Saturday 20 April 2013

Sorbet colours for Spring

Ana did amazingly with her bead soup, right "down to the last bead" - so, inspired by her example, I've now used pretty much all the beads she sent. So, in the "down to the last bead" spirit, here is my last piece: I've taken the advice of my lovely commenters and tried using PicMonkey - it is indeed much easier to use than a combination of Microsoft Photo Editor and Powerpoint. And the fonts are better.

This is more of a Bead Soup Blog After-Party than part of the BSBP proper: if you want to see what I posted for the 2nd BSBP reveal, please click the button on the right.
 
Sorbet-coloured bracelet
Ana had sent me these gorgeous flamingo-coloured shell beads - and I wanted to put in a bracelet because they're so beautiful you just want to look at them all the time. It's hard to capture in a photo, but they have lovely soft colours that shift as they move in the light. These beads were very keen to be paired with the peach-coloured fire-polished crystals, also from the soup Ana sent me.

It's now properly spring here (my Polish friend said to me yesterday: You know it's spring in England when it stops snowing and starts raining) so I wanted to use a sorbet-type palette. I couldn't quite make it work, until I realised I could use some more of these irregular-shaped greenish-turquoise seed beads that I found in a local charity shop (thrift shop) to make a multi-strand design.

I combined them with a few of my favourite iridescent large green seed beads (also originally upcycled, from a different necklace) to boost the green vibe, and added some odd pink, green and blue beads from my stash. And some of my favourite wooden beads to add an informal touch.

I knew I wanted a toggle-clasp because they're easy to do up (important for a bracelet!) but I didn't quite have the right style. Then I found this twisted Tibetan silver clasp online - perfect. The weight of the silver makes sure that the bracelet sits with the clasp at the lowest point, so that the interesting part of the design is uppermost.

The bracelet can be worn either untwisted, so that it looks like three stacked bracelets, or lightly twisted, like this:

Sorbet-coloured bracelet, with the strands lightly twisted

1 comment:

  1. oh, wow Sarah, I love this bracelet. Boho chic and so perfect to pair with a summer maxi dress :-)

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