Throwback: The Original Bead Trios

So far this month we’ve had three sets of Bead Color Trios, which is definitely a record. Over the years, the concept behind these color experiments has evolved and changed, which means there are so many more options for trying on different beads. When the segment began, I always started with a simple inspiration such as Neapolitan ice cream or the variations on primary colors, then created three different palettes with their own unique themes.

Neapolitan/Vanity and Saturn/Chemistry Set

As my bead stash was a lot smaller back then, and I was just getting the hang of things, I was only creating one set of trios per month. This gave me a lot more time to play around with the concepts, and I used to arrange the beads into shapes that also represented the themes that went with them. It wasn’t until I was thinking about how far the concept has come that I remembered these little bead scenes.

Blue Tang/Splish Splash and Beach Palm/Sunny Day

Today Bead Color Trios has so many variations. My favorite is probably the accent bead start, which always gives me new ideas on how to use items in my stash. And I always look forward to mixing and matching Pantone colors in the spring and fall.

Do you have a favorite method for trying out new bead combinations?

Mortira

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Copyright 2016 Inspirational Beading

Watches: From Function to Fashion

The personal time keeper we know as a watch was developed around the 15th century, and was typically worn as a pin or pendant. These early “clock watches” had no minute hands or glass faces like those we’re familiar with today. Eventually the design would evolve into the “pocket clock”, worn almost exclusively by men after the waistcoat became a fashionable garment. By the 16th century, the pocket watch was a common accessory for telling the time.

Emerald Bewitched Pocket Watch by youmin

Though wrist watches also developed at around the same time, they were considered a women’s accessory until around the 1880’s, when they became a crucial tool for military engagements. Since then, the wrist watch has evolved and developed into a fashion accessory for both men and women that we almost take for granted. Watches quickly became a part of our culture, and have even been important items in fiction throughout their existence - from the pocket watch in “The Gift of the Magi” to Penny’s computer watch on Inspector Gadget.

With smart phones now being so common, personal timepieces are no longer the essential functional item they once were – though they continue to be worn as accessories. As beaders, we have the advantage of being able to design and make one of a kind watch straps with any materials that we desire, so they’ll never go out of style. Here are just a few projects for handmade watches that you can try:

Tile Watch Band by 2 Good Claymates



Watch Me Now Bracelet by Artbeads.com



Time for Fruit Salad Necklace by Beadaholique

I don’t carry a phone to help me tell the time, but I’ve also never had such a need for a watch that I seek them out for style. Plus going metal free with my beadwork means I’m not up to making my own watch. Often I’ve just carried an old digital watch in my purse for the rare occasions when I need to know the exact time. Still, once in a while something comes along that I can’t resist putting on. Right now, the watch that I wear to work is a quirkier fashion statement that sort of clashes with my jewelry, but I love it anyway.

I bought this Lego Star Wars stormtrooper watch just to get the matching minifigure inside for a gift, and decided I might as well make use of it (even though I had to get a second set in order for it to fit my adult wrist). The strap is made entirely from Lego links, and I definitely love the palette. People often ask me if it actually works, which seems to imply that one could certainly wear a watch that doesn’t tell the time, so long as it looks awesome.

Do you like to wear a wrist watch? How does it fit into your style?

Many thanks to Invaluable.com for inspiring this post. Invaluable is currently running a blog project all about intriguing watch stories. Check them out on Twitter to see more watch inspirations and stories about the watches we wear.

Copyright 2015 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Fresh Starts

This week I went back and had a look at the first projects that I did after finishing big challenges that I’ve done here on Inspirational Beading. Ever since my very first custom jewelry order, I’ve experienced a feeling of creative elation whenever I get to just bead, just because.

Although I had done some continuous beading themes before, the first ever deadline beading challenge I did was to make and post one new ring every day. It seemed like it would be easy to fit it all in, but there were times when I had to sacrifice design for time. There were a lot of lessons learned during this challenge.

The first piece I made following Ring a Day was a destash necklace featuring a custom soup of all my pink and purple beads, with a hint of pale blue. It was a little weird, but I still really like this one, probably because of the way the blue beads pop out of the chain.

With the first challenge feeling like a success, I decided to do another more difficult one later that same year. Necklace a Day was a lot of fun, but there’s no way I’d be crazy enough to try it again.

