Dotty Pebbles!

I have been having a little fascination with these pebble beads recently. Ive made three different sets using the same technique and I don't think it's out of my system yet!

It's quite neat as you use 3 colours only (in this case Turquoise, Black and bright Red) Then you use them in rotation to make a set of encased beads. 

I love the way the ringed dots 'float' on the surface of the clear and give the bead more depth and shine.

Here's the whole set!

I loved the shape of this pendant. A lovely cylinder with curved edges!

 

Here's the brightly coloured chunky pendant. It looks stunning on the wrist!

This was the alternative pendant. A more characteristic pebble shape with a bit more texture on the outside!

This one was the one everyone fell in love with. The colours are Ivory, Stone and Ebony! It looks very classy on the wrist!

(close up)

And the other thing I did was to add a beaded extender - so it can be worn as a necklace! Clever eh?

The last one for today was made around the time that Princess Charlotte was born. This bracelet is made up with a pure sterling silver clasp and findings and it's good old patriotic Red, White and Blue!

Thank you for reading my blog - feel free to suggest more 'three colour options' for more sets like this!! I think I will be making more!!! ;-) xx

Bluebell Walk..

So just a few sunny days ago, I took the most glorious walk around the woodland trails at Cliveden which is a National Trust treasure of a place near me.

The woodland was full of these beauties. The air was so fragrant with their scent; it was quite magical!

I was captivated by the colour of the bluebells the mauve and blue tones merged almost imperceptibly but still I was aware of the two lovely colours and the many shades of those colours that made the bluebells so stunning.

Just had to try to capture the colour, depth and shading with the glass! I used layers of lilac, dark lavender, light blue transparent, intense blue transparent and touches of Thomson enamels, CIM jellyfish and crocus plus a bit of periwinkle opaque glass. I knew that in some frequencies of light the dark lavender and crocus changed the way it came across.

It sometimes looks mauve/pink and in other lights looks completely blue/grey.

This in the set under tungsten light. you can clearly see the gradation in the middle bead from lavender to pink, but in the next picture on the  the same bead looks completely lilac. It's the same bead..Funny isn't it?

I was very pleased with them - so much so, that these little ones are keepers!!!
I know...... naughty aren't I ;-) ?

Here are some more glossy photos. But in order to light them up properly I had to use my studio lights which meant that some of the pink tones were lost. Anyone who has some really good camera knowledge could maybe tell me how I could have done it better and managed to retain the pinker hue?

(Incidentally, I also tried to photograph them in sunlight and a more dull natural light, but the vivid pinky mauve only seems to be visible with a yellower tungsten bulb.. I don't really understand why...)

Here they are individually:

This one was pinky mauve on the inside with a tiny dusting of enamel on the surface and the bobbly one was pinker inside and blue on the outside to get the dual tone.

I love the sparkly one below. It also has two layers. You can see as the light passes through it that the pinker/mauve shines through.

..And here they all are on bracelet with the photo that inspired them:

 I hope you enjoyed reading the blog
Thank you x

Hot Hot Hot!

This is going to be a really quick and snappy one!

I just wanted to get these little beauties logged onto the blog. The photos came out so great and the colours really pop!

Recently I've been working on my pinks and purples for a project and just had to do a set of simple charm beads that used the entire colour range!

I just love them all....

Something Blue...

Making special sets for special occasions is something I love to get the chance to do...

This week I have had a great project on the go, making a set of charm beads and a matching pendant to go with an outfit for a wedding in July. I love doing the real one-offs and getting deep down into what is desired for the occasion.

Here is the dress...
She is going to team it with a very light silver grey shawl or cardi and shoes in the same colour.  It will look very elegant...

My lady wanted to bring out the bright cornflower/electric blue colour that is apparent on little patches in the pattern of the fabric and have a statement set of beads made especially for the day.

Here are some inspirational pictures from nature that show off this wonderful colour...

Of course there are delicate cornflowers, electric lightning bolts, the iridescent blue on butterfly's wings or beetle's wing cases. I wanted to try to create all the energy that this colour evokes with glass...

So I started to focus on the colours within the colour...

There's actually not one 'colour' here at all; there is a mixture of lighter bright turquoise electric blue, which then merges into bright electric purple at times and fades down into the deepest navy.


I needed to make the beads 'pop' in the same way and utilise these nuances of colour within the glass to bring the beads alive..

  

Here are a few close ups. 

The wrap bead is the darkest of them all but the pure clear wrap allows the light in a bit. It has a flow about it and it has great tactility.


This one on the right is a kind of speckled design. I liked it because it also lets the light burn through but in a different way... There are 3 different shades of blue in this one!

This is the flower petal one.

Not really a cornflower, but still, so delicate and graceful..
















I'm loving these silver droplet ones at the moment...

This one is all about electric currents and energy.

This one is my fave!

Made with that glorious silver glass again and a very light blue encasement! This one is a bit 'under-the-sea' ish.

And now for the pendant!

I definitely got that lush water-mouthy feeling when I got this one out of the kiln and straight away said to my customer that if she didn't want this one,  there was no trouble as I would have it myself!!! (...But unfortunately, she loved it straightaway too!!)

The  beautiful swirls of colour are dreamy. It's about 3 cm in diameter.

I made it so that she cold wear it on her Trollbead necklace, so it has a 4mm silver core like a regular charm bead but it is oh so much bigger...

This type of bead makes a real statement on the Trollbead necklace. They are so unusual. Guaranteed to catch the eye! Very versatile too; as they sit quite comfortably on ribbon or simply strung on cord or leather when one fancies a change..

The close up here shows the pendant in all it's glory.

And here are the charm beads on the charm bracelet with some silvers too..

As always thank you very much for reading the blog x