New Pieces Ready for Acres of Art

As promised, I am posting some pictures of new pieces I will have ready for the Coast Collective's  Acres of Art show on July 12th (details in a previous entry).  Many of them are familiar designs in new colours, but there are a couple new designs or new variations on old ones.

Let's start with new colours in familiar designs.  I've done a bunch of new colours in my pearl bracelets.  As you'll see, I've expanded into some brighter colours for the summer months.  These are made with glass pearls and seed beads and have lobster claw clasps so I can add an extender chain and make them adjustable if need be.  They are $20.

The first is a combination that makes me think of August in the Okanagan, of multitudes of grasshoppers singing in the sun baked hills.  It's caramel pearls with gold-core green seed beads.

The next bracelet features the same gold-core green seed beads but has green pearls.  I suppose it's the June or July to the previous bracelet's August.  Or more of an herb garden.

The final piece using these seed beads has violet pearls and is definitely more of a flower garden or summer meadow.  I really love this combination.  I'll almost definitely do a necklace in it at some point.

  

 

And here's the three of them together because I'm considering doing a multi-strand necklace in these colours.  They also happen to be Mardi Gras colours, which is fun.

Sticking to the violet and green theme, I also have a set with green pearls and some lovely oily-finish violet seed beads.  Kind of a reversal of a green "vine" with violet blooms.

I also did one with those same oily-finish violet seed beads with lilac/lavender pearls.  This one is cooler in tone.

And to finish off the range of purples, I have one with the violet pearls and iris seed beads.  The violet pearls really bring out the pink iridescence in the finish on the iris beads.

The next few bracelets all feature navy blue pearls.  The first one is relaxing, deep and cool with silver seed beads.

The next features a bit more contrast -- in fact, its opposite on the colour wheel -- in the form of clear copper-core seed beads.  I feel like the copper makes the blue pop more vibrantly.  And I don't know why, but I feel like copper is the metal of summer.

The final navy blue piece features blue copper-core seed beads which give a more muted version of the previous design while adding extra depth through the second shade of blue.

I'll fess up I did also do a few more neutral pearl bracelets.  I noticed when posting my previous batch of photos that I was out of white with silver, so I made one to go with the necklace I have.

I also decided to try a white with iris.  I was delighted by the result.  It's very delicate and feminine and airy.

I also brought some colour to white pearls with the icy blue seed beads I've come to love.  You've probably already seen them with dark grey or black pearls, but I can't believe I didn't mix them with white before, because it's gorgeous.

Which brings us to necklaces, because I loved this combination so much that I made a necklace in it.  Here it is on my snazzy new bust.  Like my other single-strand pearl necklaces, it's $39.

I also have a couple new multi-strand designs to show you. 

The first is in sun-kissed gold tones.  It's an asymmetrical two-strand design of white pearls with bright gold seed beads and caramel pearls with clear brown seed beads.  I have a few shots so you can get a good sense of it, and a close-up of the filigree box clasp.

The next is a triple-strand center with a single strand chain.  It's a design I came up with to make a triple strand necklace more manageable in terms of time and materials.  The single strand chain is a new design featuring white pearls and grey-silver core seed beads.  This is attached to a lovely silver-coloured three-to-one connector which is in turn connected to light grey, dark grey, and black lines of pearls with iris seed beads.  It's quite long and I need to get a larger bust to display it properly.

That's it for pearls.  I actually have a couple more bracelets to show you.  They are two versions of lace stitches with seed beads.

The first is done with grey silver-core seed beads and is horizontal lace.  Because of the number of beads in each loop, it ends up curling or ruffling, which I'll fess up was by accident but I thought it was pretty fun so I kept it.

The next one is more of a cuff.  It's vertical lace made with pink pearl-finish seed beads and edged with black pearl-finish or hematite-finish seed beads.  It looks really fun emerging from a long sleeve, but I think it could be pretty funky summer-wear too.

Back to necklaces.  I have another familiar design with new colours.  It's a daisy chain with bugle bead leaves in blue.  So it's a forget-me-not chain.  here it is on my new bust and then a bit more of a closeup on my old flat stand.  Like its violet sister, it's $30.

 

And the final piece I want to show you isn't new at all, but I am forever trying to get a good photo of it.  Here's my latest effort, on my new bust: Treasures of the Deep.

And that brings this really long entry to a close.  I am busily at work on new beach glass pieces for the show as well, since everything I've posted photos of before is over at the Maritime Museum.  I may or may not have time to post photos before the show on the 12th, but even if I don't get pictures up, they will be there.

Pearl Necklaces

Hello, it's time for entry number 2 in my posts of updated pictures.

This time the focus is on necklaces.  The standard single strand ones are currently priced at $39.

As I said in my previous post, I'm happy to make necklaces in any of the colour combos I have in my bracelets, but at present, these are the colours I have ready to go.  Like the bracelets, all the necklaces below are made with seed beads and glass pearls.

First off, I have a dark gold paired with creamy white pearls (which matches the darker of the two gold and cream bracelets in my previous post:

For people who like warm tones, I also have a necklace with the transparent brown seed beads and lovely caramel pearls:

Next up is the sultry evening combo of hematite-looking black seed beads with deep burgundy pearls:

I also of course restocked on my favourite, the "harlequin" design of silver and transparent black seed beads criss-cross matched with white and black pearls:

All of the above necklaces are made with a lobster claw claps of an appropriate colour.  The benefit of that is that I can easily add an extender chain to make the lengths adjustable.

The next few necklaces all feature fancier clasps which add their own unique flair to the pieces.

First up is a white pearl with silver seed bead combo featuring a bright silver finish toggle clasp. 

Next up is the lovely soft combination of iris seed beads with dark dove grey pearls with a lovely delicate filigree pointed oval box/hook type clasp:

The last necklace that I'd like to show you is a triple-stand piece I made because I frequently display more than one necklace per stand and often had people asking if it was all one necklace then being disappointed because it was a series of separate necklaces.  So I decided to make some multistrand pearl necklaces and I started with one built on my harlequin theme.

This triple stand piece is $99.

The inner strand is silver seed beads and black pearls, the middle strand is my harlequin design of silver seed beads paired with black pearls and black seed beads paired with white pearls, and the outer strand is black seed beads paired with white pearls.  The strands are different lengths so they drape very nicely when worn.

This piece is made with a square filigree box clasp, as can be seen in the picture below.  I arranged the necklace on the stand like that mostly to display the clasp, but when I did, it occurred to me that the necklace actually looks quite nice like this, and this could be an alternative way of wearing it.

And here is a closeup of the box clasp so you can see the filigree work:

And that's it for today.  Since taking these photos, I've done some new multistrand necklaces, so I'll post some pictures of those in the future.  Next up though I'll post some pictures of other styles of pieces, including some of my wire pendants.