Playing with my beads...Bicones - Crystal Purple Haze

SWAROVSKI CRYSTAL PURPLE HAZE BICONES

I only have 48 of these bicones so I'll only be able to make one bracelet and maybe a pair of earrings. My favorite is the "Moon Ring" sample below. The others are pretty but a little too bland looking with these subdued colors. The detail of the "Moon Ring" design seems to have more character in spite of the dull colors. There are a lot more bicones in that design and I think the extra sparkle helps perk up the beads.

You can buy Ellad2's "Annalies Bracelet" pattern HERE. You can by Deb Roberti's "Moon Ring" pattern HERE and her "Venetian Bands" pattern HERE.

I bought these Swarovski bicones from Aura Crystals HERE.

Venetian Band (about 28 bicones)

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 4mm Swarovski bicones "Crystal Purple Haze"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Opaque Gold and Smoky Topaz Luster"

Annalies Bracelet (about 26 bicones)

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 4mm Swarovski bicones "Crystal Purple Haze"
• SuperDuo beads "Polychrome Copper Rose"

Moon Ring Bracelet (about 36 bicones)

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 4mm Swarovski bicones "Crystal Purple Haze"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Opaque Gold and Smoky Topaz Luster"

 

Playing with my beads...Bicones - Cyclamen Opal

SWAROVSKI CYCLAMEN OPAL BICONES

Back in August I blogged HERE about some pretty 4mm bicones that I had splurged on. For the past few days I've been looking through bracelet patterns that call for bicones and making lots of samples in each color to try and figure out what I want to make with them. I'm going to post the samples as a series featuring each bicone color as a separate post. After making at least two or three pattern samples in each color, I'm pretty sure of what I want to make but there are some that I'm still undecided on. I actually have enough of some of the bicones to make more than one bracelet in those colors as well as matching earrings for most of them. Since I will be making all of the bracelets in this bicone series for myself, I will probably wait until after my Christmas beading is done to get started on them.

Today's post is about Swarovski's "Cyclamen Opal" 4mm bicones. I bought these some time ago and I thought I knew what I was going to make with them when I bought them. I even bought exactly the number of beads that I'd need so that I wouldn't waste money buying extras. After making some bracelet samples, I've changed my mind about the pattern I was originall planning to use. For one thing, I had some trouble finding a metallic seed bead color that I liked with these. Silver seemed to make them look blah and dark bronze didn't look well at all. I tried a couple other golds and bronzes but wasn't happy with them either. In the end, I've gone back to silver seed beads but with a different pattern that features the bicones in a different way. With this particular pattern, the bicones aren't surrounded by seed beads and that seems to make all the difference.

I used Deborah Roberti's "Venetian Bands" pattern for my first two samples below. I started with shiny silver seed beads but they looked too bright next to the bicones. The bicones became almost invisible. Pewter didn't work any better and it looked too flat. My first sample below has one motif in silver and the other motif has pewter beads.

With dark bronze seed beads the lavender pearls stood out too much and that wasn't the look that I wanted. Why spend a small fortune on Swarovski bicones if they're not the main feature of the bracelet?

So, as I mentioned, I went back to silver and the perfect pattern is another one of Deb's called "Craving Crystal Bracelet". The pearls are toned down by using only one per motif. And, there are no seed beads above or below the purple bicones to detract from the pretty color of them. This design doesn't use a lot of seed beads, which is another good thing, but there are just enough to make the bracelet look like jewelry. There is one small problem with using this pattern. I only have 40 of these bicones and I will probably need 48 to make the bracelet in my size. I will either buy a few more, and hope that the dye lot hasn't changed, or I will try to extend the length of the bracelet somehow with some sort of motif made with only silver seed beads. Since I won't be short by too many beads, I'll probably go with the second option.

It may seem a little odd to combine expensive Swarovski crystals with cheap Chinese glass pearls but I really like the lavender color and I already had them on hand. The pearls in the "Venetian Bands" samples are 3mm and the ones in the "Craving Crystal Bracelet" are 4mm. Although they're called the same color on the labels, they aren't quite the same in reality. The 4mm pearls are a little more blue and the 3mm ones have more of a pinkish cast. I like them both and they both seem to go pretty well with the Cyclamen Opal bicones.

You can buy the bicones at Artbeads.com HERE, or Aura Crystals HERE. The pearls are from Beads One and you can buy those HERE. You can buy the "Venetian Bands" pattern HERE and the "Craving Crystal Bracelet pattern HERE.

