Kelley's Bead No. 1

Today I finished my first piece using one of the fabulous beads Kelley Wenzel of Kelley's Bead Studio sent me. Her bead is a plump egg shape, mostly clear with a graceful swirl of diaphanous sandy ribbons inside. The "ribbons" inside Kelley's bead reminded me of the web-like pattern of sand-colored veining in aqua terra jasper, and I thought her glassy clear bead would be a nice contrast to the opaque and semi-matte jasper.



I thought an asymmetrical necklace would work best, as I thought the visual weight of the lampwork bead could carry one whole side of the necklace by itself, and giving it its own space would make the most of it.



I used the last of my most recent batch of copper bead caps, more aqua terra jasper in big 12mm rounds, a little amazonite roundel on the lampwork side to bring the sea green into that side, and four strands of Ornamentea's fabulous "borneo" rolo chain in copper. The little fluorite round was mostly added as a spacer to get it to the length I wanted, but I think it looks nice. Turned out to be about 17 and 1/2" inches. The length is a bit of a challenge, because you have to remove even numbers of links when using double strands of the rolo chain, as the links alternate orientation.



I don't know which of Kelley's beads I will use next. I'm really drawn to the one (see two posts ago) with the swirls of mauve, lavender and green on a sand background. I'm ALL about sand right now. Probably because it's winter and I despise winter. Winter is seven months long in Montana. Summer is one month long. Spring and fall are just minor variations on winter. I live in Montana for complex psychological reasons I am not even going to begin to try to unravel (i.e., my Mommy lives here).

OK, time to make more bead caps. I am SO not in shape for that kind of thing right now.

It's Not Nice to Plagiarize Mother Nature

Tom and I were sitting by Flathead Lake this weekend and I was seized with a fit of creativity and had a relapse of my childhood rock fetish. Most of the mountain lakes, and the rivers around here lie over and are surrounded by the most astounding assortments of tumbled river rock, in wonderful, smooth shapes and vivid colors. Up til recently, most of my jewelry designs have been largely monochromatic and tone-on-tone, or at least in the same color family. I LOVE that look. I haven't really been enticed into making multicolor pieces. But, once again, Lorelei Eurto (this is getting broken record-y, got to find a new minor deity artistic inspiration) has broadened my horizons. She had this nifty little bracelet on Facebook in pinks and oranges (I'd put a picture here but I think she sold it), and I thought, Eureka, it CAN be done. Of course a lot of her stuff is multicolor, I just wasn't willing to see it yet.

So as I looked at these rocks, I saw color combinations that I wouldn't have considered before. And I thought, this could be a really fun way to explore new palettes for jewelry pieces. I started collecting the best specimens and brought them home and photographed them in different combinations. Granted there's some colors missing (fuschia, lime, any shade of blue, etc.), but there was an amazing assortment of muted tones (a dearth of cool colors, alas). These are some of my favorite combinations:











And lastly my compulsive ode to tone-on-tone.


I feel inspired, although I still have a mental block about cool colors. And pink and purple. I hate pink and purple. I used those pink and purple rocks out of sheer iron will and discipline. Keep loving those fall colors...I should get a house on Mars.