Humblebeads Focal Challenge #1 - Horizontal Focal

How me it is to do the #1 challenge on the last day. Bassackward as always, but this particular design has been giving me fits all week. I drove home Monday thinking I had this totally awesome idea for it...then started working on it that night only to discover that hmmm...not so much with the awesomeness as I originally thought.

Plus, in my mental imaginings, I always have the PERFECT thing to finish off a design. Then I crash down to reality when I search through my stash only to discover that I do not, yet, in fact, own every single bead on the planet.

But I will. Oh yes, one day, I will have them ALL and...

Whoops! Did I say that out loud?

Never mind.

Anyway, this is about the 4th iteration of this design and I took it apart and redid it basically each night this week (see, THIS is why I don't normally re-do things...I get obsessed with it having to be PERFECT and pretty soon I'm bent over my worktable at 2 AM with wild hair and shaking hands and red eyes and I'm cackling to myself and it's a bad scene all around), but I think I FINALLY aced it.

However, that meant taking pictures at dawn this morning so the photos are...not that great. The sun was up, but there was a touch of fog so it wasn't quite as light as I had hoped for. But, after suffering over this silly thing all week, there was no way a little fog was going to keep me from getting it posted today.

Eh, voila!

I sort of turned the challenge around (which I hope is okay) and instead of beading across a horizontal centerpiece, I used a focal that was ALREADY horizontal and beaded around it.

Initially, I thought this brass leaf component would be really easy to design around, but for some reason, it was really difficult for me. I tried lots of different ideas about wire-wrapping the center section or trying to have a bird charm dangling above the branch and oh, a whole ton of other things that didn't work out. Then, I found this beautiful dichroic glass leaf in my stash and the muse finally decided to cooperate instead of wandering around in a drunken stupor which is what she usually does.

I took several different shots of the leaf trying to really capture the light, color and sparkle of it. I desperately wish I could remember the name of the artist, but all I can remember right now is that I bought it (and several others) at Brea Beadworks about a year ago.

Okay, I may be a bit obsessed with the leaf. Moving on.

The sides of the necklace are brass chain with peridot and amethyst chips woven through the links. The purple and green pick up the colors in the dichroic leaf centerpiece.

And one last picture of the whole piece. Y'know, for something that, at one point, I wanted to throw on the ground and jump up and down on top of in frustration, I'm REALLY happy with the way it turned out. The colors are gorgeous and the gemstones and art bead both really glow.

I'm calling it "I Heard it Through the Grapevine."

KJ