Beads for Blogpost

I just adore PRECIOSA ORNELA!

My favorite way of incorporating these lovely traditional Czech glass beads are many, but when I use their seed beads especially in netting the touch really makes the beads feel like fabric; soft and smooth against the skin.  

One of their newest type of beads are the lovely twin beads, which can be used in many different variations of design, and so far I've tried them myself in a few right angle weave bracelets, and some pendants together with the Preciosa Ornela seed beads and bicones.

I also recommend everyone to visit their website, where they have a lot of free projects involving seed beads and twin beads, to get you started in your own journey with this wonderful Czech glass bead company; http://preciosa-ornela.com/

They also have a YouTube channel with some great video tutorials and product videos; http://www.youtube.com/PreciosaOrnela

Necklace: Dagr

As I mentioned in my btw post this week I was working on a simple netted lariat necklace, and yep, it's complete.

I haven't been working that much with bead-netting before, so I decided that it was time to refresh myself a bit in this, I must say, very relaxing form of beading.
It is also the first time I made a lariat necklace, which was fun and time consuming. The lariat is about 130cm (51.2") in total, with the tassels included.

The tassels are wooden beads, which I painted with an acrylic gold paint and varnished it. The bead is also covered with bead-netting.
I also mentioned in my bead table post this week that I found a use for this shiny and bright crystal/gold, silver, copper lined 11/0 Czech seed bead mix. I've been having this in my stash (aprox. 1 hank) for a bit more then a year and I'm pleased to say that the WHOLE hank was used for this lariat and not a single seed bead of it remains, lol :D
For the fringe of the tassels, I decided to mix in some 11/0 galvanized Czech gold seed beads to give some non crystal contrast to the piece.

Twin for Free

I received my free 10 gram of Twin Beads from Preciosa this week, and they were just stunning and so cute! lol.

When I saw this offering they made I just thought "hey! free beads, must be worth trying to sign up for this" heh. They offer this to everyone that likes their Facebook page and uses the application to get a personal code to get 10 gram of free twin beads :)

I have always been a bit curious about these beads, ever since I heard that they were launched, but I haven't really seen any of my suppliers carry it until a week ago; Perles & Co. in France added some to their online store this week and I can't wait to order up some beads again. And the most awesome thing is, is that they sell them per 20 gram instead of 10 :)

Anyway.
The color I received of my free beads are purple iris. I thought that was great, cause I have about 100g of purple iris matte beads in my stash, so I decided to work together with those.
I didn't do anything complicated, as 10 gram isn't that much to move around. I wanted to try out peyote stitch with these, or even herringbone but I ended up making a very simple right angle weave bracelet/cuff.
For the last part of the bracelet I added a final row with the 11/0's and some 4mm purple glass beads that I pulled tightly together, to give a ruffled effect to the top and the bottom of the bracelet/cuff to give a fabric feeling to it. For the closure I used an acrylic button that fitted perfectly with the rest of the bracelet/cuff :)

At this point I had actually used up pretty much all of my twin beads, only 15 remained, lol. I felt that I didn't really want to store them away some where since it's such a small amount to be bothered with in the future, so I began on a circular peyote stitch, so see what it could evolve into. After two rows, using 10 beads I added 5 of the same 4mm purple glass pearls I used for the bracelet, and then I used latter stitch to attach the last five twins on top of the 5 twins that already where in the circle. Then I went through the top holes of the new twins and joined them together in a circle and formed an odd beaded bead, lol.
I ended up using some very thin silver-plated chain that I had laying around. Then a head-pin and two of the same 4mm glass pearls again together with this beaded bead and I made a wrapped loop :P
A delicate little necklace is what came out of the very last twins, lol.

Necklace: WYB

Yeh, I know... The name I gave this piece is odd, but I couldn't think of anything then white, yellow and black, hence the odd name which is short for the colors, lol.

So the thing with this piece is that I had this palette in mind for some time. The colors hanging loosely but in the same sequence in different strands. That's why I ended up a multi-strand necklace. It's the very first time I make one of these babies, and while I were designing the idea, I were also pondering how I were going to join the strands together smoothly. At first I had an idea of making some bigger pyramids using ladder and brick stitch, where I would attach the strands.

However, the idea quickly turned, and I wanted to try to make a beaded cone, so I did. I made it using herringbone stitch, after looking at some tutorials on how to make those cute flowers using kinda the same technique.

When I completed the cones I picked up some gold-plated head-pins and attached the strands one by one in the eye of the eye-pin. When I had the amount of strands I wanted, and had them attached to two eye-pins, I used some crafting glue and put it around the threads and the eye of the eye-pin so it would be extra secure.
Then I added each strand into the beaded cones I made earlier, and finished each one of them off with a 4mm glass bead and made a wire wrapped loop and attached some gold-plated jump-rings and a gold plated magnetic clasp.

To be honest, this isn't really anything I think I'm gonna be wearing myself. But since the idea and the mental image that I had about this piece kinda haunted me, I knew I just had to go through with it. I picked up some new experiences while making this necklace so I enjoyed it at the same time :)