Yes it's time for my fourth Prima product of the month post. You may remember that for our first assignment everyone in the group was asked to create something using items from the Stainless Steel Elegance collection, the second challenge involved Prima's Kumihimo range and last month we were all sent 'Tis the Season products. This month was a bit different as all the team members were sent a fun questionnaire to enable the folks at Prima to hand pick our October products and tailor them more towards our likes and strengths. It will come as no surprise to you to learn that I may have mentioned 'beads' once or twice in my answers and so when my box arrived I was pleased to see that it contained lots of seed beads together with a few sweet little charms and some unusual black findings. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the first three challenges, I had to brush up on some almost forgotten techniques and learn some new ones in order to keep up, so it was nice just to be able to bead this time. Apart from the beautiful colours of seed beads, the first thing that caught my eye was a little seahorse charm and so I mixed it with some silver-lined teal seed beads from Prima and added a few pearls from my stash and a little piece of cream organza ribbon to create 'The Mermaid's Assistant'. I intended this to be a whimsical little item that you could hang in a window, or perhaps on the rear-view mirror of a car, as the seaweed drapes beautifully around the seahorse's head and the little basket of pearls swings freely from the tail, but you could always add a chain and wear it as a necklace.
Next I pulled a hank of pre-strung seed beads out of the box. These were already nicely arranged in sections of two different coloured pinks with purple and they would look great simply strung as they were, but instead I took my scissors to the strands and separated the beads into piles of the same colour. Then I brick stitched three little hearts and added a connector to the front of each one to create Love, Faith and Hope Pins.
By then the end of the month deadline was approaching but I wanted to make sure that I used those black findings in something. So I quickly whipped up a couple of little herringbone flowers with the black seed beads Prima sent me, added a red crystal to the tip of each one as a contrast and hung them from black jump rings and earwires. I just had enough time left to make a matching bracelet by attaching a smaller flower to a length of black chain. I then added a clasp and lots of decorative dangles made from the head pins, jump rings and the remaining crystals and seed beads to make Fiery Nights bracelet and earrings set.
So that's it for another month! I have no idea what the 'product of the month' will be for November but Prima Bead has a huge range of products so let's wait and see!
See you next time!
Kerrie ♥
