Dragonfly Dreams

I'm still busy making a variety of small flowers for earrings rather than concentrating on any large projects at the moment. Life seems to be quite hectic just lately, and so these little projects are still satisfyingly beady but quick enough to fit in around other commitments. I have been branching out with my colour schemes a little too - I'm still using a limited range of colours in each piece (well it just wouldn't be me otherwise would it!) but the colours I have been putting together are a little bit more experimental. I have just finished a pair of earrings I made for myself, I don't often wear my own jewellery despite my friends nagging me to do so, and the inspiration for the colours in these is a pretty top I have - it's a busy mix of teal, turquoise, coral, bright red and yellow green and I absolutely love it.

We are going to a live music concert tomorrow night at the Lowdham book festival to see Show of Hands and so I thought I would wear my favourite top and make myself some coral and teal earrings to go with it. The only beads I had that were a good match to the top were some tiny size 15 seed beads that I once ordered by mistake (I normally work with the slightly larger size 11 seed beads) and so I have been experimenting with petal shapes using the smaller size - a success I think, but my eyes definitely need a break now and my purse is quivering at the thought of me possibly wanting to build up a collection of size 15's! The photo above shows the raw materials and the photo below is of the finished pair of earrings.

It's been a busy week on Etsy this past week too. I was thrilled to find my work in five beautiful treasuries and I created my first treasury too - Dragonfly Dreams. As I understand it, you are not supposed to feature your own work in a treasury that you curate, it is more to acknowledge and promote other Etsy members, so I created my treasury around a dragonfly theme with a mixture of beadwoven pieces from the Etsy Beadweavers team (of which I am a member) and other delightful handmade items I found - a couple of which also use my new favourite coral and teal colour combination! I enjoyed searching through Etsy to find items to fit my theme and discovered lots of wonderful talent in the process and I'm looking forward to 'snagging' a spot for my next treasury which also has a fun theme!

Sun, sea and .... flowers!

Well I had another lovely Bank Holiday weekend and this time I spent it down on Romney Marsh which is where I grew up and where my parents still live. The weather was perfect and as you can see from the photo below, the sea was a gorgeous turquoise colour instead of the usual shade of murky brown! We had a lovely walk along the coast and spend most of the weekend outdoors, just as well we made the most of it as it's hardly stopped raining since we got home!

For the last couple of days I have been experimenting with beading lots of tiny flowers - most of them are less than 2cm(3/4 of an inch) across and are quite fiddly to make. I've used seed beads for some, cylinder beads for others and varied the shapes, sizes and colours. A few have crystal middles, some have silver bead middles, others have tiny rice pearl centres and some are still a 'work in progress' as you can see from the photo. They are very simple flowers but I have several projects in mind for these so I am spending time on them now to get the 'look' right for what I have planned.

I've also turned two silver flowers into a pair of earrings today for a birthday present. These are made with silver-lined Delicas and have a sterling silver frosted bead centre which I have had for ages and have only just got round to using. I've made the earwires too, although I'm not great at wirework (more practice needed I think!) I think the simplicity of these long sterling wires adds to the whole overall effect of 'purity' that I was trying to achieve - I like them ... I think I might even make a pair for myself!