Peanut Gallery Berry Necklace

You know how I love to match beaded beads to lampwork beads? Well a few years ago while shopping at a BABE! Show I fell in love with a set of seven gorgeous handmade lampwork beads in delicious berry colors of purples and pinks. They were created by Toni Lutman of Wild Woods Arts Glass, and these particular beads only scratch the surface of her impressive talent with glass.

It was tricky to create beaded beads in the right shade to match them, but I settled on a set of Peanut Gallery beaded beads with bright purple seed beads, salmon peanut beads, and a luminous blue-teal shade of drop bead. They don't have quite as much purple as I'd usually prefer, but they still match the berry tones of the lampwork beads.

I finished this piece with additional dark purple Czech glass fire polish beads and Japanese seed beads. Usually I'd consider listing a piece like this in my Etsy shop, but this time I'm keeping this one for myself :). If you'd like to make your own Peanut Gallery beaded beads, please visit my website for the pattern.

New Pattern: Peanut Gallery Beaded Bead

My newest beaded bead pattern, the Peanut Gallery beaded bead, is now available at Bead Origami.com

I designed this all-seed bead beaded bead nearly two years ago to feature the unique shape of the peanut seed bead. At the time, I wove five of them for Marcie's Margie and Me color challenge, and featured them in this mosaic-inspired bracelet:

Since creating this bracelet, I experimented with adding drop-shaped seed beads to this beaded bead, which results in a different overall effect:

This beaded bead can be woven with drops, magatamas, or round seed beads on each of its faces, and I address these variations in the pattern. I think that round seed beads showcase the peanut beads the best, but I just love the tactile combination of peanuts and drops.

This beaded bead has no round core bead yet it is still extremely sturdy. The seed beads on the inside of the structure usually remain hidden once the beaded bead is complete. But depending on the choice of colors used, they sometimes peak out from behind the peanut beads.

The Peanut Gallery beaded bead is available exclusively at beadorigami.com. What's your favorite shaped seed bead?

Margie and Me Color Challenge - Mosaic of Color, #129

I just finished my second challenge piece in as many weeks. Marcie Abney puts on a color challenge every few weeks based on color palettes from the color maven Margie Deeb. The latest palette is #129 from Margie's book The Beader's Color Palette, and is based on the gorgeous mosaics from Islamic architecture. 

The light blues in this palette match some peanut-shaped Japanese seed beads, which I've been tinkering with in beaded beads for a little while. While my Pagoda charms include these little peanut beads as accent beads, I wanted to make a beaded bead that featured these peanuts prominently. They're a bit tricky to design around, and I must have come up with a dozen prototypes, but after drawing some inspiration from Gwen's Mini Ionic Polyhedra I finally settled on a design that I'm satisfied with. They're solid and sturdy but lack a round core bead, so they're easy to string together. I incorporated five of these peanut beaded beads into this bracelet:

I really like how the colors of the peanut beads mix with matte AB cobalt and peach-colored seed beads. 

Thanks to Marcie for putting on this fun color challenge! Check out her challenge piece and the other participants' work on her blog.