Spring, in beads and the garden

These are some of the pansies in pots around my garden.   I plant pansies in pots in the fall and they usually winter over pretty well.  This year, because our winter was so mild, they have done really well.  So well in fact that some of them are pot bound now!  But, they look so pretty, and add so much color to the awakening garden!   I love pansies and they are available in wonderful colors and combinations of colors.

Like these beauties.

They look luminous, don't they?  And, you won't be surprised to know that I always buy orange pansies in the fall.  I love them and pair them with purple, yellow, deep blue or the black ones that are available before Halloween.  I love the way they look in the spring, as a harbinger of the brightness to come in summer.  Here are some of the orange ones that I have in a pot out my kitchen window.

I just love them!

But, all this spring beauty  in the garden has inspired my beading too.  I made this bracelet based on a design I had seen in one of the beading magazines several years ago.  I don't remember which magazine it was, and I adapted the design to fit my taste, but I really love it.

As I recall, the original had rectangular pieces which then had beads strung inside.  I found these oval mother of pearl components at Michael's last year and decided I could use them in this kind of a design.  They look dark in this picture but they are actually a soft turquoise.  I gathered up odds and ends of flower beads, leaf beads, crystals and seed beads and went to work creating a garden in each oval. I strung the ovals and then worked back using fringe stitch in each oval.  I had so much fun creating this bracelet.  It was fun to make and it's fun to wear.  I feel I  have my garden on my wrist when I wear it! Here's a close up of one of the ovals.

This was a fun bracelet to make.  I had come in from working in the garden and I really wanted to continue the gardening with my beads. 

I'm off to work on the last of my Beading Babes projects and finish up my project for Amy's blog hop next week!

I hope you have a wonderful day.  Thanks for stopping by.