Happy New Year To You! With Love From BeadRee.

One Design Concept, Three Ways

When I was first learning how to make jewelry, I remember someone telling me whenever you are designing earrings, don't be afraid to look at them upside down because they might be even better that way. Lately, I've been looking at some of my popular pieces in my inventory, just to see if there is anything I could improve about the design. I had it in my head to redo my "Ladybug Amidst the Leaves Bracelet". It's a three strand bracelet, made with lots of seed beads and glass leaves, with one tiny ladybug, hidden amidst the leaves.
I decided to redo the bracelet using flat leaves, but keep the three strands. I liked the new version, but it seemed like a lot of flat leaves, so I did a second bracelet that combined flat leaves and leaves with center holes across. Finally, I couldn't resist making a charm bracelet. I didn't do a necklace.....yet!

How I Love Dime Beads

From time to time, I become taken with a particular type of bead, and I love to gather lots of colors of them and "get to know them". I can almost never walk past a tulip bead, except for one time when I encountered a day-glo orange batch of them. I also love floral beads, faceted pearls and vintage leaf beads.
Recently, I became infatuated with vintage dime beads and nailhead beads (1900s), and I started collecting them. I often used them as tiny dangles on necklaces and bracelets. I was pretty content to rely on them this way, until one day, I was puttering about with some leftover dime beads from a necklace, and it occurred to me that I had never used them with earrings. I felt rather doltish about that, and immediately
set to work. Several pairs of earrings later, I was so pleased to have used them in a different way. My lesson learned is always be willing to look, look again, leap, and keep looking.

The Finished Necklace

This is the rest of the necklace from an earlier post, showing just the queen. As you can see the king has joined her, along with the royal jewels.