Blow That Horn

Another day, another Etsy treasury for my resin beads.

And another publication:

My "Rainforest Mystery" necklace was published in this month's issue of "Bead Trends" magazine.

It's a very simple design, but that's what I love about it - the bright apple green howlite and intricate detail on the Bali silver beads really pop against the rich background of the wood disk beads.

And now for today's actualy topic. I recently wrote something on the blog that had my resin beads mentioned in the same breath with some really great art beads (ceramic, lampwork, enamel, etc.) and only later did I realize...that was kinda ballsy of me to do that. I mean, there's certainly no comparision in terms of difficulty or skill.

So then I started to wonder...could my li'l resin beads hold up artistically in the company of the "big boys?" And an experiment was born...







I decided to take a resin bead with a fairly traditional design on it - a humble sunflower - and see if it would work with fancier, artsy-fartsy beads. I grabbed some major players to go with it - several different types of lampwork beads and some enamel beads. Then I filled in with stone, Czech glass, Lucite, palm seeds and patinated brass.







And "Sunflower Fields" was born.

Here's my sunflower resin bead at the center.

With some gorgeous lampwork leaves hanging from it. These babies have been in my stash FOREVER (seriously, the lampworker who made them is retired now) and are fumed with a copper patina so they're not just plain glass.

More leaves and some of Barbara Lewis's lovely enameled metal in a nice pumpkin orange color to fit with the fall color scheme of the necklace. There's a purple lampwork spacer there from River Oak Acres (he's on eBay rather than Etsy and is a great source for spacer beads) and a carved yellow rock crystal flower bead.

The other side of the necklace features some pretty speckled Czech glass nuggets that Erin Prais-Hintz sent me from the Bead & Button show, another of Barbara's enameled beads and a pretty green and orange swirl lampwork bead.

In a move of more than my usual blonde-brainedness, I managed to separate that green and orange lampwork bead from the information about where it came from and although I can usually tell just by looking what artist made a certain bead...I'm stumped on this one. I've got it narrowed down to two possibilities. So, if you're reading the blog and YOU made the bead (Kelley W. I'm looking at you), 'fess up so I can give you credit for it.

I added some bright green moonglow Lucite from Black Sheep Beads and a Czech glass sunflower bead.

The top section of the necklace was finished off with some brass bird chain that I found at Michael's.

Had plenty of leftover beads so I decided to make a few pairs of coordinating earrings. This pair is Czech glass sunflowers with the dyed green palm seed rectangles and some bronze seed beads.

For this pair, I took some of the birds off the chain and linked them to the speckled Czech glass nuggets.

For this pair, I mixed some of the yellow crystal flower beads with brass rings and purple lampwork.

Thus concludes my little experiment - what do y'all think?

KJ