Bracelets Bracelets Bracelets

I love making them. I love coming up with new designs. I love going through all my beads to figure out just which ones I want to use with the designs. It amazes even me when I see just how different pieces can look when executed in different colorways. And that means there are endless possibilities.

Case in point... A wonderful Etsy customer of mine saw the listing for The Cream in My Coffee, and she sent me a request for the same design done in completely different colors.

So this version... pretty enough in black and offwhite...


morphed into this gorgeous piece, Silver Waves in a Deep Blue Sea. It's hard to believe they're even the same design. And I freely admit that it never would have occurred to me to mix the silver-lined turquoise and silver-lined zircon blue beads for the "deep blue sea" and then offset those with the galvanized silver "waves."


Some other examples of just how different designs can look (these are all my original designs, by the way - sometimes I come up with the colors, sometimes they're special requests - they're always fun!):

On the left, my original version called Retro Pods. On the right, the custom version called Circus Pods.

Or how about these? These are all versions of the same design (Vines). The first one I made is in the upper left corner and is just called Little Vine. I used a dark olive green for the background and made the vines and leaves in cream. Later iterations, Violet Vine, Bittersweet Vine, and Caribbean Vine, all came from my imagination. The newest version, which I named Precious Metals Vine, was created as a custom order. The request was for me to use silver-lined gold and silver-lined crystal beads, something I probably would have never thought of doing with this particular design, and the result is sooooo elegant looking!


I realized after I put together that little assemblage that there's actually another version, but I'm too lazy to go back and redo the mosaic. It's called Copper Vine, but you'll have to check out the listing to see it! :-)

One of my newest designs, Ripples, has only been done in one set of colors so far - RED! Lots and lots and lots of red. Just looking at this piece, I'm sure any readers of this blog know there will be more versions later.

Any suggestions? It's fun to see what colors everyone suggests! One of my favorite pieces, the one I now use as my avatar (Bois Peint) was created because one of my Bead Art Originals friends suggested that my Faux Bois design would look psychadelic if done in multiple colors. Boy, was she right!!!

Now it's time to stop typing and get back to beading. I'm on a deadline!!!