I have been intensely wanting to make jewelry lately, and had a necklace in mind. I had been intentionally collecting copper, green, yellow, pink and amber colored beads. Â So I hauled out my current-favorite-mess-of-beads, and discovered a lone old packet of beads I had been completely avoiding. Note: I just sort of snapped photos as I went, so the lighting isn’t that great on these photos.
I started to open them, then I realized this would make a fun blog – that’s why they are ripped at the top. Fun blog part being: I didn’t really plan or want to use these old beads, my goal is now to use them before the night is over!
These beads are made of tan colored glass, with little lampworked dots of glass with coppery inclusions (much like goldstone). So my first idea was to look for more rustic neutral beads to add to them. I dug up this.
Now effectively armed with a bunch of neutral beads, I put them together on my handy bead board and got this.
It’s rustic, it has wood, painted wood, glass, a ceramic focal, copper…what more could you want? Well.. I don’t know, but I wanted something! It is a nice blending of neutral earthtones, and it just didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t feel anything from this pattern. Not that I don’t love that Celtic focal, but it wasn’t working here, for me. So I took it apart.
My second attempt began with the long black glass bead you can see in the middle of the bead board up there. I decided to go with one of my “standard” color schemes, really. Copper and black. I just like the drama you get when those colors play off against each other – they pop!
So here is what I ended up with next, and kept: black czech glass, goldstone squares, and those tan disks. That long black focal really draws the eye. Feel free to disagree with me, of course, but I like this design much better.
Have you ever started a project over? I have done it on some much more frustrating projects (the time I burned a big clay sculpture comes to mind). But with beads, it’s forgiving: You can string and unstring and see what you get with various combinations!
PS. this necklace is on Etsy now.