Bracelet of the Day: Dragonfly - Turquoise & Copper

DRAGONFLY BRACELET

• 15/0 seed beads Toho "Olympic Bronze" (224)  
• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Olympic Bronze" (224)
• 8/0 seed beads Toho "Olympic Bronze" (224)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Opaque Dark Teal Picasso" (4516)
• CzechMates "Persian Turquoise Moon Dust"
• SuperDuo beads "Umber Copper Picasso"

I'm kind of on a roll with this pattern so here is yet another Dragonfly bracelet. I've also got two more colorways to bead up soon.

I had a little bit of a screw-up while making this. I had exactly 16 of these CzechMates left which is what I need for my size bracelet. However, there was one bead in the batch that wasn't shaped quite right. I had to go ahead and use it but I forgot about it until after I'd made the bracelet. Wouldn't you know it but that stupid bead ended up right in the middle of the bracelet. Because it's a little smaller than normal, it tends to stick up a little but I'm sure that I'll be the only one to notice it.

The pattern is from In Memory of Eridhan on Etsy and you can buy it HERE (Unfortunately, this pattern is no longer available). Read Monday's post about my tweaks to the pattern HERE.

Yesterday I went to 1960 Beads to look for a few MiniDuo colors that I didn't have yet. I was also looking for some teal green Silky beads that I had bought there before and hadn't seen anywhere else. While I was there, Adam mentioned that he had some new Czech seed beads with an Etched finish. I love finding beads with interesting finishes so I just had to get a tube of the "Etched Amber Gold Full" 8/0 beads. One thing that I hadn't considered when buying this color is that there are no 15/0 or 11/0 seed beads in a color that will go with them. They make all sorts of other kinds of beads in a color called "Crystal Amber Gold Full" but I'm not aware of any plain gold seed beads in this shade of gold.

I actually blogged HERE once before about my search for gold seed beads to go with some "Crystal Amber Gold Full" SuperDuos. Later I blogged HERE about finding some seed beads that go fairly well with the SuperDuos but they're a color mix so I have to pick and choose the beads that are the closest to the color that I need and that's a bit of a pain. Plus, it's still not quite the same shade of gold. The color is a little too yellow but it's better than any of the other shades of gold that Toho and Miyuki make. I held them up to my new beads and they look horrible together. However, I noticed that the etched beads have bits of a sort of gray/black tarnish on some of them. That gave me the idea to check my silver seed beads and I think that Miyuki's "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (4222) might do in a pinch. Obviously I'll be mixing metals but sometimes that can look rather cool.

Below you can see the etched beads next to two kinds of gold SuperDuo beads and some of the pewter seed beads. The more yellowish gold SuperDuos are "Crystal Amber Gold Full" which I bought from Aura Crystals. The other SuperDuos are a unique color that I've never seen anywhere except the Etsy shop where I bought them. I got them from BeadsParade HERE. They're called "Bronze Gold" and they're definitely more gold than bronze. I'm sure that I'll have the same problem matching seed beads with them but I love the color. Both of these SuperDuo colors will go with the etched beads but the "Amber Gold Full" ones are a little closer in color even though they appear a lot more yellow in my photo.

I did a Google search and I found some of these 8/0 Etched beads at Simply Beads HERE but I had no luck finding plain gold Czech 15/0 and 11/0 seed beads online. I did see some 15/0 seed beads in the etched finish somewhere but I'd rather have plain gold for the smaller beads.

I'm thinking about making another Dragonfly bracelet using these new beads with one of those SuperDuo colors along with the pewter seed beads. I haven't looked through my CzechMates or Tila beads yet to choose which color of those to use. Hopefully I have some that will go well with the gold beads and the pewter beads.

I also went to Hobby Lobby yesterday to use a gift card. I ended up buying some SuperDuos and a few other things that were 50% off this week. I also found some Chinese 12mm rivolis. With the 50% off, I got six of them for only a dollar. They're not perfect but then they're not Swarovski crystal. I'm sure that they'll look just fine in some bezeled earrings where you only see the very center of the rivoli anyway. They're definitely worth the price and that's a size that I had only in black and a shade of blue. They had other colors and sizes but I bought 12mm "Crystal" and "Light Topaz". Those two colors will go with just about anything. Click HERE to see them on the Hobby Lobby website.

Here's a photo of my Hobby Lobby haul:

Everything on the pile was 50% off. I thought that those turquoise charms would make cute earrings. Here's a close-up of them:

Tomorrow is my birthday so I'm going to take a break from blogging for the day.