new bracelets

This weekend I did a lot of beading but on Sunday I took a little break from flowers and made these two bracelets.  The one on the left was already half made…I had bought those tiny lampwork beads over a year ago at Bead Soup in Long Grove and loved the way they all looked together.  It just took me a while to realize that I wanted to pair it with brass, copper, and tourquois.  I think it turned out really well.  The tiny bit of copper as the mandrel in the wire wrapping brings out some of the pinks in the lampwork.
The second bracelet on the right is my new fave.  I even wore it to work today to break it in, and every time I saw it on me it made me happy.  I love bracelets that are a mish mash of different beads.  I’ve always had trouble finding the right beads to go together and finding the right simple accent beads so it doesn’t look too mish mashed.  I always see these kinds of bracelets made by stringing.  The only bracelets I wear right now are my bangle like bracelets with a hard wire mandrel.  So I was excited to decide that this was the way to go.  The beads themselves took a while to come up with.  Toward the center is a large green bead that is carved, this is one of the Jade beads Miranda brought back from Hong Kong for me.  It was my fave out of the bunch and I immediately knew I wanted to make it a bracelet.  The large off white bead is a piece of carved bone.  There are some beads I picked up at the B+B show last year.  And what really sealed the deal is discovering that two of the lampwork beads my friend Misty had made worked perfectly.  The bright blue one on the right and the green one w/ red dots are both her beads.  And they really make the whole bracelet perfect. 
I guess I needed a small break from flowers for a bit b/c then today I got right back in there and made some decisions regarding a flower I’d been thinking about for ages.  I’m not sure if what I decided will work but at least I’m at the stage of trying just to see.  I’ve also kinda been in the bracelet mood.  I’d been searching etsy lately and found these lampwork beads made from recycled wine bottles.  For some reason I just think that is the coolest thing ever.  I couldn’t get them out of my head for over a week so this weekend I placed the order.  I can’t wait to get them and see what I do.  I know I definitely want to make a couple bracelets out of them.  So maybe these bracelets were just warm ups!

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