Made a little progress on my bead stash....

In my last post, I showed pics of my latest hoard purchase of gorgeous beads from Happy Mango Beads.  This is what I have made..so far.

First up, I made a pair of earrings with these lovely lapis chips and ancient chevron beads from Nepal.  I had a hard time deciding on silver or copper...I obviously picked copper! 

Next, I paired the Burmese Jade Chips with these gorgeous hand formed porcelain leaves from Scorched Earth.  My goodness, the colors in these leaves are just stunning...blues...greens...pops of gold!  These earrings were a bear to photograph!

Keirsten Giles recently posted a wire wrapping tip on the Art Jewelry Elements blog - you take heavy gauge wire (in the case below, 16 gauge), flatten it, and just make simple loops.  This is quite effective when using large holed beads, such as the recycled glass I used in this necklace.  I will not lie - this took a long time to hammer, wrap, file the edges smooth, trip the edges, file again, wrap.  Repeat.  But I love the look!

In fact, I loved the look so much, that I made a longer necklace as well.  This one uses the same gray sandcast beads as the short necklace, above.  But I added complementary recycled beads to pull the colors out of those awesome stripes.

While making this necklace, I was craving root beer hard candy!  Anyone else remember those root beer barrels?  Loved them!

This was made with no clasp - just slips over the head.   

The picture below shows the two necklaces worn together.  I might add, this picture was taken in natural light outdoors. My photo booth tends to make those yellow beads look a tad on the neon side - trust me - they are not neon! I think the two look great when worn together.

This last bracelet I made this weekend features gorgeous - and I mean drop dead gorgeous - lampwork beads by Beads and Botanicals.  They are tiny - but each one is truly a genuine work of art.  

I took a picture of the beads in my hand so you could see how small they are.  I added tiny (3mm) bone beads to the mix, also from Happy Mango Beads  and a tiny artisan copper charm by Kristi Bowman Design..

I don't often make multiple strand bracelets - they are difficult for me!  But I love how this one turned out.  

My hands are still black from buffing all the liver of sulfur off of the copper!

So...that was my weekend.  I did also take time to spend outdoors - the weather was absolutely fantastic here in Northern Virginia.  Not for long...humidity starts tomorrow.  Ugh...

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

xo

Patti