Pine Ridge Treasures' Blog Hop and Challenge - Sept 12, 2015

Once again, Lisa from A Grateful Artist has given us a challenge to complete. I so love these challenges as I use them to try and think out of the box. And in this group of beads I had a lot to challenge me. Normally when I get my challenge kit in, the beads start talking to me right away...This was a very quiet kit! But I started moving them around and putting them in different configurations and finally all the beads except one set talked to me.

SOOO...lets see what they said. First up:  I don't normally post clothes with my jewelry, but my daughter is a fan of Japanese culture and found this dress on line right after I made the necklace so I couldn't resist. Matches pretty well I think. The red balls are thread covered and then I used red and turquoise seed beads, though they look kind of blue in the picture. The bigger blue round beads and the blue disk beads were in my kit. I used bright silver tone bead caps on the red beads. I really like this piece and so does my daughter, it is no longer in my possession!

Next I wanted to do something with just the pearls and crystals and something swingy but feminine. So I found the silver necklace piece in my "junk" drawer stash and hung the crystals and pearls from it on wire that I flatten the end of, made the side pieces by stringing them on beading wire and then attached the sides to an antique silver chain with a lobster claw closure. Then as I have to make earrings, I did so.. 

In this one I used the small pale green crystal disk.They are so pale and small, they are hard to see. But they are glass and very cute. Then added pearls and acrylic aqua beads. Very simple looking. Has a silver tone toggle closure.The earrings I wired wrapped between each bead then attached to ear wires.

 Wanting to try my bead stitching again, I used a pattern from Domestic Diva that I had gotten offline. The pendant in the pattern is real small, but I used it to get started and then "grew" the pattern a little and added the spikes and oblong aqua beads. The twin seed beads that I used are a kind of brown with silver seed beads between them. There are brown veins in the spikes and then in the turquoise beads from my kit there are silver veins. The topper of the pendant is my own design, I just kept working at it til I got it the way I wanted. There is a little "bridge" on top to put the jump ring through. For the rest of the necklace and the earrings I used the turquoise round beads and the aqua round disk from my kit and added silver grey pearls and brown glass seed beads along with the oblong gold and aqua beads. 

There were a little package of these trapezoid looking wooden beads with two holes and they just screamed bracelet, so I used some small silver tone metal flower spacers, strung it all on wire, bent it to my wrist, attached a chain and toggle clasp. I really like, so I think I might keep it. It is easy to get on and off. 

And lastly, there were some small blue beads that kinda looked like coral, so I got out my sea shells, drilled a few, got out my sea creature charms and strung them up on head pins and attached to a chain with a toggle clasp, though I think I may change it, not sure. But it is swingy and says "beach"

Well, that is all for me. The blue glass beads that stayed silent are still in a baggie on my desk. When they decide to talk I will let them out. ;-p.

To see more challenge pieces hop over to Lisa's page for a list of the participants. 

Thanks for stopping by and til next time...

Keep on Beading

Veralynne