Bead Wish List: Picasso

Every beader has their favorite supplies, techniques, and colors. Often, the beads that we like the most are those that help to define our style, and what beading means to us. Although a girl who loves bicone crystals is in many ways a totally different beader than the one who loves Lucite flowers, we are all connected by our craft, and can appreciate these little quirks that separate us. Our tastes and palettes are as unique as we are.

One of my all time favorite bead finishes is Picasso, especially on faceted or cut beads. I love the earthy quality they have, the subtle elegance, and the way the colors seem more vibrant under the Picasso blush. They’re awfully rugged and rustic for something so pretty. Today I felt like doing a little window shopping, with nothing but Picasso on the list.

Hyacinth Picasso Table Cut Rectangles
From MK Supplies





Picasso Jasper Faceted Rounds
From AuntiesBeads.com





TOHO Hybrid Seed Beads in Jet Picasso
From Artbeads.com





Turquoise Picasso Fluted Firepolish
From FusionBeads.com





Aqua Picasso Chunky Ovals
From Mountain Shadow Design





Siam Ruby Firepolish Rondelles
From LimaBeads.com





Yellow Picasso Table Cut Squares
From Happy Mango Beads





Cobalt Blue Teardrop Window Beads
From Beadaholique





Old World Picasso Mix Seed Beads
From Beads-and-Babble





Dew Drop Blue Faceted Rondelles
From Bobbi’s This n That

Do you like Picasso finish beads? What’s your favorite shape and color?

Copyright 2012 Inspirational Beading and Friends
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Wire Wrap Sparkle Ring Tutorial

Beaded rings are great instant gratification projects. Making fun and simple ring designs allow you to finish a project in one sitting, so you can have a pretty accessory on the go. Plus they’re great for gifts and can be the perfect solution to leftover beads.

This pretty wire wrap ring project comes to us from the designers at Beads Direct. The jewel-like setting uses crystals and glass for lots of sparkle and endless color possibilities. The focal works up in a freeform manner, with simple wraps with each added bead, so you can change up the shapes and placement to suit your taste.

To make one ring you will need:

0.5 mm Silver plated beading wire
2mm Aluminium silver beading wire
8mm Czech fire polish glass beads
Crystal glass beads heart and twisted coin shapes

1. Wrap a length of aluminum wire 3 times around your chosen ring shaper or mandrel, leaving an end of approximately 3 cm. Wrap the end of wire around the base 2 or 3 times to hold the coils together. Snip off any excess wire.

2. Cut about 10 cm of silver wire and string on a bead. Holding the bead close to the wire ring base, wrap each end of silver wire around the base to secure the bead. Position the bead where you would like it on the ring, and then start to wrap the heavy wire around it.

3. After a few wraps, string another bead and wrap the wire around the new bead and the previous one. Continue adding beads and wrapping with this method until you get the size and shape you want for your focal. To finish, pass the end of the wire through the middle of the ring and pull it out through a gap in the beads to snip off the excess wire.

Happy beading!

Copyright 2011 Inspirational Beading and BeadsDirectUK
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A Bracelet a Week: Pink Fire Polish

One of my favorite things about extended beading challenges is the opportunity to try out new things, and rotate some of the materials in my bead stash. What better time is there to finally get around to using beads that have just been hanging around?

This week I decided to tackle a packet of pink fire polish beads that I had purchased earlier this year. I picked them up because they so closely resembled the 2011 It color, Honeysuckle. Then I put them away and basically forgot all about them.

To make sure that I could use as many of the beads as possible - hopefully all of them at once - I wanted a bracelet design that could hold a lot of accent beads. I started by choosing a base color, and the first thing that caught my eye was colonial gray lined crystal. They have a shimmer that matches the finish on the fire polish perfectly. Plus gray and pink always look fabulous together.

Next I had to decide on a technique that would allow both beads lots of room to play. I finally decided on openwork right angle weave, with the fire polish stitched in at the end. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get the width that I wanted, and be able to cover the entire cuff with pink accents, but I went ahead anyway, hoping that the right pattern would come to mind as I worked.

When it came time to add the fire polish, I had no idea what I was going to do. I thought about doing a random network of columns, but I didn’t like the uncertainty. Instead, I decided to make some pyramids.

The pattern turned out great, and there were only a few fire polish left over. I love the look of the raised pink triangles, and recessed gray ones. I wonder what other inspirations are now lurking in the bead cupboard?

Copyright 2011 Inspirational Beading
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Blue Ivory Lampwork Pendant

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to start trying new beads. Particularly unique beads, like handmade lampwork pieces. My goal is to try something new every month, and make something fun with these new treasures.

In January, I purchased three gorgeous pieces from Silver River Glass Works. I immediately fell in love with this gorgeous focal bead. The layers of ivory, and black, accented with cool blue are so pretty. I wanted to pair them up with some cute blue and green spacers, but when I saw the focal up close, plans changed.

