Tara Earrings - Turquoise

TARA EARRINGS

• 15/0 seed beads Toho "Galvanized Carnival" (513)
• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Galvanized Carnival" (513)
• 8/0 seed beads Toho "Galvanized Carnival" (513)
• 6mm 2-hole cabochons "Crystal Amber Full"
• 2-hole Crescent beads "Turquoise Bronze Picasso"

My friend, Teejay, sent me a few turquoise Crescent beads in my birthday package last month. I'd never used them before and I have to admit that I'm not crazy about them even though they come in a wide range of gorgeous colors. I also find them a bit fiddly to work with. I've decided that I probably won't buy any more of them but I did want to find some way to use the few Crescent beads that I have.

While browsing through some Etsy shops for beading patterns recently, I came across Ellad2's pretty "Tara Earrings". You can buy the pattern HERE. I had enough of the crescents to make myself a pair of the earrings and I also have 2-hole cabochons in a few colors. I only have two colors that go well with the turquoise crescents and decided to use the gold cabs since I had enough of those left to make the earrings but not enough left to make anything else. Plus, after some experimenting, I determined that the earring pattern works the best with Toho seed beads and not very well with Miyuki beads. Miyuki seed beads cause the earring motif to cup too much. So, my chocolate bronze cabs were out because I don't have any Toho seed beads that match that color. Toho's "Galvanized Carnival" beads go quite well with the gold cabochons if I carefully pick out only the beads in that color from the mix.

As you can see, I did change the top part of my earrings. I didn't care for the way that Ella topped them in the pattern so instead I added a "Sidonia" style loop for the earring wires.

I like the earrings very much so maybe I will pick up some crescent beads in a couple more colors sometime just to make a few more.

UPDATE: I take back what I said about Toho seed beads working better with this pattern. This afternoon I tried Miyuki beads again and got even better results than I did with Toho beads. The earrings came out nearly flat this time. I honestly don't know what happened the first time I tried Miyuki seed beads but maybe I was pulling the thread too tight. I will show you the new earrings that I made in a few days.