Playining with my beads...Two new earring video tutorials by Sidonia

I know that I should be working on my Christmas beadwork but I just heard through Jeanie Callaghan that Sidonia has two new video tutorials out as of Monday. I especially liked the seed bead earrings but I also thought that the "Bollywood Earrings" were interesting enough to give them a try. I wasn't sure if they'd be something I would wear but I wouldn't know until I made them and tried them on. Here are the links to both videos:

Beaded Earrings Tutorial

Bollywood Earrings Tutorial

I don't like to do my beading while sitting at my computer so I watched both videos once and then watched them each again and wrote down the steps as she did them. That way I was able to sit comfortably on the couch with my beads and also have sufficient light.

The seed bead earrings are very quick and easy to make and only need four kinds of beads, if you add the drop bead. I think I prefer them without a drop though. Because of the large size beads, I recommend using regular Nymo D thread to give the earrings more stability. I think they'd come out very soft with FireLine or Nymo B thread. As you can see in one of my sample earrings, I added an accent color for two of the druks.

Next I tried connecting a few motifs to see how they'd look in a bracelet. It's kind of pretty, isn't it? In my sample, I tried three different color ideas. I think that I like the colored druks to be in the center of the motif the best. I didn't think about connecting the motifs until after I'd created three of them and I think I'd like the bracelet better if the motifs shared the 8/0 seed bead on the end. I haven't worked out how to make it that way but I think I know what I'd need to do. I'd have to make the first motif and then during the process of making the second motif I would weave in through the end bead of the first motif instead of adding a new bead when I get to that point. I'll give it a try and will post a photo later.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 4mm druks "Bronze"
• 4mm druks "Siam Matte"
• 4mm druks "Matte Hurricane Lace Lichen"
• 4mm druks "Rosaline Matte Luster"
• Drop beads "Black" and "Amethyst AB"

I'm still not sure how well I like the "Bollywood Earrings". They're a bit over-the-top. They're big, but not huge and I do love the details on them. The bezel is very pretty too. However, my earrings came out a little bit warped because I used Chinese bicones instead of Swarovski. The Chinese bicones are larger so they spread the seed beads out a little too much. I may need to tweak something somewhere to account for their size. I've got 12mm rivolis in two other colors so I'll make a couple more samples to see if I like them better than this one. I also just remembered that I have some black 3mm Chinese bicones that are closer to the size of the Swarovski ones so I'll try those next. Black will go with all of the rivoli colors that I have. Besides the "Seal" one that I used in the sample below, I also have some "Opaque Black" ones and some "Bermuda Blue" ones.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 3mm bicones "Green AB" (from China)
• 12mm Swarovski rivoli "Seal"