Friday Feature: purple / pink

In honor of a couple of my newest jewelry shop listings, I've rounded up some purple and pink items on Etsy today. Enjoy!

Beaded Bracelet - Silver Links - Celestial Stars Moons Purple Pink by randomcreative

Beaded Dangle Earrings - Celestial Purple Pink Star Charms by randomcreative

Unique Hand made Rug. Wool Felt Pebbles. Multicolor. Purple, Pink, Violet, Gray colors. Size 55 x 25 inches. by DMpics

Lavender Purple Pink Cross Wall Hanging by 2GirlsForever

Purple pink Baby headband, vintage shabby chic roses by SAVANIboutique

Silky Chiffon Scarf - Gorgeous Purple / Pink Multi Watercolor Print by liacatherinestyle

Starry Galaxy, space and stars purple, pink, red necklace pendant by DevilsJewel

Are you a fan of the purple and pink color combination, too?

Friday Feature: Pantone's Radiant Orchid

This is old news by now, but the 2014 Pantone Color of the Year is Radiant Orchid. Like many people, I was a much bigger fan of emerald last year. I prefer small touches of light purple. But it's still an amazing color when used just right. Here are just a few beautiful radiant orchid picks from Etsy. Enjoy!

Pantone 2014 Radiant Orchid Stripe Ceramic Mug by MaryBethGoodwin

Enjoy Pantone's Color of the Year: Radiant Orchid in Resin and Real Flowers: Purple Hydrangea and White Baby's Breath by SpottedDogAsheville

Infinity Scarf in Radiant Orchid Chevron by DaisyFayeDesigns

Upcycled (Unused) Cabinet Door into Radiant Orchid Chalkboard Frame with painted Cast Iron Drawer Pull for storing your chalk by messymimi

A7 Radiant Orchid Purple Envelopes - 5.x5 x 7.25 inches (5 1/4" x 7 1/4") - Quantity 25 by haSupplies

RADIANT ORCHID / MAGENTA Velvet Long Bolster Pillow 8x27 by theBolsterQueens

Radiant Orchid, Bridal Shower Invites, Wedding Shower Invitation, Peony Flower with stripes, Printable or Printed by alittletreasure

How do you feel about radiant orchid?

almost WW: Girly

the bead mix

the finished product, in two sizes

voting for April EBW Challenge

Voting for the April EBW Challenge Seed Beads Only is up and running!  You can vote on the blog today through April 15.  Voting is on the right side of the page.  You'll have to scroll down a little bit to see all of the entries.  If you have problems with the main page, click here.  Check out all of the entries and vote for your favorite.

Here's my entry.

It's still available for sale here.  If you missed the blog post about it last month, read more about it right here.

As always, there are lots of stunning entries in this challenge.  Here are just a few of my favorites.

This is such an original design.
EBWC April Challenge Bow Bracelet by Fandefanfan

I love the fringe work here.  I need to try making a herringbone rope with Czech class beads like this one sometime.
Spring Bouquet Beadwoven Necklace...EBWC April 2012 Challenge...EBW Team by MaryTDesigns

This has been one of my favorites since the beginning of this challenge.  It reminds me of an Impressionism painting.
Wildflowers in the Sage Seed Bead Bracelet by SierraBeader

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a brand new bangle design...in purple!

I know that I'll get questions about this so I'll put this out there now.  I did not make my coasters, wedding art, and bangle this past week.  I simply got them all up on my blog this past week.  I have actually spent most of my creative energy this past week on a time-consuming customer order and spread out these other projects over the past month.

The April EBW Challenge theme is Seed Beads Only.  As part of the EBW mod team, we had a difficult time putting out a definition of the term "seed bead" and what the perimeters for the challenge would be.  This would seem like the most straight forward theme ever, but there were a lot of questions about whether non-beaded clasps would be allowed and what shapes and sizes of seed beads could be used.  I will spare you all the details, but suffice it to say, that I was pretty happy with the final decisions and decided that I did want to participate.

I have moved away from using beaded bead clasps for bracelets, as customers have really preferred button and metal clasps.  Since neither of these options are allowed, I opted for a bangle.  All of my bangles thus far have been based one of the most standard bangle designs out there.  I decided it was time to break way from that and do something new.

One of the final stipulations is that 20% or less of the final design can be non-round seed bead shapes (hexagons, triangles, cubes, etc.).  Yep, this involved doing some math before I started beading.  I thought that some would be interested to learn that the final piece has over 1,500 seed beads.

This is a variation of my skinny wrapped peyote design.  I had wanted to make a purple version of this design for a while and decided to convert it to a bangle.  I've always used right angle weave for bangles.  For those of you who beadweave, you know how easily it converts to a bangle.  I honestly didn't know how peyote would go.  It is not as flawless, but it's pretty good.  I chose to complete all of the wrapped embellishment before I joined the two ends, as I didn't know if the beadwork would allow the design to flip or not.  It turns out that it is flexible enough to flip so if I do this again, I may join the cube base, which will make the bangle conversion more flawless.

