Showing posts with label swarovski. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swarovski. Show all posts

Friday, March 19, 2010

Spring Beading

I seem to have trouble remembering to photograph items before I turn them into jewelry! Thanks to Artbeads, I again have received some awesome spring-y items to try out. I chose a range of flowers, leaves, vines, pastels, and bright spring greens to make a range of pieces well suited to the changing seasons.

This first necklace uses these really cool felt beads. A friend of mine makes really cute needle felted creatures. Similarly (but not nearly as cute!) are these beads. I've modernized the look by combining the natural, fuzzy feel of the beads with clean lines of metal. A string of bright turquoise delicas finishes out the necklace to keep it from getting too big.


Next, I had to get my Swarovski fix! I chose to use a peridot twist pendant combined with simple wire wrapped crystals. I also made a wire wrapped bracelet using amethyst polygon crystal beads, along with some real amethyst faceted rondelles.


I chose a couple of neat leaf components. The first is a leaf pendant from Tierracast. I kept the design simple since the leaf is neat by itself. The other is another lariat (similar idea to what I did for the Valentine beading post). The toggle is a really cool leaf and branch design. I kept that to the front and mixed it with lime chalk turquoise, peridot crystal, and a simple chain dangle from the clasp.


After months of seeing the vine bails for the Swarovski briolettes, I had to give it a try. I went with a large, uber-sparkly crystal AB briolette with the silver vine bail. They're really simple, but pack quite a punch!


Finally, I made a ton of earrings, as usual. I've always wanted to try making earrings with the resin flowers. I did just that, and combined them with a bunch of miscellaneous bead caps and spacer beads I had stashed away. There's a copper and olivine version of the above earrings, some felt earrings to match the necklace, and finally, I tried some glass flower beads.

Right now, Artbeads is having a sale! More details HERE.

Please note that I have received the products free of charge from Artbeads.com and that I am honestly reviewing the products and have not been paid to do so.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Etsy Beadweavers Challenge

This month's challenge theme is the ocean. For my entry, I was planning on emulating waves using Swarovski rivolis and delicas. I got the blues going in the piece, but it looks a bit more floral than I was intending.

Visit the Etsy Beadweavers Blog to vote for your favorite between the 9th and 15th of February to see all the beautiful entries for this challenge and vote for your favorite.



Sunday, January 24, 2010

Beadweaving Bliss

I've been on quite the beadweaving kick lately. Plus I've been having a bit of fun playing with new techniques. The first is an "orb" pendant I made using a method developed by Gill Slone (B&B). It is made with size 15s, size 11 delicas, and Swarovski crystal bicones.


I also tried to make a beaded ring. It's a little lumpy, and not so round (more triangular-square-ish) but it makes for a neat frame for crystal.


I'm still on a rivoli kick, so I had to make something a little more substantial than just a pendant. I made a whole necklace!

Finally, I decided to give the Cellini spiral a shot since I've been ogling over the technique for a while now. I combined it with some Swarovski crystal (of course!) and here's the result...

Friday, January 22, 2010

Valentine Beading Part 2

As promised, I'm back with some more Valentine's Day inspired jewelry designs!

I've always dreamed of making a lush bracelet full of beautiful cane glass beads. Those pink beads pictured yesterday were staring at me all night, so I put two and two together to make a dangle bracelet! I also made some pseudo matching earrings, although the style is a bit different. A little extra punch is offered by bright hot pink Czech fire polished glass beads.


To feed my bead weaving obsession, I spent several hours creating this next piece. I started by making six beadwoven tubes using pink luster delica beads and red thread. The beaded beads, heart chain (which makes a reappearance!), and Swarovski crystal bicones are all connected with sterling wire wrapping. Notice I've also put the heart toggle clasp in the font to show it off and create the look of a lariat. I might just have to make more of these...


Many thanks go to Artbeads! Right now, they're having a sale on Valentine's day items, so go on over and save 15%!

Interested in purchasing any of the items I've made for these Artbeads reviews? Hop on over to my Etsy shop and send me a conversation!

Please note that I have received the products free of charge from Artbeads.com and that I am honestly reviewing the products and have not been paid to do so.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Valentine Beading

This is the time of year that you can't go anywhere without seeing a heart or some form of romanticism. Find no exception here! Artbeads.com has provided me with some Valentine's day themed items to try out. I was a bit too excited to make jewelry, so I started to make some before realizing that I hadn't photographed the raw supplies. Whoops! I did get a shot of the gorgeous furnace glass beads though!

