Tuesday Tidbits - More Lanyards in Fall Fashion Nomad, Crème Brûlée and Iron + Black

Image from The Graphics Fairy

I came this <----> close to calling today's post Tuesday Tid- "Bats" but spared you the agony...

Well, I thought I'd finished two lanyards tonight, but it turns out one of them has a major mistake about halfway through the strand, and will have to be redone. See if you can find it - I didn't see it until I went up to take the photographs. I have been trying to watch some shows on Hulu while beading, guess that's too distracting.

The top lanyard is jet black Czech glass with silver plate spacers and sterling beads. The lower one is dalmatian jasper, a stone that I'm quite fond of, and a few Czech Druk beads in jet black. Here's a solo shot of that lanyard.

Turns out that the colors in this stone are pretty close to the fall fashion colors of nomad, crème brûlée and iron. I had originally thought to pair it with snowflake obsidian, but that stone has pure white markings and, as you can see, the dalmatian jasper is gray/beige with black. I couldn't really tell when I made the order online.

I ended up pairing the snowflake obsidian with white howlite, and they worked quite well together. I'll be doing a few more pieces in that combo before long, so I'll be able to show you what I mean.

That's it for tonight, busy day at work tomorrow, need to get a good night's rest!

Midweek-Mutterings - More Fall Color Pieces

On Monday I decided to make some new pieces that I could wear with autumn outfits. I would have shared this in yesterday's post, but I got home so late Monday night that it was actually Tuesday morning!

I started out by stringing with faceted crystal/olive Czech glass beads and antique brass Swarovski pearls from Rings & Things; various fall color CRYSTALLIZED™ - Swarovski Elements 6mm bicones from Fusion Beads; some tiny (4mm) bead top brass spacer bead caps, from Accessories Susan, and flower petal natural Vintaj brass bead caps from Lima Beads. I decided to do three strands, cap them with a textured 12mm three petaled floral cap in oxidized brass , and finish it off with a hook and eye clasp I bought ages ago at Michael's and no longer have the supplier information (sorry!).

and I like it best when 'braided' by threading one capped end through the strands until it looks like this

Of course, I can't just do a bracelet, so I made a necklace with matching earrings. These are made with more of those Fall color CRYSTALLIZED™ - Swarovski Elements 6mm bicones from Fusion Beads, antique brass Swarovski pearls from Rings & Things, brass beads from the Blue Moon Royal Boheme collection and chain from the Blue Moon Natural Elegance collection, both purchased at Michael's. The lobster claw clasp and the ear wires come from Accessories Susan.

One other thing - those beads look (to me) a bit like old fashioned hot air balloons...I'm thinking of some Steampunk style pieces with, if I can find the right stuff, little "baskets" hanging from them to make hot air balloon jewelry. If I figure it out, you'll see it here first!

Tuesday Tidbit - Aventurine Leaf Necklace

Last evening I dropped my Bead Trends March 2010 piece into the FedEx pickup box for overnight delivery. I didn't mean to put it off to the last minute, but I somehow let things slip last week and had to scramble today so it would be there in time. The April 2010 Bead Trends submission deadline and the Stringing challenge are all coming up in just a couple weeks, so I need to plan ahead better for them. To say nothing of having just over a month left to finish preparations for LosCon in LA next month.

Well, rather than dwelling on my little failings and recent foibles, let's move on to something positive! As the seemingly never ending chore of organizing my workspace continues, I occasionally stop cleaning or sorting or organizing and make something with the beads I've uncovered. Case in point, this aventurine necklace.

I pulled out a box full of beads left over from an earlier project and rather than sort through them as I was planning on, I got an idea. I grabbed this carved leaf I bought from Etsy seller Beadaholique, which I had actually managed to put in the right place to find easily (a box labeled "green stone"), and strung it with some carved floral aventurine beads from Baubles and Beads in Berkeley (say that three times fast!). Then, from the box I picked out the nearly white pale, and lovely celadon green, aventurine rounds to string into a necklace.

Normally I use metal caps and spacers in my work. This time I liked the simplicity of using just the stones.

Although I think I'd typically put this aside for Spring, the idea of a falling leaf (which I think the pendant looks like) green or not, makes me think of Autumn. Besides, here in California a lot of the trees stay green all year round, and not just the typical evergreens. I've got a couple Fall outfits I think I'll try this with and see how it looks.

See you tomorrow for some mutterings about another "last minute idea for something to wear to work" jewelry creation.