Vintage Glass & Gold Beading Chain Necklace, Plus Another Last Minute Creation

Last night I was looking over the rest of The Beadin' Path vintage glass (pictured above) - there was still a strand of light blue opaque glass and the bag of faceted light blue iridescent finish beads (far right), a strand of yellow & white glass disks (second from left), and a strand of red fluted roundels in the same shape and size as the amber colored ones I'd used the other day (in the center).

Since I had a good amount of those amber glass fluted roundels, I thought I'd see what I could come up with using them with the red ones. As I was staring at them trying to think of what I might design, I remembered I'd bought a set of lovely lampwork autumn leaves and matching spacer beads from Mermaid Glass and thought those would look lovely with the red and gold.

First I strung them on beading wire, but then I thought it would be interesting to try using some gold filled beading chain I had. The spacers are gold vermeil daisies. The round bit that finished the end that the lobster claw clasp is on is a Scrimp cable-end from Beadalon. The necklace is 18" long.

I'm very fond of this necklace and look forward to showing it off.

Speaking of showing off...this morning I had some extra time before work, so I decided to make a bracelet to complement the copper and green glass necklace lanyard I had picked out to wear. Took about 30 - 35 minutes because I used wrapped loops. I am thinking about adding some Swarovski to it - I've got some huge bicones (10 or 12 mm) I picked up at Global Beads - I forgot to ask the color, they have an AB finish and are a orange-y tone, perhaps the color is "sun" but I'm not sure. The fancy antiqued interlocking arcs copper beads and bright, smooth copper spheres (no longer listed) are from Lima Beads and the chain is from Michael's. I've had the clasp in my stash for some time and don't recall where I got it.

I seem to get some pretty good ideas when I'm trying to figure out what to wear to work.

Do come back tomorrow for a great list of sales and bargains tomorrow!




FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post, with the exception of the red and gold vintage glass beads provided by The Beadin' Path, were personally purchased.

Friday Picks - Vintage Glass and a New Mixed Media Project to Try Out

Sorry for the brief post today - just haven't had the time this week to do a lot of new designs and get them photographed. I really need to put some quality time into taking pictures and building up my inventory on Art Fire. There are days when I wish I could do this full time and really get everything I want to do done. But, it's the day job that pays for the beads, and so much more, right now, so I can't really give it up.

I'm very fortunate (and quite honored) to be one of The Beadin' Path's design partners. Pictured above is the wonderful assortment of vintage glass beads I got from The Beadin' Path a bit earlier this week. Just A Tish has already made a fabulous necklace with hers! These are shapes and colors that really challenge me, so I'm going to have to get quite far out of my comfy zone! I'm looking forward to it, and then sharing the results with you next week.

In addition, I've gotten an order in just today from AlphaStamps which included a Brass Pendant Kit (see below) that I'm very excited about trying out. I love those ribbons!

Now I'm just going to have to figure out how to put it all together! I've not yet tried to make anything like this, and I'm just slightly intimidated, but I was enchanted by the collage sheet and the little frame transparencies, so I took a leap. I got a couple other goodies from Alpha Stamps, as well, will share more about that when I have the finished jewelry to show off.

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!

Monday Miscellany - Sunflower Starry Night, Meet Moonglow Sapphire Vintage Lucite!

I've been trying, and failing, for ages, to come up with a suitable design for my Patti Stoll Sunflower Starry Night beads. Just last week, I realized that The Beadin' Path's Vintage Lucite design partner beads had come to the rescue!

The Vintage Lucite Sapphire Moonglow Rice Ovals are just the right color and with their shimmery moonglow, the perfect complement to the pendant bead. I put some bright matte yellow Czech Druk glass beads in between each rice bead and around the pendant's head-pin loop at first, but I think I'm going to re-string without them.

Right now the necklace has 14 of the 15 piece strand and it's a bit too short to be finished. If I can't purchase another strand of these, I'll use Vintage Lucite Round Beads 9mm Sapphire Moonglow beads to add length.

I've been putting pictures of the necklaces I've posted on this blog recently up at TwitPic.com if you should want to browse through them. Also, if you ever want to share one of the pictures you see there, just email me and I'll happily give you permission - I'd appreciate it as well if you'd also share the link to the picture and mention this blog.

Come back tomorrow for Tuesday Tidbits - you never know what I'll be up to next...