DRAGONFLY BRACELET
- 15/0 seed beads Toho "Nickel Plated" (711)
- 11/0 seed beads Toho "Nickel Plated" (711)
- 8/0 seed beads Toho "Nickel Plated" (711)
- 8/0 seed beads Toho "Hybrid Moon Dust" (Y369)
- CzechMates "Crystal Moon Dust"
- SuperDuo beads "Opaque Violet White Luster"
- SuperDuo beads "Tanzanite White Luster"
I hope that you can see the colors well enough because this is a very pretty bracelet. The pale purple/mauve color is very subtle and doesn't show up very well in the photos. The pattern is from In Memory of Eridhan and you can buy it HERE on Etsy (Unfortunately, this pattern is no longer available).
DRAGONFLY BRACELET
- 15/0 seed beads Toho "Bright Bronze" (221)
- 11/0 seed beads Toho "Bright Bronze" (221)
- 8/0 seed beads Toho "Bright Bronze" (221)
- 8/0 seed beads Toho "Gold Luster Moon Shadow" (328)
- CzechMates "Bronze"
- SuperDuo beads "Chalk Vega"
- SuperDuo beads "Halo Regal"
This pattern is from In Memory of Eridhan on Etsy and you can buy it HERE (Unfortunately, this pattern is no longer available). As I've mentioned in my other posts about this bracelet pattern, I leave off the final embellishment along the edge. I also make mine using one needle instead of two.
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.
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.
IVY BRACELET
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- DiamonDuo beads "Coral Bronze"
- SuperDuo beads "Opaque Grey Travertin"
- O-Beads "Metallic Mix"
Here is one more "Ivy" bracelet made with Teejay's free pattern. When I bought the SuperDuos that I used in this bracelet, they were only available in a local bead shop. I've since found this unusual color at Red Panda HERE and Aura Crystals HERE. It's not an exciting color but I find it to be useful as a neutral color that seems to go with with a variety of colors.
I'm hoping to post another free bracelet pattern soon for Teejay's "Bluebell Bracelet" which is a variation of this one. You can read my post about that bracelet HERE. I do have some other beading projects that I need to work on but I should be able to post it for download soon.
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.
IVY BRACELET
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- DiamonDuo beads "Chalk Lumi Green"
- SuperDuo beads "Opaque Violet Dark Travertin"
- O beads "Oxidized Bronze Berry"
Here is the "Ivy" bracelet in another colorway. I couldn't decide just what color to call this one so I used the color name of the DiamonDuo beads. The overall look is sort of coppery, mauve and pale greenish blue.
I've only seen the pretty berry-colored O beads that I used at Supply Emporium. You can buy them HERE.
I tried something different with some of my photos this time. When I have bracelets that won't stand up on their own, I've been putting them on a champagne glass to take the photos. Sometimes this works pretty well but other times they don't turn out so great. This time I tried putting some colored tissue paper inside the glass to give my camera something to focus on other than the shiny glass. I haven't decided if this helps or not. What do you think? Below is a photo without the tissue paper inside the glass:
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 Pattern list on the right side of my blog.
I realize that DiamonDuo beads are very hard to come by because the main supplier for them keeps running out of stock. I've compiled a list of places that I'm aware of that carry them. Bear in mind that their supplies might be very limited and you'll have to keep checking those sites if you want to catch them just at the moment that they are back in stock.
SOURCES FOR DIAMONDUO BEADS:
Queen City Bead Etsy
Red Panda
Charlene's Beads
Bead Passion Studio Etsy
Southpass Beads Etsy
Forever Beading Etsy
Beads To Weave Etsy
Sweet Beads Etsy
Bead Prestige Studio Etsy
Potomac Beads
BeadStuff
Shipwreck Beads
Robin's Beads (UK)
Beads Mine (Italy)
Creative Beadcraft (UK)
Crystals and Ice Bead Shop (UK)
The Bead Shop Scotland (UK)
1960 Beads (local shop - Houston, TX)
Beadaholique
Here is the Romantic Era calendar for May:
