Enchanted Forest

So, about a month ago, I bought this lovely set of beads from Sue Beads on Etsy:

I took them with me on the trip to the desert (pictures of that to come in a future entry) in early April and I was lucky enough to have the time to create this:

This piece is a bit different for me because I normally like to surround lampwork beads (especially really outstanding ones like these) with fairly simple designs so that the beads can really stand out. That was my initial plan for this set as well, but when I started playing around, I just got carried away and kept adding more and more and more beads and, well, three strands of beads later, I had "Enchanted Forest."

The beads I used include: faceted smoky quartz rounds, Swarovski crystals in indicolite and light topaz, Swarovski pearls in Tahitian blue, some really cool Czech glass ovals in an olive/brown mottled color that look like real stones, green garnet rondelles, mother of pearl round beads, Bali vermeil spacers and 2mm gold-filled round beads. Indecision as a successful design technique? Yep. I'm going with that.

I sent Sue a copy of the finished piece and, fortunately for me, she liked it and posted it on her blog (which is really great and has lots of eye candy so you should definitely check it out).

I bought these beads from Sue as well:

But, as is typical for me, I haven't done anything with them but add them to my hoard yet.

Bead hoarders unite!

Okay, that's it for now.

Kelly