I had the pleasure and privilege of testing Gwen's new Ionic Polyhedra pattern, and I ended up with a nice handful of these fascinating beaded beads. I began with the Ionic Cube, the first Ionic Polyhedron in the pattern:
I used smoky quartz round beads that I had kicking around from a previous Rings and Things Roadshow shopping spree, which led me to create this beaded bead in a nice fall palette with metallic and copper-plated seed beads, plus some goldluster green fringe drop beads. I think that the copper-plated seed beads are a little bit bright right now, but in my experience these seed beads tend to oxidize over time, so this beaded bead should look nicely color-balanced after a little while.
This design was really satisfying to make. It starts out a little loose and squishy, but ends up very stiff and sturdy by the time it's complete. I found this aspect particularly satisfying considering that it's completely hollow.
These little beads are right up my alley; they're small, cute, and work up really quickly. In addition to looking nice as a pair of earrings, I think that five or seven of them would work well in a choker or princess-length necklace.
I made two of them and strung them with the regular Ionic Cube, along with more round smoky quartz beads and Japanese seed beads. I even added my own little touch to the Mini Ionic Cubes... Can you tell?
I haven't yet decided what to do with my second regular Ionic Polyhedron. This one is the Ionic Octahedron, for which I used firepolish Czech glass beads and more matte Japanese seed beads:
I'm thinking that it would make a nice solo pendant, but I might want to incorporate it into a necklace with other beads... I think I need to mull it over a bit more.
The Ionic Polyhedra pattern is available at beAd Infinitum, and it explains, in great detail, how to make these and other polyhedra in both the mini and regular Ionic forms. Florence wrote an interesting post on the evolution of this design, which is a must-read for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes development of new beaded bead ideas. For more examples of Ionic Polyhedra, check out Gwen's beaded beads here here and here. Her Ionic Rhombic Dodecahedron, shown on her blog, is particularly fantastic!
Hi, Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment, I'm honoured.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love your work and have become a fan of beaded beads seeing yours.
Thanks again.
Luv,
Vinnie.
The color combination for the octahedron is brilliant. In a million years I would never have put those beads together, but I love the final result. Thank you so much for making such beauties with my latest design and documenting them all so well. You are awesome!
ReplyDeleteThanks Vinnie and Gwen! I'm so glad that you like the colors! I've been combining the matte green and purple seedies on the octahedron in other pieces too, and they pair pretty well with silver (but then again, what doesn't?) and prairie green glass beads. The firepolish beads were a match to the green, but the drops were a last-minute color decision. I wanted a contrasting color in the drops, and I really like how the whole octa turned out too :)
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