover the double strand ends, so I used some large holed beads...I really like how it turned out...I'm going to use this idea again.
There are your Tuesday Tidbits. See you tomorrow for Mid-Week Mutterings!
Labels: beaded badge lanyard, Beadin' Path Design Partner, design challenges, ID lanyard, jewelry lanyard, necklace, River Rocks, Soft Flex Beading Wire, The Beadin' Path, Trios, Tuesday Tidbits
posted by ohdawno at
6:00 AM
2 Comments:
I really like that pendant on the first one. The twisted wire is a nice touch. I also like the gemstone chips.
I think you could do the pink stones asymmetrically if maybe you put one or two of the chips before the large pink right after the yellow river rock, then the grouping of chips, then the large green, a couple of chips and finally the yellow river rock. Keep the same number of beads between the yellow river rocks, but move them around a bit. Make any sense? I think right now the pink beads are spaced too far apart on the necklace to catch the asymmetry.
Just a thought – I have a hard time visualizing those things without being able to play with the actual piece.
I also really like how you finished that second piece. Nice touches. :)
Makes a lot of sense. I have an idea or two I'm going to play with tonight so I'll be posting the update soon. Thank you for your kind comment on the second necklace, too.
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