I'm still on a bit of an earring kick, so here's an array of v-day inspired designs. The top left pair features pretty antique copper heart beads and Swarovski crystal.

The top right pair has Swarovski crystal and the cutest sterling heart chain. I've also made little hearts with square sterling wire.

The bottom right makes use of the same heart chain as well as a dangling assortment of Swarovski crystal in shades of pink and rose. The awesome part of those is the faceted Swarovski heart at the bottom.

The bottom left pair uses the furnace glass beads featured above and Czech fire polished glass beads.

For those less "girlie," I made a more subtle design using black heart beads and twisted glass barrels. The earrings don't exactly match, but I'm not one for making things match perfectly because it's less interesting.

I also made a necklace! The composition of the large red heart bead is a mystery since I obtained it in a bead swap, but it's suited perfectly to this simple necklace. It also has a sterling key charm and more Swarovski crystal!

If you're interested to see what I've made with glass beads and sterling silver components from Artbeads, check out my previous post here. Check back tomorrow and I'll have more designs with the remaining Valentine's day beads.

Please note that I have received the products free of charge from Artbeads.com and that I am honestly reviewing the products and have not been paid to do so.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Beadweaving Machine

There's something about Swarovski crystal rivolis that I just can't resist. What started as an innocent project turned into an obsession. That's not the problem though - these projects require smaller sized seeds bead that I had to order. Now I have even more beads in my stash...

Oh well, I'm not exactly complaining. I just happened to look at how much I spent on supplies last year. Let's just say I could have purchased about 300 DVDs - you know, boyfriend monetary units! Kidding aside, I came across a blog earlier today (unfortunately I can't remember where it was...) where the author resolved to not purchase any new supplies for all of 2010, with the exception of necessities like replacing broken tools and things of that nature. The point was not only to clean out a messy space, but to face the challenge of creating new things with supplies on hand.

I don't want to make any crazy promises like that, but I'm already off to a good start! I'm hoping to cut down on spending by 40%. It's going to be really hard since I'm planning on buying a kiln and moving to a new place with my own studio, but at least I have a figure to shoot for!

What are your crafty goals for the year? I think it would be nice to take a chunk out of my bead stash that hasn't been touched in years :)

Here are some of those rivoli pendants I was talking about. They're all available in my Etsy shop.






Sunday, December 20, 2009

Sterling Silver and Glass

Once again, Artbeads.com has been wonderful by providing some awesome sterling silver components and glass beads to try. I selected a range of beads and silver components including silver leaf charms, Venetian glass beads, Czech glass bricks, Bali sterling pendants, and sterling silver links. See below what I picked out!

I've been in quite an earring mood lately, so most of the jewelry I have created with these items were made into earrings. The pair on the left was made with very fine sterling silver chain, glass flower beads, and a 4mm Swarovski bicone. The pair on the right was made with Venetian glass beads, sterling silver flower bead caps, and aquamarine Swarovski crystal beads.


These simple earrings make use of Czech glass bricks, brown tone fire polished beads, and copper findings. The beads have a really nice earthy, vintage feel to them.


These sterling and swarovski earrings have really cool links. I've dressed up the copper leaf earrings by adding a large jumpring. The back side of the leaf beads is a copper finish, that really looks neat in sunlight.


I also made several simple necklaces using a sterling silver leaf pendant and crystal, and a really neat Bali sterling silver pendant paired with a gemstone teardrop.


There's your inspiration, now head on over to Artbeads and see what awesome beads and supplies they have! To sweeten the deal, I have a code for 10% off your entire purchase: SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424 (expires 12/31/09).

If you're interested to see what I've made with Swarovski crystal from Artbeads, check out my previous post.

Please note that I have received the products free of charge from Artbeads.com and that I am honestly reviewing the products and have not been paid to do so.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Swarovski Crystal

Who doesn't love a healthy dose of Swarovski crystal?! Artbeads has tons of beautiful, sparkly beads and components to choose from. I got a whole bunch of different beads to give them a try. I really like the crystal rivolis because they have so much depth and dimension. The funky polygon shape in padparadscha is also really neat!



Here's what I've made with the Rivolis and a little bit of bead weaving with size 11 and size 15 seed beads:

I had a lot of fun incorporating Swarovski Crystal bicones into bead woven bracelets. The wavy lime bracelet is inspired from a bracelet in the most recent Bead and Button magazine, and has lime crystals in the center. The deep blue bracelet makes use of dark sapphire bicone crystals.



Check back here in a week or so and I'll show you what I've done with some more of the Swarovski Beads that I have, and to get some inspiration!