Midsummer Pendants and Ring Two

Ring #2
Midsummer Night

Sometimes the simplest approach is the most beautiful, or so I learned when working with big, beautiful glass pendants. We can try and try to come up with a really outrageous, avant-garde design; but in the end, some materials just want to speak for themselves.

The Inspiration:

I had these two gorgeous millefiori pendants to work with, and they were so lovely that I wanted to go crazy with them. No matter how hard I tried, or how long I stared at my sketch pad, the only thing that really seemed to click was a simple strand of beads with a lark’s head knot. I even had to resist the urge to use them in different ways - both pendants wanted to be a pair.

The Beads:

I combined the two pendants with Czech fire polish beads. I mixed and shuffled different colors from packets of glass beads in earth tones, blues, greens and pure cobalt blue. For the yellow Murano diamond, I went with blues and greens for a tropical look. For the donut pendant, I created a mixture of woodsy tones like a country path in summer. Then I chose seed beads for each mixture I had created and got to work.

The Beadwork:

I thought of using daisy chain with the fire polish to make big, chunky flowers. I didn’t like the way it looked, and I was worried about the way the flowers would zig-zag along the chain. I wanted a necklace that would be simple and pretty, so I used a reverse daisy chain to wrap each fire polish with seed beads. It turned out exactly right!

Today’s ring was inspired by the “Poolside” yellow and blue pendant. I used a really basic crystal ring technique to make a blue and yellow flower focal, then added black seed bead ladder stitch. What’s interesting is that the beads make the ring look much more elaborate than it really is. I love the technique so much, that I had to resist making a dozen more in different colors right away!

I would like to thank Artbeads.com for providing the glass pendants and Czech fire polish beads used in this piece. Inspirational Beading has not received paid compensation for including Artbeads.com products or reviews in this blog post. I have shared my honest opinions about the products used in this design.

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