Sue Beads

This month, the Component of the Month for the Art Jewelry Elements team was by Niky Sayers - she sent us fun farthing clasps!  I love her work - you can find her jewelry etsy store here - and her coponent store here - and was thrilled with the clasp. As usual, I forgot to take a photo of it on it's own before I started making something, so here's Niky's photo!

And here's the one I received!


When I received it in the mail, I knew I wanted to make the clasp the centerpiece, and wanted to have a multi-strand bracelet.  I immediately thought of making many strands of seed beads and went to work looking on etsy for some beads that appealed to me.  I finally settled on the set here - they are called Olive Picasso Travertine and I purchased them from Beachartz on etsy.

 So, as I made the bracelet, I decided that three strands were probably enough, given the size of the beads and the size of the clasp, and the size of my time! So, in general, I like the bracelet and would wea…

Today is the day for another reveal for the AJE Component of the Month!  This month, Francesca Watson provided us with her wonderful dichroic glass cabochons.  She gave us the choice of having them in cabochon form, or drilled.  Here are the very tempting choices she gave us!


I chose the blue cabochon on to top second to the right.  I decided to keep mine a cabochon. 

 It is really hard to photogragh all the gorgeous dichroic colors that are in this cabochon.  My first idea was for me to do a beaded bezel with it.  Between visiting my 92 year old grandfather in Florida for a week, and a quick little getaway to Baltimore with my boyfriend, and Bead Fest prep, it just did not happen.
My second idea, then, was put a bail on this cab, and do a beaded necklace.  Not too fancy, just a wire wrapped one with my own lampwork beads as accents.  That did not happen either.  I wasn't at all happy with that idea, and just about gave up.  It just wasn't going to do the cab justice.

 Finall…