After completing the last necklace, I didn’t post another project on the blog until the New Year, when I started yet another beading challenge. This one was more manageable, but a much bigger commitment. Bracelet a Week began with a simple herringbone cuff in neon green and coppery 6/o seed beads. It was pretty exciting at the time.

Fast forward 12 months to the end of the bracelet challenge, and I was working on trying out a new bead shape in the form of long magatamas. I may have been feeling a little burnt out, because I ended up going with the simplest possible design. It still turned out great, as simple things often do.

Bracelet a Week was immediately followed by an open Destash Challenge, in which I forced myself to use up beads that I still had lying around because I didn’t want to use them. It was actually a really rewarding challenge and helped me clear out a lot of baggage. A few of the designs – like the first collar – are still my favorites.

The end of the Destash challenge blended a little with the 2013 Egyptian Gods series, which technically was never completed as I ran out of time once my side project got rolling. It didn’t occur to me until I started looking back that I’ve always had some kind of beading commitment on the go. This year I’m just going to do what my beads tell me for a while; but there’s no guarantee that I won’t have a craving to do another daily challenge in 2015!

How do you like to challenge yourself in beadwork? What motivates you to try new things?

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Throwback Thursday: The Peace Symbol

While the words “peace symbol” can generally mean anything - such as an olive branch - in Western culture they bring to mind a very specific shape. You’ve probably seen them on earrings and pendants in every material you can imagine, from wood and plastic to metal and gemstone. The peace symbol is a very popular motif for jewelry with a retro, groovy, or faux boho style. It often gets paired with the classic happy face, mod flower motifs, and fractal patterns.

Ray of Peace Necklace Tutorial by Artbeads.com

The story behind the sign is actually a very interesting one. The Direct Action Committee and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain needed a symbol for it’s 1958 march on the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. Artist and designer Gerald Holtom originally created a line drawing in the shape of a person showing despair, with a circle around it. Ultimately wanting a more hopeful banner for the movement, Holtom inverted the symbol. The final design is made up of overlapping semaphore signals for the letters N and D - Nuclear Disarmament. Two years later, the badge was brought into the US by a university student, and it quickly became the unifying symbol of both disarmament and anti-war groups across North America and Europe.

Do you have any peace symbol jewelry in your stash?

Copyright 2014 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Beaded Tutankhamun

Working on my new Tutankhamun collar this month reminded me – as these projects often do – of one of my very first Egyptian beadwork pieces. When I did the math, I was a little surprised to discover that it was over nine years ago that I made this embroidered portrait of Tutankhamun’s decorative sarcophagus.

The design was so complex – I traced it from a photograph in one of my Egyptian history books – that I ended up just beading right onto the paper. There’s still a good portion of it hiding under the beads. I was able to tweeze out most of the edges, but the middle is there to stay.

I’ve been thinking of doing some more intricate Egyptian bead embroidery, but I never seem to have the time to commit. Maybe next year!

Copyright 2014 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Lucy’s Pearls

Last week we took a look at fashionable pearls in the time of Elizabeth I. Fast forward 400 years, and we have another surge of pearls, as seen on stars such as Lucille Ball.

The actress wore her share of costume jewelry, and was a big fan of designs from the Miriam Haskell collection, which helped popularize the faux pearl and crystal rhinestone. Though there is some speculation about the amount of designing done by Haskell herself, it’s certain that she did seek out and promote many skilled artists from the 1920’s to the 1960’s, leaving behind an amazing legacy of jewelry.

When you go for faux pearls, do you prefer glass or shell?

Copyright 2014 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Elizabeth’s Pearls

Nobody does lavish jewelry quite like royalty, and Queen Elizabeth in particular took personal adornment and fashion to a whole new level. Her many portraits provide an amazing look at jewelry trends of the time, which included an awful lot of pearls.

The love of pearls likely comes from the recently thriving freshwater pearl industry of the area. Scottish pearls were abundant and a valuable commodity at the time. Even in her youth, Princess Elizabeth is seen in portraits wearing her mother’s pearls – Anne Boleyn’s famous initial pendants.

What’s your favorite type of pearl bead?


Copyright 2014 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Custom Favorites

During my first year as a jewelry seller on Etsy, I was very fortunate to get several requests for custom work. In addition to keeping me busy and inspiring some new designs, it helped give me the budget I needed to start building a really respectable bead stash. Although I’m very happy with the place I’m in right now, creative-wise, I still look back on these projects fondly. Here are three of my favorites:

This chain link necklace called for a tropical palette,
so I combined almost every shade of orange, yellow, and purple that I had in my stash.
There’s also some aqua blue and a hint of green.
I had a lot of fun working out the best pattern for such a large selection of colors.




