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.

Beaded Beads and Lampwork Beads, Finale!

I completed my necklace featuring Venetian glass beads and beaded beads!

I strung the original two Venetian beads, additional Venetian glass beads, and the seven beaded beads all in between size 6° seed beads, 11° seed beads, and 7 by 4 mm Czech fire polish roundelles. I debated whether to add additional Czech glass beads to this piece, but I wanted to prominently feature the Venetian beads and beaded beads, so I stuck with using the other beads as accents. A vermeil clasp finishes the necklace.

You can see the evolution of this piece in the other blog posts in this series here, here, and here.

Beaded Beads and Lampwork Beads, Part 3

I continued to work on my blue and copper necklace with beaded beads and lampwork beads. I made a thinner version of the original Dewdrop beaded bead by using a smaller core bead, and 4-fold instead of 6-fold symmetry around it. I also made some minor adjustments in the seed bead overlay:

I did the same with the streamlined version:

Now that I think about it, I think that these thinner versions would also make excellent matching earrings...

With just a few more beaded beads, I now have a complete set, all ready to string into the necklace:

Stay tuned next week for the finale of this project! For the previous posts in this series, please click here and here.

More Beaded Beads and Lampwork Beads

I made some progress on my new piece featuring Dewdrop beaded beads and Venetian lampwork beads. For the next beaded bead in this piece, I replaced the drop-shaped seed beads with the same cobalt blue color of round seed beads:

The resulting beaded bead (left) is shorter than the original (right), but it also shows more sapphire blue than cobalt blue. It's interesting how a substitution in bead shape can also alter the color scheme of the entire beaded bead.

It still matches the original lampwork bead though.

Beaded Beads and Lampwork Beads

Earlier this month my aunt lent me a collection of beads that she purchased over the course of her travels, including these two gorgeous Venetian foil lampwork beads:

One of my favorite ways to build a new piece of jewelry is to use lampwork beads as the color palette for the entire piece, and then build up matching beaded beads from there on. Since I have Dewdrop beaded beads on the brain, I picked out some dark metallic brown tila beads, cobalt blue drop beads, and sapphire round seed beads to match the sapphire blue of the Venetian beads. When I put them all together, this is the Dewdrop beaded bead that I came up with:

I took some liberties in matching this beaded bead to the lampwork beads, such as using proportionally more cobalt beads and some light metallic copper seed beads that are not really represented in the lampwork beads. But I think that it complements the lampwork beads quite well.

What do you think?

New Necklaces with Lampwork

I took a break from web design last weekend to finish a piece that's been sitting around for over a year (eep!) I wove this electric green Ionic Octahedron last year when testing Gwen's Ionic Polyhedra pattern, and made two matching Mini Ionic Octahedrons shortly thereafter. I was having a hard time deciding what to do with these beaded beads, until Melissa Vess suggested that she could do some custom work matching lampwork beads to my beaded beads. I sent her the Ionic Octahedron, and she came up with four cute little lampwork beads:

I strung this necklace rather simply with matching Czech fire polish glass beads and silver Japanese seed beads, to leave the focus on the lampwork and beaded beads.

Speaking of lampwork beads... I got around to taking some pictures of a necklace I strung as a gift for my Mom a while back. It features more of Melissa's work, this time a lampwork focal bead. I strung it with six strands of Czech seed beads, fire polish beads, and freshwater pearls:

The stringing method is the same as my Lavender Splendor necklace, featured in the 2009 Bead Star special issue.

Thanks Melissa!

Color Matching: Lampwork and Beaded Beads

I'm always looking to challenge myself to incorporate new color palettes into my beadwork. One of the more fun ways to accomplish this is to color-match beadwork to the colors of a lampwork focal bead or bead set. Indeed, color maven Margie Deeb recently noted how seed bead and lampwork artisans are kindred spirits in the exploration of color, and expressed a desire to see more collaboration between these groups of artists (I'd argue that Cynthia Newcomer Daniel and Melissa Vess are making much headway in this area). 

So when I was making some new Double Pagoda beaded beads in preparation for writing a tutorial, I decided to color-match some of them to one of Melissa's focal beads.

I was picky about the colors that I chose for this beaded bead, since Melissa's bead contains some very specific shades of tan and silvery aqua. For the Swarovski crystals, I chose the dark indigo hue, which is similar to the dark blue iris shade of my chosen peanut seed beads. I went all-tan with the seed beads, in slightly different shades, and put the aqua colors in the drop beads. 

My first Double Pagoda attempt contained more tan and less blue than the lampwork bead, so I swapped some of the tan seed beads for dark blue iris.

The difference is somewhat subtle, but I think it matches the lampwork bead much better.

Here are both attempts side-by-side next to the lampwork bead:

Do the colors match and complement the lampwork bead? What do you think?

New Octahedron Beaded Bead Necklaces

Today I added two new necklaces to my Etsy shop. Both feature three Caged Octahedron beaded beads, and are strung in a similar style. However, the colors and materials used in each necklace give both very different looks:

The dark green freshwater pearls in the first necklace served as the starting point for this piece, so I complemented them with silver, green, and dark brown seed beads to create the beaded beads. To achieve a more forest-y look, I strung the beaded beads with smoky quartz round beads surrounded by more freshwater pearls.

The second necklace features four lampwork beads by glass artisan Alex Shapiro. I found these beads at his booth at the BABE show a few years ago, and just fell in love with the dark blue color and the hint of sparkle in these beads. I made three beaded beads to match these lampwork beads, woven from Czech glass, and pink, white, and blue Japanese seed beads:

If I could make this necklace over again, I probably would have used less pink in the beaded beads because they seem a bit bright compared to the pink in the lampwork beads...

Both of these necklaces are currently available in my Etsy shop!