Pattern Review: Retro Fans Earrings

These pretty little earrings are super easy to make and work up very quickly. The pattern is from Extrano on Etsy and you can buy it HERE. For some reason the pattern says that they take between two to three hours to make but I doubt if it took me more than 15-20 minutes to make a pair once I'd done the tutorial once. The instructions are very clear and easy to understand and the materials list is quite short; just 11/0 seed beads, a couple of 8mm round beads and SuperDuo beads. Of course you'll need some earring wires and there's the option of using a drop bead at the bottom, if you like.

The only problem I ran into was not having enough 8mm beads in my bead stash to work with. All I have are a few solid black crystals, a few very pale "Champagne AB" crystals and some bronze pearls. Surprisingly, I was able to come up with quite a few color variations using just those three round bead colors.

I made my first sample earring by following the pattern exactly as written for the shorter version. As I've mentioned before, I'm not keen on the idea of leaving any open SuperDuo holes in my beadwork, however, the one open SuperDuo at the very bottom doesn't bother me too much. Of course I did try covering up the hole but I wasn't happy with how this changed the shape of the earring as you can see below:

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8mm crystal "#C25 AB" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Gold Copper Iris Matte"

I also tried adding some seed beads to add a point at the bottom but I liked that even less and removed them. As you can see, I also tried a different kind of loop at the top of that sample but I didn't like that either. I do like the colors that I used for that earring so I did make a pair in those colors as you'll see below. I tried a few other ideas for loops and eventually settled on one made with two 11/0 seed beads on either side of an 8/0 bead. I like having an 8/0 bead at the top so that I can attach my wire to a jump ring.

Monika does mention that you can adjust the number of seed beads that you use near the top of the earrings and I found that it was necessary to do that with some of the 8mm round beads and seed beads that I used. When I used fatter Miyuki "Light Bronze" seed beads, eleven was just right. But, when I used the slightly smaller Miyuki "Dark Bronze" seed beads, my 8mm round beads wouldn't fit in the hole without sticking out. Using thirteen worked just right though. I also got some odd results when I used some copper colored beads that must be even fatter than the "Light Bronze" ones. I got points on the sides of the earring instead of rounded curves. It's an interesting look though and kind of Art Deco:

I tried using some 8mm rondelles in that sample but they didn't work well at all even though I added some extra seed beads on the side. These are the beads that I used in that sample:

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Medium Bronze" (457F)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Medium Bronze" (457F)
• 8mm rondelles "Metallic Amethyst" (Chinese - no info available)
• SuperDuo beads "Purple Gold Iris Matte"

Next I thought I'd try adding a SuperUno bead at the bottom but I've only got some of those in two colors. I tried the black ones and used two different SuperDuo colors in this sample:

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8mm crystal "Jet - #C04" (Beads One)
• SuperUno bead "Jet"
• SuperDuo beads "Jet"
• SuperDuo beads "Polychrome Copper Rose"

After that I tried making a few samples with a drop bead at the bottom. I had to pick and choose them carefully because the really pointy ones were too tall and bumped up against the SuperDuo above and then didn't hang nicely. The Chinese drop beads that I have are very irregular so some of the holes are very close to the top point and others are down farther. I also had to throw out quite a few of them that had holes that weren't straight across. They're useless if they won't hang straight. Anyway, here are four samples with drop beads:

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8mm crystal "#C25 AB" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Opaque Smoky Topaz Gold Luster"
• 6x12mm drop bead "#C29" (Beads One)

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8mm crystal "#C25 AB" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Gold Copper Iris Matte"
• 6x12mm drop bead "Champagne - #C26" (Beads One)

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8mm crystal "Jet - #C04" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Jet"
• SuperDuo beads "Metallic Suede Blue"
• 6x12mm drop bead "Black - #C04" (Beads One)

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8mm pearl "Antique Brass/Brown #13" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Chalk Rembrandt"
• 6x12mm drop bead "Gray" (Chinavoski - no info available)

Below are the three complete pairs of earrings that I made using each of the three 8mm round bead colors:

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8mm crystal "#C25 AB" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Gold Copper Iris Matte"

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8mm pearl "Antique Brass/Brown #13" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Pastel Montana Blue"

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8mm round crystal "Jet - #C04" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Polychrome Copper Rose"
• 6x12mm drop beads "Amethyst AB" (no info available)

I just noticed this morning that DrBead Etsy shop has the 3mm "Jet Copper Picasso" aka "Siam - Matte Copper Picasso" druks in stock. They didn't have that color when I placed my order recently but I've still got a good supply of them at the moment. Click HERE to see them. Also note that there is a 15% off coupon code in the shop right now.