Lisa Lodge of Pine Ridge Treasures is again hosting a challenge. This time it is themed seed bead explosion. Since I love working with seed beads I jumped at the chance. I am really enjoying working with the new two hole beads. I chose kit B which turned out to be blue and clear.

The only things I added from my stash were the large blue faceted glass bead in the focal and the silver plated toggle. I used the clear two hole tiles, size 11 matte AB, and light blue size 6 beads to bezel the royal blue faceted bead. Then I stitched 3 bead picots around the edge. I added fringe on the bottom of the focal. The straps are made with the same beads as the focal. I wanted to keep it simple and let the beads be the stars and I tried to only use the beads that were in my kit. I hope that you like my design. Thanx Lisa for another fun challenge. To see what the other participants made please click the link below https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.1629113500663457&type=1

Hi, I have not posted in a while so I am doing that now. The necklace in the pic above is featured in the online magazine "Creative Spark" summer 2015 issue.  Here is a link so you can see all of the wonderful designs in the magazine http://joom.ag/kB1p It is a magazine showing the work of the http://znetshows.com/ designers. The section I am in is called upcycled. This necklace is made with a vintage teal coat button as the start of the focal. A Czech button is glue on top of it and then I bezeled them with seed beads. The straps of the necklace are made with cultured sea glass from znetshows that have white seed beads between them. A seaglass teardrop finishes the bottom and a gold plated toggle is the closure. I also made earrings to go with the necklace. I used concave coins in two sizes for these. If you would like to see the cultured sea glass that znetshows has for sale here is the link http://www.znetshows.com/gemshow/retail/sea_glass_beads.asp

This is the second necklace that is featured in "Creative Spark" summer 2015. I started with one of my forks that had the silver plating worn away from some of the tines. I cut it off and drilled holes in the handle to make this focal. With the help of some lovely olive cultured sea glass squares, wavy silver disc beads, black O beads, and ball end headpins I was in business. I hung a sea glass teardrop from the bottom. One of znet's two hole silver beads became the bail. The straps are made with round sea glass, black square sea glass spacers and silver bicones, all from znetshows. A silver toggle completes this necklace. I made earrings to go with it. I enjoy this kind of upcycling.

My third necklace started as a vintage copper wall sculpture. A friend gave it to me and said that the leaves were too large to use. I simply cut the leaves into three pieces and they were the perfect size to use as the frame for my soft green sea glass leaf form znetshows. I made  three kinds of links for this necklace. The first uses 8mm olive jade cubes and 4mm adventurine cubes from znetshows. The second is  made with tree agate tubes and small crystal rondelles. Link number three is coiled 20 gauge magnetic copper wire. A pair of copper jump rings hold all of the links together.  If you would like to know more about magnetic copper wire you can read what I wrote about it in "Creative Spark." I really enjoy working with the beautiful sea glass and other components that http://znetshows.com/
has to offer. If you would like to try your hand at working with some of the sea glass please click any of the links in this post. They really are very reasonably priced and fun to work with.