Bracelet of the Day: Ivy Bracelet Variation - Chalk Blue Luster

IVY BRACELET VARIATION

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 6mm 2-hole cabochons "Chalk Blue Luster"
• SuperDuo beads "Milky Amethyst"
• O-Beads "Metallic Mix"

When I blogged about the birthday bracelets from Teejay, I called this the "Clover Bracelet". You can read about it HERE. It's really the same design as the "Ivy Bracelet" except that it's made with 6mm 2-hole cabochons instead of DiamonDuos. When Teejay made my bracelet, she added some extra 15/0 seed beads along the edge. I decided to leave them off and made mine exactly the same way as the Ivy bracelet. So, rather than create a separate pattern, you can just follow the Ivy directions exactly as written, switching out the DiamonDuos with cabochons. Here is a photo of the "Clover Bracelet" from Teejay and below that is today's bracelet for comparison:

While typing this post, and looking at the photos side-by-side, I noticed for the first time something else that Teejay did differently with the bracelet that she made for me. She didn't put a seed bead next to each of the O-Beads that are next to the cabochons. Now that I've seen that, I'll try that next time. It could be that she had to leave out those beads because of the extra seed beads along the edge.

Go to THIS post to download our free "Ivy Bracelet" pattern. You can also access the pattern, as well as all of our free patterns, from the Free Beading Patterns list on the right side of my blog.

As I mentioned in the comments under THIS post from Tuesday, I've come up with a great solution for propping up bracelets that won't stand up on their own. I don't like using the champagne glass because of the glare and I think it looks ugly. I actually used my new trick in the photo at the top of this post and I doubt if you can tell that it's there. I have some sheets of transparent plastic film that is used to laminate things. I cut a strip of it in my bracelet size and inserted it inside the bracelet. Oddly enough, I didn't need to do much editing to make the plastic ring invisible in the photo. It makes the background between the holes in the beadwork look slightly blurry but I can live with that. For some reason, the edge of the strip doesn't show at all in the back near the clasp which really surprises me. I've got enough of the film to cut strips for lots of different bracelet sizes and widths.

I also came up with what I think might be a better way to use the champagne glass when I need to take photos of very thin bracelets. The solution is to cover the glass with a sock. I tried two different sock colors which I think will work pretty well for light and dark colored bracelets. I'll just try each one and see which looks the best with a particular bracelet. Below are some example bracelet photos taken with the sock over the glass.

 
Those first two photos were taken using the same sock. The difference is in the background behind the bracelet. The top photo has one of my scrapbook paper backgrounds behind it and the second photo just shows the room where I took the photos. I like the darker background better, I think.

I could have used my other trick with all of those bracelets but I wanted to see how they would look on the glass with the sock. The bracelet below won't work with the plastic ring so the sock idea will be handy for skinny bracelets like this one:

Below are a few more bracelets that are being supported by the plastic ring. I didn't do anything to edit the ring and it's virtually invisible.