It's been awhile

I'd like to preface this by saying that having to take accounting classes is by far the worst thing to ever happen to my ability to blog. It eats up all my time, it's hard, it makes me cry. Thus, this review is long-over due and I am going to post it even though I am stuck on the design!

The theme this time was all about winter, and so I decided I would try a multi-strand necklace for it. For the outer strand, I envisioned little snowflakes wired on to circles and the inner portions would contain chain and wire strung with seed beads.

Well, I finished the other strand and I'm pretty sure I've used some of everything I ordered. Here's what I started with:

• My own blue seed beads
• Blue crystals
• A toggle clasp
• Bicone crystals in blue and clear
• Clear, faceted glass
• Copper rings
• Snowflake links

I have a bit of an obsession with glass beads, especially the selection offered at Artbeads. Yet, somehow, I always end up drifting back to the familiar. With the exception of the graphic crystals I have used every other glass bead before. I love the shapes, the sizes, and the affordability as well as the flexible. They word well with a variety of other products and look well with many textures and colors and shapes. I mean this for all of the glass beads pictured here. They're absolutely fabulous. Go buy them right now.

The newer things to me were the copper parts. I've never used rings before, though I wanted to, and the snowflakes seemed perfect for winter: that's my favorite part (unless I have to leave the house). The rings are beautiful. You'll see a good picture in a moment. They're light without being too light and have a gorgeous texture and a dark tint. I abhor shiny copper. It's bright and obnoxious like gold. This dark color adds some depth and good contrast to the lighter blues and whites.











The snowflake, pewter, copper-plated links were the only things that really gave me trouble. I love them overall - they're durable and pretty - but I had a harm time putting eyepins in so I could use them how I wanted to. That's how they started. Then I thought to myself, "Gee, that looks really hideous. How can I fix this?"

It took a bit of thought and a lot of experimenting, during which time I started to get really mad at the remaining links, but this is what I ended up with. I'm rather proud of how they came out and, to be perfectly honest, I think it was worth the struggle I had with the small holes on the links.

That's much better, right? The circles were easy to wrap once I had the eyepin hooked onto the snowflake.

In the end, this is how things ended up:

Now I'll just add a few more shots so you can see the details better.

And that's the first part of what will likely take many hours to finish after all the summer booths are over with.

I have more new items to add tomorrow after I go see my accounting tutor. Only five weeks left of this class!

(Let's go ahead and put the legal stuff here, shall we? I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received the above pictured items free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in these photos was bought and paid for by me from other locations.)