ottbs – August

I’ve submitted something to ottbs. And joined the facebook group. I’m really glad I made the effort to finish something this month. The theme really spoke to me this month and I’m a bit gutted I didn’t have any time to beadweaving for it. I was inspired to do something a bit simpler by some of the entries in the July. They showed me, it doesn’t have to be huge and complex to still look beautiful.

My August OTTBS entry

I knew I had the earring findings in my stash and was then looking hard for beads to go on them. Then I did what I always do when looking for inspiration, I googled it. And among plenty of other gorgeous ideas I saw something like these. (I can’t find the same picture again)

something like the ones I used for inspiration

I really liked the use of the seed beads round the larger beads and the way some stick out giving texture. So I decided to use the idea of putting seed beads round the edge of some bigger beads. I have a collection of jewellery that I don’t like/don’t wear anymore, which I raid for the beads and findings. And this yielded most of the bead components. The black and green beads came from the same necklace. They were originally strung on wire and linked in a chain. I originally planned to use a two smaller green beads with the black one in the middle but there were only three of the small green beads. I’m a sucker for symmetry.

I have always made symmetrical necklaces/bracelets – even as a very small child. I always had to plan my necklaces before stringing them and got upseet when only one of a type of bead was contained in a kit. (Anyone else remember the plastic bead kits from the early learning center?). Apparently my mum had to teach me how to do this as I got upset when I ended up with unsymmetrical bracelets. I don’t remember this – which tells you how young I was. And I was still pretty upset that I couldn’t have symmetrical earrings. So I bit the bullet and tried to design unsymmetrical ones. I guess knowing that as a pair they have symmetry helps.

A bead kit like the one from my childhood

I had also found some purple drops and black daggers in my stash, so now I was only looking for something blue. I didn’t have any good larger beads – they were all to pale. So I raided my seed bead stash and found a bright blue and a purple that matched the drops. I was all set to go.

I tried several different orders for the bigger beads but once I found that having the big bead slightly before the middle stops it being able to move. This allows all the beads to stay on one side. Seeing as I’m being unsymmetrical, I might as well push the boat out. Adding the seed beads round the beads after I added the larger beads to the finding, was really difficult. I would do this differently if I do it again. This meant I kept it quite simple, which is a good thing.

Hanging Earrings

I’ve worn them a couple of times since making them and had a couple of comments – always good when people notice. And I finally emailed the picture off last night  – for some reason I kept putting it off. I’m looking forward to seeing what other people make. The pics in the facebook group look so lovely. Hopefully one day I’ll share something.