Venetian Bands (about 28 bicones)

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Silver" (711)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 4mm bicones Swarovski "Cyclamen Opal"
• 3mm pearls "Lilac - #19" (Beads One)

Venetian Bands (about 28 bicones)

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 4mm bicones Swarovski "Cyclamen Opal"
• 3mm pearls "Lilac - #19" (Beads One)

Craving Crystal Bracelet - Band #2 (about 48 bicones)

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Silver" (711)
• 4mm bicones Swarovski "Cyclamen Opal"
• 4mm pearls "Lilac - #19" (Beads One)

 

Harmony Band & Bethany Earrings Set

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• SuperDuo beads "Metallic Suede Purple"
• SuperDuo beads "Metallic Suede Gold"

I bought a cute and colorful top last week in a resale shop and didn't have a bracelet or earrings to go with it. I looked through my beads and came up with two SuperDuo colors that go pretty well with a couple of the colors that are in the top. The Suede Gold SuperDuos are a little lighter than the olive green but I think they look fine. The Suede Purple is really a lot more saturated than it appears in my photos and really is close to one of the purples in my top. I did the best that I could to get the colors as close as possible with Paint Shop Pro. Below are photos of the two SuperDuo colors that are closer to how they actually look:

Because the pattern on my top is so busy, I wanted to keep the jewelry as simple as possible. Deborah Roberti's "Harmony Bands" was perfect and my "Beth Duo Earrings" adaptation, which I call "Bethany Earrings", are the perfect earrings to go with the bracelet. The bracelet and the earrings take exactly the same beads to make.

You can buy Deb's "Harmony Bands" pattern at Around the Beading Table, HERE.

You can buy Beth Clark's "Beth Duo Earrings" pattern, HERE.

 

Indu's Bezel Earrings

On Sunday I showed you a sample of the brown earrings above. Since I have two bracelets with similar brown beads, I went ahead and made a pair for myself. They go very well with my brown "Canterbury Bracelet" and also with my brown "Aisling Bracelet".

You can read the details about the "Canterbury Bracelet" HERE and the "Aisling Bracelet" HERE and HERE. Both bracelet patterns are by Nancy Peterson.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 8mm druk "Matte Bronze"
• 4mm fire polished beads "Transparent Gold Topaz Luster"

I also decided to make a pair of these earrings to go with my blue "Celtic Bracelet" and used bicones instead of fire polished beads. Bicones work very nicely as you can see. I used the same bicones that I used in the bracelet and the Antique Brass pearls are the same kind from Beads One but they're larger than the ones in the bracelet. I bought the blue bicones at Walmart quite some time ago and they no longer sell them. I don't know if Swarovski makes a similar shade of blue or not. I blogged about the "Celtic Bracelet" HERE.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 8mm pearls "Antique Brass - #13" (Beads One)
• 4mm bicones "Denim Blue" (Walmart - no longer available)

This is my favorite pair but I don't currently have a bracelet to go with them. I have made some with the same color beads but I gave them away as gifts. Teejay sent me these gorgeous druks and they match the sea foam bicones perfectly. I guess I'll have to choose a bracelet to make. Below are two options:

 
I will most likely make the "Crystal Flower Bracelet". I think it will look very nice with these earrings. You can read about those two bracelets HERE and HERE.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 8mm druks "Sea Foam Opal" (from Teejay - no info available)
• 4mm bicones "Sea Foam and Gold" (Walmart - no longer available)

For details about the basic bezel that I used to make these earrings, read my post from Sunday HERE. There is a link to Indu's YouTube tutorial in that post.
 

YouTube Beading Tutorial - Jewellery Component 8mm Bezeled Bead

This is Indu's one and only YouTube video but it's a good one and you can watch it HERE. It's in English, easy to follow and she does a very good job of explaining what she's doing. One thing that Indu didn't mention was that she is apparently using Toho seed beads. When I made my first sample bezel, I used Miyuki seed beads and it was a mess. There weren't enough beads to fit around the 8mm center bead so the whole thing pretty much slid to one side of the center bead. Below you can see the front of my first bezel and the next photo is how it looks from the back. I used two different 11/0 bead colors like she did so that it was easier to tell what I was doing. I really like the two-color look. I think it suits the design very well.

FRONT OF BEZEL

BACK OF BEZEL

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 8mm druk "Matte Bronze"

For my second sample, I used Toho seed beads to verify if the Miyuki beads were the problem with my first sample. This sample came out nearly perfect so I was right about the brand of beads being the issue. I made one little tweak at the end. I wove around the outer ring of beads and popped out the picot point beads. This helped to snug everything up a little better. Because these beads fit the 8mm bead so well, the front and back of the bezel look almost exactly the same.

• 15/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Permanent Finish Galvanized Starlight" (557PF)
• 8mm druk "Matte Bronze"

For my third sample, I set out to find a way to make Miyuki seed beads work and I'm pleased with the result. I did tweak the first step where the ring of beads is added around the 8mm bead. I first picked up the 8mm bead on my needle then picked up an 11/0 seed bead. I went back through the 8mm bead and picked up another 11/0 seed bead. I went through that bead and back through the 8mm bead. Lastly, I went through the 11/0 bead on this end. Next I picked up four 11/0's in the main color, instead of three, then one 11/0 in the accent color and four more of the main color. I skipped across the 8mm bead and went through the seed bead on the other end then repeated this sequence on the other side of the 8mm bead. I think this makes a more secure ring of beads. 