I wanted to really highlight the simple palette of the pendant, and I thought that adding green into the mix would make things a little too busy. So I’m saving them for later - perhaps they’ll make a great bracelet. To go with the focal bead, I chose a palette of seed beads and fire polish in blue, black and light beige. The jet lined crystal seed beads fit it perfectly!

The dilemma with such a great focal piece, is deciding between an elaborate design that will do it justice, and a simple design that will let it stand out without becoming unaffordable. I eventually decided that simple was best, and added a twist to my new favorite pendant design.

Instead of adding just a single ring of seed beads around the fire polish accents, I went back for a second round, and caged the fire polish within four rows of beads. The results are so much different than the typical “reverse daisy chain”. I love the way the beads seem to orbit together.

Now to find just the right method for the blue and green spacers!

Copyright 2011 Inspirational Beading
and Silver River Glass Works
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Bead Spotlight: Czech Fire Polish

When it comes to choosing the best beads for the job, longevity is definitely a factor. Glass beads have been made in the Czech Republic since the 17th century, and the technique is pretty well perfected by now. Although there are many unique colors and shapes to choose from, the style that really stands out is the fire polish bead.

These little beauties are faceted and heat polished for a remarkable shine and shimmer. They have the look of expensive crystal beads, but are much more affordable, even though each batch is still made by hand. And, like any great bead, the color selection is to die for!

Most projects that call for fire polish beads refer to the round style, which can usually be found at most well stocked bead shops and suppliers. There are also barrels, bicones, cubes, drops, ovals, and even cathedral beads, with a unique boxy shape.

Fire polish beads are a little more forgiving on threads, so they are perfect for bead weaving techniques where larger beads can be incorporated. They look great in between rows of St. Petersburg chain, as accents in cascades and multi-strand designs, and can even be worked into spiral ropes.

If you have a few fire polish beads in your stash that you’d like to use up, here are some fun projects to try:

Embellished Right Angle Weave Bracelet, from the Auntie's Beads video library
Green with Envy Multistrand Necklace, from Fire Mountain Gems
Chinese New Year Earrings, from Ben Franklin Crafts

Happy beading!

Copyright 2011 Inspirational Beading
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A Necklace a Day - Four

After completing the step-by-step photographs for my beaded flower tutorial, I was left with a single yellow and purple beaded bead. I tucked it into a baggie, and hoped that some inspiration would come along and help me make a home for it.

I didn’t want to use the flower in a ring, because that was too obvious. I also didn’t want it to get lost in some elaborate design. So I tried to think of ways to use it where it would be the most interesting part of the piece.

Finally, an idea emerged, and I created one more beaded violet. As a pair, they make the perfect ends for a really simple daisy chain lariat. For this piece, I used a variety of seed bead and fire polish sizes, in as many shades of green and purple as I could find.

At first I was a little worried that so many colors would ruin the palette, but as I started stitching the pattern of daisies and fire polish, the bead colors actually became more attractive! The chartreuse seed beads between each accent seem to lift everything up, while the deep purple fire polish keep it all grounded.

I love the simplicity of a delicate lariat like this one. It has color and sparkle, and length to make a statement, but it doesn’t overpower the person wearing it, or the rest of their ensemble. I think I’ll have to make more sometime!

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading

Winter Mint RAW Bracelet

Have you ever noticed that beads have an amazing ability to trap memories? Just like a familiar aroma, seeing a favorite bead or beaded creation can transport us back to another time. When looking through my collection of finished projects, I’m often reminded of movies I watched or books I listened to while making them. Going back to somewhat forgotten materials in my bead stash can remind me of when I found them.

The Inspiration:

I was recently going through my tray of cubes, triangles and hex cuts, and came across the remnants of a few baggies of 3mm TOHO Hybrid cube beads. They were part of my very first online bead order, and when I saw them again, I was taken back to the very early days of Inspirational Beading, and my Etsy shop. It was fun to look back and remember how wide-eyed I still was about so many different types of beads. I had been drawn to the dual-tone cubes because they were unlike anything I had seen in my local bead store.

I thought it was about time I used up the last few of these blue-green beads. The color combination makes me think of mint - it’s a sort of mouthwash color, but prettier. And since winter isn’t as far away as we might hope, I wanted to do something cool and fresh looking.

The Beads:

The transparent cubes need a neutral base to really stand out against, so I paired them with opaque white seed beads to start. Right angle weave seemed like a great treatment for both, so for simple accents I also added some 10mm fire polish in a pretty light aqua, that plays nicely with the Hybrids. The entire palette reminds me of late winter days, when the sun comes out to reveal bits of green beneath the shallowest snowdrifts.

The Beadwork:

To make this wintery bracelet, I started out using the cubes and seed beads to make right angle weave squares. The white beads are from a sorry batch, and the irregular shape makes the little RAW windows look crooked. I was happy to have the fire polish, which helped to straighten things out a bit. These I added as accents within some of the windows, in a floral shape.

