Making Beaded Snowflakes

At this time of year, I particularly enjoy making snowflakes.  Even though they are a relatively small project for me, they completely take over my beading space when I work on them.  My beading mat fills up with dozens of tiny piles of beads.  

I like to mix many different textures, shapes, sizes and colors.  I mostly use glass beads, but sometimes I add a pearl, shell or gemstone bead.  So far I have used bright colors sparingly, which is why some of my bead piles are so small.
 

It is amazing how many different kinds of white there are.  So far my work has been strictly in cool whites; I haven't even broken into my boxes of warm cream colors yet.  I want to make some ivory snowflakes too, maybe with amber touches.

Each snowflake has been unique - I make up the pattern as I go along.  This takes longer than working from a set pattern.  Sometimes I try something that doesn't work very well and it takes me several tries to get the get a snowflake to look right.  I keep meaning to make copies of some of my favorite snowflakes so far, but it's more fun to try something new.

How about you?  Do you have a favorite winter project?

Inspired by a Blogger

Last week I read a blog post from Duni about how popular gray, pink and orchid are right now.  She showed some lovely pictures of this color scheme.  A few days ago, I was looking at a necklace that had gotten broken because it had been thrown in a drawer with sharp objects (don't ever do this to your jewelry, by the way).  This is the only picture I have of it:

I got to thinking, when I repair this necklace, I could add some pink and orchid to it to give it a little more pizzaz.  So I did.

This is my Work In Progress picture:

I liked the idea, but I felt the center piece was a little dull, so I added pink to it:

 I like the way the labradorite flashes complement the colors in the necklace.

 I just listed this necklace in my Etsy store today.  What do you think?

Summer Beadwork Project

This necklace is the project I've been working on for the last month or so.

I wanted it to represent frothy waves in the deep ocean. I made a special trip to Shipwreck Beads to find more shell, mother of pearl and peal to put in this necklace. I also got some more glass beads in the shades of blue I wanted to use.
















I've used the large beads to make a random netted framework. Now I am filling in with smaller pieces of randomly netted seed beads.

I am almost done; I have about half a round left in the darkest blue color. This project has been unusually slow going for me. I've taken it apart twice now. I am very stubborn, though. I will finish this necklace - maybe this week!

Keep an eye out for a new listing soon :)