Finally...

I've finally finished my Artbead Blog Partner project for the Spring!   Yes, you read that correctly, the Spring!  The last few months have been so busy for my family.  We've had a wonderful time, and the memories we have created will be always with us.  But, I didn't have a lot of time to bead, or do much of anything else.  Well, it seems that now those lazy, crazy days of summer have set in and I'm finding myself with time to bead, sew and garden.  So, now I can present my interpretation of the theme for this go-round of the Blogger Program, "What's Old is New Again". 

Yep, two projects.  After all, it took me so long to get the time to work on the project that I thought I should have something to show for it!  Actually, my original design changed after I ordered my beads and I found I had a lot left over, so I thought I would make a bracelet and a necklace! 

As I said, the theme this time was "What's Old is New Again". We were asked to use something vintage, or vintage looking, with new beads and crystals.  I had been wanting to use a vintage lucite belt buckle my friend Kathy had given me and also some vintage German buttons I'd had in my stash for a while.  I was planning to use the buckle as the focal and, originally, going to have fringe coming off of it, but when I started working the design became very Art Deco in feel.  The peyote stitched bands attached to each other with Delicas gave a very geometric look to the buckle. A large amount of fringe, my original idea, didn't seem to fit the look I was getting.  That was fine with me because I love Art Deco and the buckle's design had elements of the geometric details often found in Art Deco pieces.  But, that meant that I wanted an end product that had the clean lines of Art Deco fashion.  I had chosen some of the newer Swarovski pendants to play off the idea of old versus new.  So, I decided to hang the larger one, the 28mm Aquiline Pendant, from the bottom of the buckle and use the 20mm Avant-Garde pendant as a togggle closure.  I liked that idea a lot, so I proceeded to design the strap to hold it all together.  As I said, I ordered some newer beads to play up the theme.  The new Tila beads are fun to work with, and they are some of the newest beads available.  So, I use them with seed beads and some fire polished 4mm beads to create a strap.  I loved the finished necklace.  But, I had lots of beads left over and I didn't want to not use them.  So, I decided to make a freeform bracelet with the leftovers and the German buttons I ended up not using in the necklace.  I used my last Swarovski pendant, an 18mm Aquiline Pendant, for a closure and just let the beads and buttons go where they wanted.  I had the added thematic result of freeform, a relatively new beadweaving technique, with vintage buttons incorporated. 

I'm really pleased with the results, even though it took me so long to get here.  I thank Duchess from Artbeads for being so understanding.  

Here are some details:



We're supposed to name our pieces and so I named the bracelet "...and all that jazz"  because freeform reminds me of jazz!  And, the necklace ended up seeming rather stately to me, so I named it "Manderly" because as I put the finishing touches on it, the novel "Rebecca" came into my mind. 

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.  My statements about these products are an honest assesment and I receive no compensation from Artbeads for my endorsement.