As always, it was really hard to put together a well blended purple combination and photograph is accurately.  Bangles are not my favorite type of jewelry to photograph anyway, but I'm fairly pleased with the result.  Purple continues to be a very popular color combination so it's well worth the effort.

This piece is available for sale here.  Voting for the April challenge will take place on the EBW blog April 9-15.  Check back here that week for all of the voting information.

Have you been working on any new designs lately?

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another edition of why I love my customers

I've had a couple custom orders this month.  Almost all of my custom jewelry orders thus far have been really positive.  I love working with customers to design exactly what they want.  These pieces often get me to try color combinations that I would not have tried on my own.  These recent orders were no exception.

The first order was from a return customer who had ordered a custom set for herself back in April.  She wanted custom sets of bracelets, pendants, and earrings of this design for her four granddaughters.  It took us a few days to finalize the designs and specifications.  Each set is tailored specifically to the recipient with custom lengths.

Here are the four bracelets.  You can click on any of the pictures in this post to see the larger versions.

 

I'd never made earrings or pendants for this design before.  I'm pretty pleased with the result.  Here are the earrings.  One of the girls can't wear pierced earrings so I designed a clip on pair for her.  I also rigged up a way to attach them to my earring cards.

 

Finally, here are the pendants.

 

I included a pair of my Christmas button post earrings for each of the girls.  Again, since one of the girls, can't wear pierced earrings, I designed a pair of clip on Christmas earrings for her.

Many of you probably don't know that I actually don't have pierced ears.  This was the first time that I've designed clip on earrings, and it was pretty fun.  Maybe I'll design some for myself sometime.

The other custom order that I got this month was at the craft fair that I did.  She wanted a button embellished design in a specific length with purple and blue buttons.

Blue and purple are two of my favorite colors.  I can't believe that I never thought of pairing them for this design.  I found enough buttons to make a second version as well.  I don't know if I'm going to list it before my last show so if you're interested, let me know.

I included this post in Michelle's Delicately Constructed Friday 11/25.

a red/purple addition and in the works this week

While I was reworking some older red/purple designs this fall, I decided to make a brand new piece with this color combination, too.

It's available here.  Before this fall, I hadn't made a wrapped design in quite a while.  It's been fun to revisit it.  And I love this color combination.  It is a tough one to photograph, but I'm pretty please with these pictures.  I don't have any more wrapped cuffs planned right now, but as always, if there's anything you'd like to see, I'm open to suggestions.

I've been hard at work on my November challenge piece.  Here are a couple shots of the completed base of the piece.

Remember my shot of the fringe beads?  After I completed the base, I went back and added two rows of embellishment all the way up and down the base.  I also added a focal with a large glass leaf bead and a piece of drilled sea glass.  One of the things that I love about this design is that the focal can hang as the center of the piece when it's worn as a necklace or it can hang as a charm when it's worn as a bracelet.

I'm planning to list this piece later this week so I'll have more information about it here next week.

In my recent pursuit to remake a lot of my made to order pieces, I've been working on a new button charm bracelet so I can update this listing.

I added coordinating seed beads to the bracelet as well.  I'll update the listing sometime in the next week.

In between other projects, I've also been working on some my button bracelets that I planned out earlier this month.

As I've done so many EBW challenges this year, I've put a lot of time into building up the higher end stock in my shop.  It will be good to have some new lower price end pieces for the holidays, too.

I included this post in Delicately Constructed Friday.

continuing my lines: newest rock garden and dagger bracelets

I listed my newest rock garden bracelet last week.

It's available here.  I am so happy that this line continues to do well because 1) the pieces are so much fun to make and 2) my purple rock garden bracelet is one of my favorite pieces to wear.  I'm always scouting new small Czech glass in green, blue, and purple for these pieces.  I used a wide variety of Czech glass shapes included several different types of leaves.  I was able to pick up some new dark purple seed beads in Iowa City before we left, which was a relief, because that finish is awesome.  I have a longer version of this bracelet available, too.  If you're interested, let me know.

I also listed my newest dagger bracelet last week.  I know that I keep saying that I won't make anymore until I sell one and yet I seem to keep making them.

It's available here.  I bought some extra green daggers a while back for this piece.  I didn't know for sure how many daggers I would be getting from Art Beads because there was a little mix up with part of my order.  I don't know why I didn't do this sooner!  Some of you may remember this post where I shared the first version of this piece, which had a big mistake that I realized much too late to rip out.  I love the final result, though, especially with the green seed bead fringe.

Amazingly I don't have any more rock garden or dagger bracelets in the works right now, but as always, I'm open to suggestions.