Bead Color Triads: Neapolitan Ice Cream

Is there anything more wonderful on a hot summer day than scoop of ice cream? The looming heat waves are made less terrible by the notion that we’ll be able to do things like swim outdoors, go shopping without socks on, and eat delicious frozen treats. It just wouldn’t be summer without the musical sounds of the ice cream truck and excited children cheering in the distance.

The oldest and most basic of ice cream flavors are the ones that we often think of first. Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla - alone or apart - are really the building blocks of any great ice cream. After all, you can’t have an orange Creamsicle without vanilla, and you can’t have Rocky Road without chocolate.

One of the easiest ways to please everyone is, of course, to combine all three flavors. This is probably why almost every grocery store chain in the universe makes it’s own brand of ice cream in 4 possible flavors: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and Neapolitan.

It is this triple flavored ice cream that inspired this month’s Bead Color Triad. The combination of white, pink and brown is so familiar, I thought it would be a fun challenge to see if they could make good non-edible palettes as well.

I had to dash out to the paint store to collect some new paint swatches before beginning this experiment. I was able to find a wonderful chocolate brown, creamy vanilla, and a bright, sweet-looking pink. Although I could already foresee some great bead combinations, it’s pretty clear that as paint, the palette would be a little too sweet for an entire room!

The first palette, Canopy Bed, was inspired almost entirely by the brown roble wood beads that I selected when pulling bead colors. The beautiful wood grain with pink 15/o seed beads and Ceylon pearl 8/o’s reminds me of the dream bedroom of any girl who ever wanted to be a princess. Imagine lace curtains, embellished with pearls, and a pink silk bedspread. Very romantic.

Curiously, the second palette also belongs in a girl’s bedroom. Vanity is a palette of lotions, potions, perfumes and polishes. These are the colors you might find in a girl’s first make-up bag, with shiny glass bottles and frosted jars of flavored balms. Here I used Fire Designs cane glass beads from the Strawberry Shortcake mix, frosted white magatamas, and some lovely dark topaz triangular oval beads.

I couldn’t resist making just one ice cream palette with these colors. Double Scoop includes chocolate brown freshwater pearls, pink cats eye rounds and ovals, and vanilla-colored ivory 11/o seed beads. It looks good enough to eat. It wasn’t until I paired the pink cat’s eyes with chocolate and vanilla that I realized how ‘sweet’ they look. It’s interesting that although true strawberries are quite red, these pale beads look like they could be strawberry flavored hard candies.

For today’s ring, I added some pale yellow lined seed beads to the Double Scoop palette, and created Banana Split. The round beads were perfect for the design - like scoops of ice cream topped with sauce. Delicious!

Ring #7 - Banana Split

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and The Sage's Cupboard

Here Comes the Sun - Ring Six

Ring #6 - Sunburst

Finally, it seems as if it may actually be summer here. After one of the warmest spring seasons I can remember, our area has been completely drenched with late, unending rain. Sometimes it poured down in bucket sized drops. Sometimes it blew in sideways. But it looks like the worst may be over. The sun has finally decided to show his face!

I was so excited to go outside in the sun, that it inspired number six in a Ring a Day. I used all yellow beads for one of my beaded flower designs, and made a pretty little sun to top a sky blue ring. It looks as cheerful as I feel. Hooray for summer! To celebrate, I also whipped up a fun, sunny treasury called It’s Warm in the Sun.

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and Etsy.com

A Ring a Day - Five

Ring #5 - Licorice Bubblegum Ripple

For today’s ring, I thought I would do something really basic: stylish but simple. The most obvious choice was to make an unembellished band of peyote stitch. But I couldn’t just stop there. Some part of me - the artist, the rebel, or the lunatic - had to take it just a little bit further.

So I decided to make a simple, but huge, peyote ring. The only question was, which colors to use? I thought about some easy combinations, with no luck. Then I turned the problem upside down, and started thinking about what beads I would like to get out of their packets.

The first thing that came to mind was hot pink. What was I thinking when I bought them? I suppose I wanted to have a wide range of colors available ‘just in case’. I know I’ve used my hot pink lined 11/o’s at some point, because the seal on the packet was open, I just can’t remember why or when. But now I have a great reason to use hot pink - how else can you add oodles of personality to something as plain as a peyote ring?

I love the look of pink on black, so that’s the combination I went with. Using the maximum number of rows possible, I made a stripe-y ring band, and finished the edges with square stitch. I think it looks almost good enough to eat!

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and The Sage's Cupboard

Poster Sketch: Clown Fish Ring

Ring #4 - Clown Fish

Back in April, I had the opportunity to play the 6th Photo Blog Game. I rehashed not only an old bead photo, but the beads themselves. My 6th photo had been of a tray of multicolored transparent iris seed beads. Ever since then, they’ve been on my mind, calling out to be used.

I decided to use the mixture in today’s ring, but I couldn’t decide how to go about it. Well, when all else fails, I say “Put a starfish on it!”. I thought an orange starfish bead would work really well with the mixture, and draw all of the colors together. The cherry-orange really complements the reds and browns, and makes a nice contrast for the assorted blues.

I have named this ring “Clown Fish” because the colors really remind me of a clown. I think it’s the white mixed in with the other bright colors. I liked the concept so much, that it inspired this week’s Treasury East collection, Big Top Under the Sea.

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and Etsy.com

A Ring a Day - Three

Sometimes when I start a circular brick stitch project, I get this crazy urge to just go wild with freeform beadwork. I’ve always admired the bravery of beaders like Beverly Ash Gilbert, who can create stunning freeform designs with what seems like ease. It’s sort of a scary task - beading without patterns or boundaries - like backpacking in Europe without a map.

A handful of stitches and techniques are really suitable for freeform. I like netting, because it still has a basic structure, even if you change up the bead quantities with every stitch. It’s the close stitches like peyote that are so much more intimidating.

It occurred to me that making a ring a day would provide the perfect opportunity to experiment. If I made something really awful, I would most certainly have time to start again from the beginning. So, I picked out some seed beads and a few matching accents and tried not to think about the rules.

Ring #3 - Wood Elf

What I ended up with is a very pretty, somewhat quirky ring! Although I eventually chickened out and went to basic peyote stitch for the ring band, the focal section has a lot of personality. I even changed my choice of fringe at the last minute, and went with a scalloped edge instead of picots. I like the effect, especially when combined with the other elements. Now I just have to resist the urge to do it exactly the same a second time!

Copyright 2010 Inspirational Beading and The Sage's Cupboard