I was really excited to work on this lariat, not only because it was one of my favorite - and proudest - designs.
I simply loved the transparent red seed bead mix used in both the rope and the leaves.
I think it’s just about time I searched for it again.




This pendant was really interesting to make.
It combined my love for 15/o bead flowers and 4mm cubes.
I want to revisit this design in a more versatile style soon.

Do you like making custom designs? What’s your favorite part of the process?

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Throwback Thursday: Roman Bangles

While researching some ancient jewelry styles at The Met, I discovered a lot of bangles that are elegantly simple. The Metropolitan Museum’s collection of ancient bangles in glass or metal is quite large – some of them have really interesting designs, while others are very plain.

There was a probably a lot more work put into creating these accessories than something similar you’d find in a shop today – just getting the metals would have been a feat – but they don’t have much of an oooh factor. I think they definitely make one appreciate the variety and unique style that beadwork affords us.

What's your favorite style of no-frills jewelry?

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Throwback Thursday: Turquoise Collage

It’s always enlightening to look back on old designs and marvel at how much our styles and skills have changed. Have you ever compared your first peyote stitch project to one you made years later? It’s usually a big revelation. Of course, beading isn’t the only skill that evolves over time. Today I had a look back at one of my other hobbies, and was amused at what I found.

In July of 2010, I posted the first ever Wear It Twice collage: a look at two different ways of styling a statement necklace. The idea was pretty simple, and so was the first set that I made. Since then, I’ve added a lot of different elements to my template, and moved away from the strict color palettes.

2010's Turquoise Queen by mortira featuring a long blue necklace

Fashion collages are still one of my favorite sources for inspiration all these years later. I think that when you make things for people to wear, it’s important to be aware of trends and style concepts. Knowing what jewelry goes well with certain cuts, prints, and shapes is an important part of both designing and selling jewelry. Plus it’s really fun to play with color and experiment with dressing the designs you like.

2013's Gourd Gorgeous by mortira featuring clip earrings

What’s your favorite creative outlet apart from beading? Do you ever mix them?

Copyright 2014 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Spring Bead Mix

This week at Bead & Button, I shared some ideas for using bead soups and seed bead blends without doing any freeform stitching. Even if you’re working with a structured stitch, you can still get amazing, organic looking designs just by using a whole bunch of beads together.

Thinking about some of my favorite custom bead soups reminded me of a packaged seed bead blend that I was once head over heels for. Way, way back when I first started bead weaving, I had two choices for bead shopping in town. One was a small indie craft store, and the other was a dollar store that stocked such nice things it was more like a boutique. And they carried Czech seed beads, which was incredibly awesome. Both stores sold their beads in tubes, and one SKU in particular was always in stock - much to my delight.

The mix was called Earth, and included copper lined: transparent dark gray, crystal, Montana blue, mauve; and a gorgeous, stunning, copper lined green. If it weren’t for the metal lining, I would still be using that color today, because it is amazing. The mix that I liked also included color-lined crystal seed beads in Montana blue, pale blue, pink, and sometimes mauve. I’m a big fan of the color-lined crystal finish, and on occasion I used just the color-lined beads and left the rest of the mix for other projects. At some point, the recipe changed, and the color-lined beads were replaced with copper-lined blue and pink.

I lost access to this mix when both of the stores I shopped closed, and then I gave up using metal-lined seed beads. Even when I went back to ordering Czech seed beads online, I never thought to look this mix up and see if it was still available. It turns out you can still get the earth mix, but it doesn’t quite have that pop that I loved way back when.

Do you have a favorite bead mix or blend?

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Throwback Thursday: Madonna and Cyndi

Today let’s travel back in time to the 1980’s, when more-is-more was the trend for jewelry. Two ladies who wore it best were Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. As iconic 80’s artists, they owned their bold styles, wrote now-classic feminist anthems, and inspired a generation of jewelry lovers to go wild.

Some of the best 80’s jewelry trends that have returned of late include neons, layered bracelets, chunky chains, and mis-matched pieces. Pairing statement jewelry with casuals and incongruent accessories is also starting to make its way back - good news if you want to wear your biggest beadwork without dressing up!

