Late Entry to La Bella Joya's Margie and Me

The awesome beader behind La Bella Joya has been working her way through the book (I am 99% sure this is the one) The Beader's Color Palette by Margie Deeb.  She picks one of Margie's color inspirations every week and challenges anyone who is up for it to join her in designing something that works with the color palette of the inspiration piece.

The results have been awesome - love the pendants and rings from La Bella Joya - but this weeks challenge really spoke to me.  It's the blues and golds from the Ishtar Gate that are the inspiration.  Here is a look at the full gate now in a museum in Berlin and a close up of the lions:

Pretty cool huh?  I love blue and gold together.  But here is another reason why this challenge appealed to me.  The gate originally was part of ancient Babylon, which is just south of Baghdad in modern Iraq.  Not so long ago I spent a year in modern Iraq - although I was stationed in Northern Iraq (Kirkuk).


Although I spent most of this week out of town and tied to my lap top because I needed to get my photographic act together, I didn't put anything together until tonight.  So pardon the no-natural-light-available-at-11 PM picture (translation - craptastic!), but here is my necklace as inspired by the Lions on the Gates of Ishtar:  UPDATE:  Here is a better picture from this afternoon:
The necklace is a mixed bag of stuff I had on hand.  Strand 1 is gold foiled lined glass beads and some gold toned spacers and sun-shaped flat gold metal beads.  Strand 2 is oblong dark blue glass "stick" beads that have gold glitter swirls and some gold accent beads. Strand 3 is three blue glass beads, center one has those gold swirls again, some gold metal bead caps, gold/bronze beads and dark blue fresh water pearls.  The strands are attached to simple jump rings on each end and fastened with a gold s-shaped clasp.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

5 Comments

  1. Marcie Abney CarrollAugust 15, 2010 at 7:54 AM

    It's awesome! I love it! The colors are amazing and it fits perfectly with the theme! I'm off to update my blog post! Thanks for playing along this week, I'll be picking the new one tomorrow!

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  2. UnknownAugust 15, 2010 at 11:37 AM

    This is so pretty! Nice job!

    Hugs

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  3. Marcie Abney CarrollAugust 16, 2010 at 8:05 AM

    I just zoomed in, and I really do love this piece, you so captured the spirit. Thanks again for joining me in my challenge Elisabeth. I think it's awesome to see how people can interpret things differently.

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  4. AnonymousNovember 8, 2012 at 4:38 PM

    How can I have one?

    ReplyDelete
  5. S.B.K.June 1, 2016 at 2:01 AM

    I think this is beautiful. I own it and absolutely love it.

    ReplyDelete

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