I like the overall look of the bracelet, though I’m not sure I’ll attempt another. Adding the fire polish to right angle weave squares requires so much needle work, it was exhausting just adding a small handful. I was able to use up almost all of the cube beads though. There are only about 5 left, which will look nice in some bead soup of the future.

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading

Favorite Beads: Faceted Glass

Amber Verdigris Necklace

Today my guest, Caroline of Dark Ride Jewellery, shares insights into one of her favorite beading materials.

Inspirational Beading: What is your all-time favorite bead? Why do you like them?

Caroline: You’d think this’d be any easy question. Well, I can’t choose! There are too many glorious beads out there! I’m crazy about translucent faceted glass beads, though, with Picasso finishes and/or a fire polish. I like the rusticity and the diversity among beads of a similar type. For example, the beads in both my Amber Verdigris Necklace and Amber Verdigris Earrings are from the same series, but they really exemplify the range within one series.

Inspirational Beading: What is your favorite technique or method to use them?

Caroline: Most often I embellish with either a very simple bead cap or just a wrapped loop. I hate to cover even a millimetre of them! I also tend to use them as charms, so that they can move and catch the light.

Pond Drops Bracelet

Inspirational Beading: Of all the creations you’ve made with these beads, which one is your favorite?

Caroline: I really like the Pond Drops Bracelet and would probably wear it everyday if it wasn’t in my shop. For nighttime glamour, though, I’d choose the Moss Green Choker. Actually, these two pieces also display another aspect of Picasso finishes that appeals to me -- on one hand they can be appear rustic and earthy, and on the other they can be glamorous and elegant.

Inspirational Beading: Do you have any tips for making the most of these beads?

Caroline: I’m a relative newcomer to jewellery making, so I feel I’m in the taking tips stage, not giving them! I tend to follow my own design instincts.

Inspirational Beading: What is your favorite bead or material to pair these with?

Caroline: I work almost exclusively with antiqued brass or bronze chains and findings. I’m drawn to vintage or period styles, and these materials, combined with gorgeous glass, allow me to access those vibes.

Inspirational Beading: If you were stranded on a deserted island, and you could have only one kind of bead with you, would you choose these?

Moss Green Choker

Caroline: I’d definitely choose a Picasso finished and fire polished bead so I could rearrange them and pretend they were different everyday. Some of them are even translucent enough that they could be rigged into a signaling device (like, if the island was boring and I wanted to leave).

Inspirational Beading: In your opinion, what is the best source for these beads?

Caroline: Etsy! I do occasionally purchase beads from a local store, but this is generally the result of a beading emergency, and not the norm. I have a couple of Etsy shops that I return to over and over again, and I have always been more than satisfied by the quality, the value and the speed of delivery. Two of my favourites are Arte Bella Surplus and Treasures by Karen.

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and Dark Ride

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.

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and The Sage's Cupboard

Ice Planet Necklace

The vast variety of beads never ceases to amaze me. They come in so many different materials, colors, shapes and sizes. A bead is basically just an object with a hole, and size isn’t a factor. From tiny vintage 24/o seeds, to giant felted globes - if you can string it, it’s a bead.

The same kind of easy definition does not apply to other round objects that capture our imaginations. In 2006, scientists came together and decided that in order to be a planet, an object in the sky can’t just be big and round. The new, precise definition of a true planet is an object that orbits the sun, is large enough to have become round due to the force of its own gravity, and big enough to collect smaller objects along it's orbit. Because Pluto is not large enough to ‘dominate’ the other bodies in it’s path around the sun, it was bumped from the short list of true planets, and is now one of dozens of dwarf planets in our solar system.

The Inspiration:

Pluto / Charon From Hydra
Image Credit: Dallas1200am.

I wanted to do a piece in a sort of tribute to Pluto - the icy un-planet. It would be a great project to complete as the weather warms up - a talisman against the coming summer heat. As I considered different ways to depict a distant ice orb with beads, I decided to simply use the ice theme and go from there. This is not just due to the fact that it's tough to find a picture of what the surface of Pluto really looks like. Sometimes we just have to use our imaginations!

The Beads:

I started with some wonderfully icy Czech fire polish rounds. These are 4mm in shimmering light aqua AB. I paired them with white-lined aqua 11/o seed beads, and silver lined aqua 15/o’s. Although each shade is slightly different, together they are very icy indeed.

The Beadwork:

Since I had so many wonderful fire polish beads to work with, I couldn’t resist using a little pearl netting. I made four tubes of different sizes, then used right angle weave and a few spare fire polish to stitch them together. With a row of icicles built, I added a strand of fire polish and some sparkling silver-lined crystal 6/o seed beads.

This is one of those pieces that I wasn’t sure would work out until the very end. In fact, even when it was finished I had some doubts about the design. “Is it too weird?”, I wondered. Then I slipped the necklace on and took a peek in the mirror. When worn, it looks great! The pendant has a unique shape, and is just the right size to be interesting but not overbearing.

Blue Icicles Pendant

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

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and The Sage's Cupboard