A few other things we still love are big, bold earrings (although the shapes have changed a lot) and beads, beads, beads!

Who’s your favorite style icon of the past?

Copyright 2014 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Bead & Button 2006

The very first beading magazine that I ever purchased was the Bead & Button August 2006 issue. Just looking through the pages again I’m amazed at how much things have changed in my creative space. I was excited to try new techniques, explore jewelry design ideas, and learn more about the beads I was using - everything seemed new. At the time, many of the projects were intimidating, but I wasn't afraid to make adjustments to the instructions to bring them closer to my comfort and skill level.

If I remember correctly, the very first magazine project I tried was the diagonal peyote necklace by Rebecca Peapples on page 68. The design was inspired by Bargello weaving, and featured carefully stitched peyote with drop beads and dangles. I made three variations using the materials that I had. Back then it seemed like I had all the time in the world to bead.

Although peyote stitch is incredibly versatile, and able to morph into such interesting shapes, it never grew on me the way other stitches have. I learned a lot from this project, but I never had the desire to try the diagonal approach again. My other favorite projects from this issue include the fragrant beaded beads by Deni Whaley, Virginia Jensen’s loopy trimmed loom cuffs, and the shell donut necklace by Julia Gerlach.

Do you remember your first beading magazine or book?

Copyright 2014 Inspirational Beading
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Throwback Thursday: Cubic Zirconia

Sometimes really great relationships can result from blogging, and one of my all time favorites has been working with Artbeads.com. A few years ago I was a part of their blogging program, and they were a great help in aiding my budding bead repertoire.

In December of 2009, Artbeads sent me some lovely cubic zirconia beads, and I had a great time incorporating them into my designs. I was a little on the fence about using them, with their relationship to gemstones, which is why I haven’t pursued them since. I did enjoy the unique colors and shapes, plus the hefty weight of the beads.

My favorite design was a bib necklace with soft and fruity seed beads in raspberry and wisteria, with a large honey-colored twisted oval cubic zirconia pendant. The color combination and the pattern of the beadwork were very pleasing. What I didn’t know as I was making it was that this necklace would bring me some very welcome criticism.

About half of the off-blog comments I received on the piece were positive, while the others were not. I was a bit shocked at first, because it’s so rare to hear negative comments in the beading community. We love to encourage and compliment each other. Then I realized it was this break from the norm that made me love the comments so much. It was refreshing! I knew for certain that those who didn't like the piece were really taking the time to form an opinion on it, and that was a different kind of compliment. It's good to have a little salt with your sweet sometimes.

Have you ever received negative comments about your work? How did you feel about the experience?

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Throwback Thursday: Willow’s Love Beads

It’s interesting to look back at how much jewelry trends changed over just two decades - from the big, gaudy, plastic and neon pieces of the 80’s, to the subtle and delicate favorites of the 90’s. Gigantic brooches and hot pink hoop earrings were replaced by the Y necklace and helix piercings (upper ear cartilage).

I don’t recall a huge upswing in beaded jewelry in the late 1990‘s, but if there was, it might have been partly due to the collection of daisy chain and love bead style jewelry of Willow Rosenberg - a character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. During the early seasons, she could often be spotted in import-shop style chokers with a familiar 1970’s combination of simple beadwork and opaque color palettes.

The first necklace looks like 8-bead daisy chain, and the others are most likely Potawatomi chain.

What’s your favorite jewelry trend of the past?

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Throwback Thursday: Bead Embroidery

Way, way back in January of 2009, Inspirational Beading was just five months old, and I was just starting to find my creative groove. One of my favorite posts from that month was an embroidery project featuring freeform flowers. It was one of the first pieces of bead embroidery that I had done in years, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

I still look back on that piece with a little bit of pride, although the beadwork was rather clumsy. I loved how the overall design turned out, and only wished that I had had more colors to work with. I've used the same flower shape since then, and the concentric circles are still a great way to play with bead embroidery without taking too many risks.

Getting back into bead embroidery on a regular basis has been a lot of fun, especially since I’ve found a way to get my helper to join me in the process. I’ve changed techniques and improved my approach since that first flowery piece. I’ve also found a lot of satisfaction in working with small pendants. There’s very little commitment to time and beads, and making things in miniature is always appealing.

Do you remember your first embroidery project? How did it turn out?

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