The only other place where I had to change the number of beads was where she adds strings of six 11/0 beads between the picots near the end. With Miyuki beads I used strings of seven beads and then used my tweak where I pop out the picot point beads. This sample came out very nice and the front and back look almost the same.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 8mm druk "Matte Bronze"

For sample number four, I also used Miyuki beads but I used a different color 8mm bead this time. I was getting tired of the brown ones and I also wanted to test to see if slight differences in the 8mm bead would affect the outcome. Well, either this druk is slightly larger than the brown one or the slippery surface was a factor. Perhaps the matte finish on the brown bead helped keep the seed beads in position. This bezel turned out well too but the 8mm bead sticks out much more in the front than in the back as you can see in the photos below.

FRONT OF BEZEL

BACK OF BEZEL

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 8mm druk "Acid Washed Purple"

The little motif that Indu shows near the end of the video inspired me to turn it into an earring. It came out so pretty that I will definitely make more of them and try some other color variations. I have a very limited supply of 8mm beads but I'll see what I can come up with.

The only thing that I changed from her instructions for adding the crystals, besides my tweaks to the main part of the bezel as I mentioned above for Miyuki beads, was to put a 15/0 seed bead between each pair of fire polished beads instead of  an 11/0 seed bead. I tried an 11/0 but it looked awkward somehow. For such a tiny earring, this little beauty has a lot of interesting details.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 8mm druk "Matte Bronze"
• 4mm fire polished beads "Transparent Gold Topaz Luster"

So, give the tutorial a try but be prepared to adjust the number of seed beads to fit your particular 8mm beads as needed.

 

Peyote Fan Earrings - Sea Foam & Gold

PEYOTE FAN EARRINGS

• 15/0 seed beads Toho "Permanent Finish Galvanized Starlight" (557PF)
• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Permanent Finish Galvanized Starlight" (557PF)
• 8/0 seed beads Toho "Permanent Finish Galvanized Starlight" (557PF)
• 8/0 seed beads Toho "Inside-Color Rainbow Light Topaz/Sea Foam Lined" (952)
• 4mm bicones "Sea Foam AB" (Walmart - no longer available)

I had a heck of a time getting a nice photo of these earrings because I'm not used to taking photos of such bright beads. I tried a lot of different backgrounds but naturally the pictures came out the best on my "usual" background paper.

I thought I'd try this new metallic seed bead color and see how I like them. The color isn't new, it's just not a color that I've used before. I most likely won't wear this color myself but I could use them to make gifts. One issue that I ran into was that I don't have many other kinds of beads in colors that are bright and colorful enough to go well with this bright gold. It's so bright that it makes everything else look dull and drab in comparison. These sea foam seed beads and bicones seem to go quite well with the gold though. Unfortunately, I don't know where to find the sea foam bicones any longer. I used to buy them at Walmart and I've never seen them anywhere else. They're Chinese and sold by Cousins. I just did a quick search online and Swarovski's "Pacific Opal" would probably be a good color match. The main difference is that the Chinese ones have metallic gold highlights on them.

I wasn't sure what color thread to use to make these earrings. I made my first test sample with regular black Nymo D thread but it looked too dark between the beads. It's also not a good idea to use such thick thread to make this pattern. The obvious choice seemed to be some gold KO brand thread. It did give the earrings a nice clean look because the thread is nearly the same color as the beads. However, I found that it shows too much when the light shines through the gaps between the larger beads. That really bugged me so next I tried using smoke color 4-pound FireLine and it worked perfectly. Because it's so fine it's nearly invisible between the beads. It really doesn't show much between the beads like the gold thread does because the dark gray color blends with whatever is showing through the gaps in the background behind the earrings. As a bonus, I was able to add all of the rows of beads without taking any shortcuts. I could easily get my size 12 Tulip needle through the 15/0 beads as many times as I needed to. Also, unlike 6-pound FireLine which tends to tangle into horrible knots every few minutes, 4-pound FireLine is a dream to work with. Don't ask me why, but it almost never tangles.

You can download my free "Peyote Fan Earrings" pattern from THIS post.

 

Pearly Lace Earrings - Three complete pairs

• 15/0 seed beads "Ceylon Ivory" (421C)

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Opaque Matte Pale Seafoam" (2028)
• 15/0 seed beads Toho "Matte Pastel Pink" (764)

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (D4222)
• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Matte Metallic Patina" (2008)

I chose my three favorite color combos and made a pair of each for myself. I think that the last pair is my favorite of the three. The color is very dark but not so dark that they don't show up next to my hair. The star in the center looks a little pinkish in the photos but it's really metallic pewter which is a dull silver. The dark beads greenish blue beads look kind of shiny in the photo but they actually have a very dull matte finish and aren't shiny at all.

You can buy Iulia Postica's "Pearly Lace Earrings" pattern HERE on Etsy.