Art Beads Beautiful Spring

Oh, my goodness. Where have the last three weeks gone? I didn't realize it had been so long since I sat down to blog.

Well, I finally got some decent pictures of the items I made from the beads I got from Artbeads.com for the Beautiful Spring theme. We were allowed to choose from any and all categories to make something that depicted Spring to us.

I chose keishi pearls, top drilled potato pearls, 4mm pink ab bicones, 4mm crystal ab rounds and green 1.8mm delica squares.

I have a weakness for pearls, but I have a hard time coming up with designs for them, but these were different. The designs practically made themselves.

I wanted the keishi pearls to make flowers. I made this bracelet in waffle weave with some pink size 8's that I had on hand and some of the delica squares. Then I made the flower using keishi pearls, a round pearl that I had on hand, and pink ab bicones. Then I sewed the flower onto the bracelet. I added a top drilled potato pearl to each side of the flower for accent.

I love these keish pearls. Their nacre looks like it is peeling in some places, but when I looked closer it's just a beautifully mottled finished of white, off white, a hint of pink and a hint of gray. They pick up the light beautifully and their unique shape offers many design possibilities.

With the Swarovski pink ab bicones I again used some of the pink size 8's and made this focal point for a necklace and embellished it with top drilled potato pearl dangles. Swarovski crystals are so beautifully sparkly it's hard to get a good picture of them, but you can get a little bit of an idea from this picture.

I was really impressed with these pearls.  They are extremely uniform for natural pearls and I had to do very little sorting to find five that were enough alike to suite me.

I thought about adding a chain through the loops in the focal point but I may make a beaded strap for it instead.

These dew filled leaves are just a classic Russian Leaf pattern made with the delica squares. They don't have quite as much of a cup at the top as they do when made with the classic delicas, but they turned out beautifully.  The squares give a decidedly different texture to any classic stitch.  The dew drop is a Swarovski 4mm round crystal ab strung on size 15 silver lined clear seed beads.


From time to time I receive beads free of charge from Artbeads.com.  This is my honest review of these beads and I am not paid to blog about them.

New Designs by Various Designers

I've been busy trying to take pictures of my Art Beads order and the pretties I've made with them so far. It's been cloudy and rainy here and without natural sunlight, my pictures are turning out absolutely awful, so I'll share a little of what some of my beady friends are up to.

Beth atBouncing Wolf Creations is designing lighter covers in Native American designs. She's got a theme going this month so check in often to see what she's up to.

Juanita at JayCee Patterns has been busy creating some real beauties to put up at Bead Patterns Boutique and has created a free bracelet pattern that you can download from her blog.

Grandma Marilyn has had one of her designs featured in an Etsy treasury.

You can find designs by all of these designers as well as my designs at Bead Patterns Boutique.com