Pretty Jewelry Boxes for Mother’s Day

As soon as the flowers of spring start blooming, many of us start thinking about what we’re going to do for the special moms in our life. What I love about Mother’s Day is that it doesn’t matter who your favorite mom is - she can even be someone else’s mom. It’s just a great day to say thanks to some really fantastic ladies.

As beaders, we’re lucky to be able to custom make jewelry and other goodies for anyone we gift to. To make it even more special, why not a beautiful jewelry dish or trinket box? Although I leave my personal jewelry pieces lying around and hanging up to constantly test their durability, I do love to look at unique jewelry boxes. It’s just another one of those magpie things.

Here are some fabulous jewelry box designs that would be perfect for gifting.

Decoupage Jewelry Box by rrizzart





Earthenware Daisy Dish by damson tree pottery





Pile of Books Trinket Box by Sister Butterfly





Coral Wood Jewelry Box by paragraph loop





Cherry Jewelry Holder by Elegant Quirk





Upcycled Blue Jewelry Box by Green Fox Studio





Elephant Jewelry Box by Sascalia

Where do you like to store your own jewelry?

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Horizon Fringe Necklace

Have you ever fallen in love with a bead twice? It doesn’t happen very often, but once in awhile a bead that looks amazing on the strand or in the package can wow you even more when you use it in a design. Earlier this year, I took a chance on some interesting turquoise Czech beads, with an odd diamond wedge shape. The color was perfect for my designs, and the shape seemed intriguing - a bit of a challenger perhaps, but with lots of potential.

When I sat down to work out a design for the Egyptian horizon god Aker, I needed two accents to represent lion heads. Since my seed bead palette already included turquoise, I grabbed two of my new wedge beads and got to work. The idea was to make a V-shaped St. Petersburg chain with fringe embellishment, and place a pair of beads opposite each other, just above the center point.

After getting started on the base beadwork, and thinking things over a bit, I realized that these diamond beads would look awkward and clunky in my design, so I decided to leave them out and use loops of topaz instead - much more fitting for a lion god. It wasn’t until I started the final assembly that I realized a single turquoise bead would make the perfect focal. Not only was it just the right size, but the unique shape of the beads tucked right into the loops of seed beads.

The design worked out so well, that now I’m worried I’ll never find another way to use the turquoise wedges with the same satisfaction. I’m sure I’ll repeat this design again, with some different color choices, but a whole strand of beads could last a long time!

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Bead Color Ideas: Picasso Daggers

Although neutral colors like black, white, and beige are meant to go with everything, they can sometimes be tricky to work with in bead form. The subtle changes that a bead’s finish can add to a base color demand more careful consideration when choosing a great palette. I recently treated myself to a lovely strange of Picasso finish daggers, and although the color is essentially brown, the hints of green and orangey topaz make it difficult to match. Before I can get to work on a new collar with these uniquely shaped beads, I need to find just the right mix of colors.

One of my favorite ways to use brown is as a replacement for orange in contrasting palettes. Rather than substitute, I thought I’d first try to combine these daggers with a more obvious shade of orange. This bright and peachy orange is a lot more cheerful than the muted daggers. The addition of Capri blue, which is bright but not busy, helps blend things together in Desert Sunset.

I was pretty happy with how the first palette turned out, so I thought I’d try the same method again. This time, I added pretty wisteria purple for the contrast, and dark topaz for the other ‘orange’. It's not as bright as the first palette, but the wisteria makes it somehow sweeter. I particularly like the way the purple highlights the hints of pea-soup green in the daggers. I’m calling this palette Spring Fog.

The complementary colors seemed to be working just as well as the contrasting ones thus far, so in the final trio, both seed bead colors are variations of those in the accent beads. For Driftwood, I chose light topaz for a softer brown, and shamrock green to give things a little kick of freshness. Although the seed bead finishes are completely different, both work well together when balanced with the Picasso.

Have you ever found a bead’s finish difficult to match? Which finish is your favorite for versatility?

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April Pinspiration

Spring has sprung, at least in this part of the world, and I couldn't be more pleased. Living on the coast means frequently putting off jewelry photographs, because there's too much cloud cover to let in the right amount of light - so as soon as sunshine becomes the norm, I'm thrilled. Excitement for spring is showing through a lot in my ideas and inspirations, including the Pins I've collected lately. Somtimes I feel as if a winter coat is a sheild that blocks out creativity. Thankfully, it's gone until September or so!

Are you inspired by hints of spring? What new ideas are you working on?

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Tropical Toucan Necklace

Many beaders and artists keep a notebook on hand at all times, because you never know when an Idea is going to suddenly drop out of the sky. Not just a solution for those new beads you bought on a whim, or a fun color palette, but a fully formed image of a complete design that is so great, you have to drop everything to make it.

I recently had such an idea. It was completely random, appearing behind my eyelids in the middle of the night. I saw a necklace with a tribal style beaded rope in the colors of a toucan, and floral beadwork like an artistic doodle. It was a little art nouveau, with large leafy components and bright flowers. I couldn’t wait to get started.

I began with some very rough sketches of the necklace that I had imagined, but when I sat down to actually create it, I realized that some of the components would be impossible to make the way I wanted them. I modified things a bit to fit into my favorite techniques, and to work with the colors and bead quantities that I had, starting with the flowers. Yellow and blue druks would make excellent tropical flower bases, with petals in more blue, orange, and some fruity magenta.

I made several different types of beaded flowers, and some green discs that would fill in for the lime-shaped leaves that I wasn’t able to recreate. For the rope, I chose 8/o seed beads in turquoise blue, pumpkin orange, black, and white. Instead of an asymmetrical pattern, I took my inspiration straight from the colors of a toucan. Once everything was ready to assemble, I also added some lime and emerald green 15/o seed beads for extra leafy fringe.

Technically, this necklace didn’t turn out anything like the one I had originally pictured, but I like it much better. My favorite moment of triumph is the tiny flower bud, which I made to match the magenta flowers. Instead of using circular brick stitch, I started with a ladder base, and stitched the yellow druk in last.

I decided at the very last minute not to include the green Swarovski minis, because they seemed to clash a little with the other shapes, colors, and textures. So far, I haven’t been able to come up with any ideas for how to use them, so they’ve gone back to the stash until something appears in the night.

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