Friday, February 8, 2013

Sick of looking at the snow? Heres some sunshine for you!

Here comes the sun, (insert music here), here comes the sun... I say.. its alright (more music here).  Sorry, just burst into song sitting here in my office writing this.  It snowed a bunch last night (yay! snow day!) so I thought I would take some time to update again with another piece. 
 
Last years popular color was tangerine tango, so I wanted to make something monotone in orange.  I used to love orange when I was younger, but alas, growing up made me turn into one of those people that says, "I don't wear orange and neither does anyone else I know, so why is it the years most popular color?"

If you agree with me on that, maybe this necklace will make you like orange a little bit more?  I found some great orange Swarovski stones, the large round crystal is actually called Summer Blush, and the 2 smaller squares were Madeira Topaz. And even better, they looked great with the Swarovski top-drilled Hyacinth beads, and the 4mm round Hyacinth beads (also Swarovski) that I had stashed away after buying them from a bead store closing, long ago.  So I pulled together some seed beads, delicas, and bugles, and stumbled upon this design.
I wanted the focal to be asymmetrical (because I was trying to step out of my comfort zone), so I played with different combinations until this grabbed me! 
The top-drilled crystals always look better as a fringe or drop, so I thought I would try out some netting with them, all I needed was a base row to work from.  So I dug around through some of my books, and came across a necklace in the book Beaded Collars by Julia S. Pretl that had a great base row with bugles that I loved!  And of course the netting hung off of it beautifully, so it was a winner!
At that point, all that was needed was the clasp, so I whipped up a peyote circle, and made a toggle bar with the bugles in the same pattern as the base row.  So now that its done, Ill admit its not half bad color-wise,  and Ive even worn it once (because I do have an orange skirt hiding in my closet that comes out at least once a year in the fall) and received compliments! 
So maybe there are more people out there who are just still in the closet about liking orange, they just need to be stimulated (like me)!