Playing with my beads...

I made three samples of Sidonia's "Little Dots" motif as earrings last night. Since earrings have a tendency to turn around while you're wearing them, I added the same embellishment to the backs as on the fronts. She explains how to do that in her YouTube tutorial for the "Art Nouveau Style Earrings" which you can watch HERE. It's quite easy to figure out though. After embellishing the front of the earring, you weave your way down to the side, flip it over and do the same thing on the other side. However, I found a way to do it more easily with this particular pattern. I had a little trouble getting back through the fire polished beads the second time when I embellished one side at a time because they'd been pulled very close to each other. In the Art Deco Style Earrings video, she adds a seed bead between each bicone which gives you a little extra wiggle room for your needle. So, all I did was create the netting arches for both sides at the same time. As soon as I made an arch, I right away made the one in the same position for the other side.

I tried three different things with each of my samples. I knew that I liked the vintage grunge look of the pattern done with matte bronze seed beads but I wanted to see how well I would like the earrings with shiny bronze seed beads. I don't think I care for that version very much. I think that the shine of the beads overpowers the subtle colors of my other beads too much. When I have that earring on, all I see are the shiny seed beads and the rest of the beads disappear.

The other thing that I tried was adding a 15/0 seed bead between each fire polished bead like Sidonia did in her Art Deco Style Earrings to see what effect that would have. I got a slightly larger motif that looks almost square and it's a bit flatter than the other two samples. I prefer the more round, compact appearance of the motifs done the "Little Dots" way.

So, I will make myself a pair of earrings like the sample on the far right. I plan to use a different bracelet pattern to go with the earrings and it will have the same matte bronze seed beads and 6mm "Champagne" fire polished beads as the earrings.

For the grunge version I used:

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Matte Bronze" (15-2006)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Matte Bronze" (11-2006)
• 3mm fire polished beads "Champagne" (Nirvana Beads)
• 4mm fire polished beads "Smoky Topaz Luster"
• 6mm fire polished beads "Champagne" (Nirvana Beads)

For the shiny bronze version I used:

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (15-457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 3mm fire polished beads "Champagne" (Nirvana Beads)
• 4mm fire polished beads "Smoky Topaz Luster"
• 6mm fire polished beads "Champagne" (Nirvana Beads)