Buttoned Up Beads Extra

Almost October already – how can that be? It seems like only yesterday I was planning my summer holidays and here we are charging headlong into autumn. So it is that I welcome you to another reveal for the AJE Component of the month challenge ( full details here) this month featuring these lovely copper pieces from Kristi Bowman which she calls goddess vessels.

The component I chose to work with was the white copper piece in the centre of the top row and I have to admit it did give cause me some headaches trying to come up with a design. For some reason I struggled for a while to find beads in a shape or colour that I felt worked well and then when I did find something I liked for a bracelet I didn’t have enough beads to do what I wanted to – argh! At one point I got quite quite stroppy, shut the door on the studio and went off to sulk.

But then 10 minutes later an idea popped into my brain to make some chain links that mirrored the shape of the focal and after playing around for a bit I hit on something I liked using steel wire. So all I had to do was find some beads to go with them and there they were sitting on my bead table – a new delivery of Czech glass flowers from Buttoned Up Beads Extra. The lovely blue of the beads went really well with the colour of the metal and the result of the combination is this necklace called ‘Blue Steel”

It has quite a minimalist urban feel which I love… the strong contrast of the two colours and the way the flowers, despite being very cool in colour add a certain softness appeals to me.

I played around with the positioning of the beads for a while, in the end opting for an asymmetrical format. The piece is finished with black brass chain and the focal is embellished with a little crystal and silver charm to balance the asymmetry.

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out in the end and it just goes to show that it pays to take a break when your muse isn’t playing ball.

Thanks to Kristi for providing this months challenge and to you for visiting this post today – please now join me in seeing what the rest of the AJE team and our guest have made with their components using the links below.

Lesley

Guests

AJE Team Members

Jenny Davies-Reazor
Sue Kennedy