Playing with beads

The Bead and Button Show is on May 27 through June 8, but this year I won’t be able to attend.

I would love to take Brenda Schweder’s Jig workshops, but time- and money-wise it’s not feasible to travel to Milwaukee this year.

Instead, I am perusing the beads I picked up last year for new projects.  The Yellow Agate chunky beads from Ayla’s Fall Bead Bazaar inspired a new set.

I love the uneven shapes and the marbled patterns. Playing with the shapes and wrapping steel wire around them to create earrings and two pendants was fun.

Two other strands caught my eye, the chunky glass beads I also obtained at Ayla’s Fall Bead Bazaar and the purple coral from A Bella Bead in Glen Ellyn.

The purple coral became a pair of earrings, and I’ll likely add a pendant and a bracelet to match.

The glass beads have such cheerful colors that were fun to sort.

I liked playing with different designs based on how the beads coordinated themselves. First I just strung some beads on a wire the traditional way.

These asked for the classic oval cage design.

Then I kept wrapping around it until the wire was up.

The angular beads asked for a triangular shape.

Then I wrapped around them more.

Fiddling with wire gauges and bending the beads into clusters is very organic.

This cluster wrapped itself into a rectangular shape.

It is fun to watch the pieces catch the light.

Dirty hands make me feel accomplished.

Being a matchy-matchy person, I added earrings to the mix as well.

I still have plenty of beads to make a bangle bracelet.

I also made Amazonite earrings to go with the collar and bangle set I have up on Etsy.

These newbies will be loaded onto Etsy after my pop-up shop on May 30 at Creative Coworking.

‘Heart’ your favorites on Etsy!