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.

Mid-Week Mutterings - Can't Decide...

Before I start with the bead stuff - as the granddaughter, daughter and sister of veterans, and the mother of a soldier on active duty, my honor, respect and prayers to all who have served and the families who stand beside them.

I can't decide if the picture below looks Christmas-y or more like a vegetable medley with cucumbers, onions and tomatoes. I'm finding the results of my design efforts tonight rather unsatisfying.

So here's how this evening's play with the vintage glass from The Beadin' Path went. I stared at the red set of beads. Remembered that I had a little box of what I think of as 'real' green beads I had bought last December and used in Christmas lanyards. Got those out. Strung the middle strand, above, using the red flower and "berries" beads from the vintage glass strand with the green beads.

I thought it was ok, but since there weren't enough for a strand longer than 12 inches, I figured I'd do a multi strand and attach it to something longer - ribbon, chain, wasn't sure then nor now. So I grab the faceted white opaque vintage glass I'd gotten in last month's Bead of the Month package from The Beadin' Path and strung those with the 'pod' beads and some red flower disk spacers - top strand above.

Maybe I should have stopped there, but I decided one more strand. Got out the only opaque red and white beads I thought might work - some diagonally drilled cubes and oval twists. Strung those with the green.

I think there's too much green too close together and that the size of the beads in the bottom strand needs to be bigger to balance out the larger white and red beads of the top strand. It's back to the drawing board. This time I work the pods in with smaller beads and the faceted white beads (which I'm starting to think of as snowballs) on the bottom with red diagonally drilled cubes.

And, nope, again. Sigh.

I'm too tired to try again tonight, but I'll keep working on this. The current thinking is the green and red strand will have to go, but I like it so I'll figure out a way to make it into a longer single strand piece.

Of course none of this is the fault of the beads - both the red set and the white strand are lovely and I enjoy working with beads that have history, which these vintage beads certainly have.

More tomorrow!




FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post, with the exception of the red vintage glass beads, were personally purchased.

Took a Tropical Turn Tonight with the Beadin' Path Design Partner Challenge

The Beadin' Path sent me some vintage Czech and German glass beads to feature in some Design Partner jewelry designs back in October.

I've really struggled with what to do with these - partly because of the colors and partly due to the shapes. Well, I finally figured out what to do with the yellow strand on the far left. I started with just re-stringing the beads this way and that. Then it occurred to me that I could pull out the hyacinth druk beads and some Lucite flowers I had played with this summer to mix in with them.

Necklace #1 uses each of the shapes on the strand, except for the larger oval one (I keep calling them 'pods'), and a orange Lucite flower. The bright orange beads I've added are modern hyacinth Czech druk beads.

(I think this is darling, if I say so myself.)

Necklace #2 uses the pods and some dark orange Lucite flowers with a larger yellow one. I put some yellow seed beads between the flowers and pods since they didn't hang well without them.

There were some problems making the second one. I couldn't find enough of the original yellow seed beads and at the end I had to use a different yellow bead. And of the eight orange flowers, seven were matte and the eighth was shiny - I put that one at the end. The large yellow flower looked brighter, and more like the yellow in the 'pod' beads, in the light I have in my beading room than the light I used to take the picture, too.

I'm quite happy with these, especially since the ideas didn't come easily! Now it's off to figuring out what to do with the others.

Hope to have more designs with the Beadin' Path beads soon.

FTC compliance disclosure, notice of material connections: All items in the previous post, specifically referenced as from The Beadin' Path, were provided as promotional gifts by for review or design partnership purposes.

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.