Seed Bead Tassels

Seed beads. Don't you just love them. They come in so many various colours, shapes, finishes and sizes. Just makes my mouth water.

Ingredients:
Seed beads of various colours and sizes
Tassels are strung on FireLine beading thread
Brass coloured large acrylic closed rings, light weight
Brass jump rings
Handmade Sterling Silver earring hooks, heavily oxidized

All my best,
Malin

Confetti Hoops

Confetti Hoops

I was captivated by these strands of tiny multicolor lampwork glass rondelles from Indonesia --I grabbed up a pile of them! I wanted to use them all together in a riot of color. I constructed copper hoops for them, with hammered paddles on the end, and strung them on. Because of the paddles, I needed beads with bigger holes to slip over them, and this was the color assortment that sported the biggest holes--I like it! Then I connected the hoops to earwires via recycled glass discs in sea green, and wired little seed beads in robin's egg blue onto the earwires.

I've been in kind of a confetti mood--THIS really appeals to me too, from BabaYagaFashion, a UK shop--oh for the youth and guts to wear it!

Upcycled Skirt at Baba Yaga on Etsy

(I've marked this shop as a favorite, just in case I hit my head really hard whilst falling into the Fountain of Youth, and I emerge dewy and lithe, with the lack of inhibition common to traumatic brain injuries.)

I'm planning to make additional pairs of these earrings sporting different colors, and probably without the glass disc. This was kind of a prototype, to see if it would work. They are fun to make!

(All of the beads in these earrings are from Happy Mango Beads.)

You can see (a very tiny bit) more of my work at my Etsy shop.

Birdies Squared

Birdies Squared

Or maybe even Birdies Cubed! I've been hoarding these beguiling little ceramic cubes from Stinky Dog Beads--I love just about miniature anything and these really tickled my aesthetic funny bone. It took me a while to come up with a design where they'd be really visible. They have large holes, making them perfect for so many of the current design trends (you could thread them right onto a heavy gauge bangle, or slip them easily onto 2mm Greek leather), and also for that reason lend themselves well to this kind of metal link. I hammered some 18-gauge copper wire and made tight loops at each end, that hold the beads in place nicely. I paired them with these sweet little Czech glass birds (also from Stinky Dog), and popped some teal glass beads (I'm in love with these beads!) from AfroBeadia onto the earwires.

You might have noticed I've been doing this extra wrapping lately across the front of larger beads--I love the way it looks but it has the added benefit of keeping those flat beads from turning around on the headpin. That drives me CRAZY. I want those beads to face forward but they don't usually cooperate. Sometimes I can get it wrapped down tight enough to keep them from moving much, but you risk breaking the bead when you do that. This works great!

These got me thinking about exotic birds. Here are some fabulous birds to inspire you!

Blue and Yellow Macaw by Luc Viatour

Green-Headed Tanager by Lars Falkdalen Lindahl

Rainbow Lorikeet by Misty Bushell

Golden Pheasant by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen

(Public domain photos above from Wikimedia Commons.)

Have a fabulous day!

Keirsten
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