Summer fun with beads!

I got the interesting 4 hole shell bead as a freebee from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads.  I pictured using 3 of the 4 holes for dangles, but the shell bead is a little thick, so the dangles didn't, well, dangle.  So idea number two is to only have two dangles.  The larger glass beads at the bottom of the dangles are left over from a project for my mom - they are clear with a swirl of tan and other earth tones on the inside.  I made loops of clear glass beads, and then used stone rounds, clear glass rounds, and irregularly shaped shell beads for the rest of the necklace.  The cool thing is that the back of the shell bead is brown, so the necklace works in reverse if you want more color.

The red, white and blue bracelet my daughter and I made, which became my first ever blog give away.  I remade the original and added a few small red coral chips because the bracelet seemed a tad snug.  We put our heads together thinking that the same string of beads for the bracelet could be repeated in a fun summer necklace.  I had something else to do - make potato salad for our 4th of July block party maybe - so left Emma (also in a beading frame of mind these days) with two head pins and asked her to see what she could do about earrings - didn't they come out great?  I wore the set to the block party and it was comfortable as well as fun.

So on to summer necklace #3.  This spring I bought a string of dragon fly glass beads - dragon flies I find endlessly fascinating - but I hadn't done anything with them.  My friend gave me the stone donut (from Blue Moon Beads, and the label says "stone donut" - don''t you think bead ingredients should be labeled just like food so we know exactly what we are getting???) and putting the two together using rose copper wire from Parawire seemed to be the right thing to make both more interesting.  I used thicker Parawire to make the bail and also a clasp (thanks again to Kerry Bogert's wonderful book, Totally Twisted, for the ideas).  I had glass pear drop beads that I love stringing like you would center hole beads, and it gives it a fun look without being to thick and heavy. 

But of course, there were more dragon flies to play with.  I had made a simple pendant and chain as an end-of-year gift for Emma's teacher with a turtle shaped bead, so decided to carry that idea further with the dragon flies.  I found a couple bright green beads and a string of olive glass cats eye beads that brought it all together.  For the earrings I made some dangles with the cats eye beads and added some clear blue glass pear drop beads that matched the dragon flies.  I had tried adding some of the pear drops to the necklace, but they didn't seem to "fit" as well. 

Okay - last one - for now :-)   Emma and I were shopping and I found this cute yellow purse at a ridiculous price ($11), thought it would be great for our trip to NYC, and would look cute with the dress I planned to take to wear out to see Wicked.  I have had these funky triangle shaped yellow beads that I haven't done much with, which would tie everything together.  I know, I know, that's just really getting into the weeds, but how often do you go to a show in NYC?  As I was looking for something in black for the necklace I found a handful of faceted round black glass beads and I was set.  I'm happy with how it all looks together and can't wait for our trip.