Nopal Bracelet

The Nopal or Prickly Pear Cactus is in full bloom outside of my Arizona Studio window. It's a distraction as I keep admiring the new flowers that open each morning. Since I still had the hot (red/orange/yellow) palette of beads on my work table, an idea surfaced to bead a Nopal bracelet with Mother Nature's wonderful color combinations.

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Let's see, start with the flower..... Make petals with the idea of joining them together in a centerpiece. Somehow that just became too structured for me so I switched to a free form peyote technique and incorporated the petals into the form.
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Next I picked up the beautiful purple and green of the unopened flower buds for the strap. I love the way that different sized beads undulate along the length of the strap. Next I went back and added more beads and detail to the flower.

This bracelet most certainly will be noticed as the flower fills the top of the wrist and sits halfway up my hand. I'm very pleased with the way the bracelet finished up, however it is much more tropical than "cactus flower' looking. Seldom does a design come out exactly as I see it in my mind's eye and I am often surprised with the final results.

a Bead Cave & Bits of Creativity

I spent last weekend at a bead cave

(read that as an adult women's slumber party with beads!)

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I was to teach other members how to do wire wrapped bead charms and a bottle cap bracelet.

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The day before the cave I was in a Dollar General store and ran across these unique key chains with large plastic drop beads. The light bulb went on.....

A bottle cap key ring might be quicker to do to learn the technique - voila, they came out fantastic..... .

I have an instruction set for sale on www.bead-patterns.com if anyone has an inclination to apply it to making a key ring - it's here.

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My sample is on the right; next is Helen's Angel
key ring and Crystal's Beadtrekers ring.
They are lightweight and have a nice muted
sound to them. Didn't they come out awesome?



I had fun exploring what happens when you increase and decrease bead sizes in even count peyote. Crystal came down for the cave from outside Phoenix AZ and taught us how to make a shell bracelet. As I had just grabbed beads, not planned the beads to bring, I had to improvise.

However I like the way it came out. I think I might make another shell-type bracelet using some colors from Mother Nature's palette. The large Nopal Cactus is blooming outside my beadroom window and the orange I used in the original bracelet is close to the bloom color - now to add some yellow, green and deep purple.....

I seem to be in a rut with this hot colorway. I've designed a bead crochet wedge that is a dimensional elongated triangle. I have hopes that it will pull up into a large circle once I've crocheted it. I can see how it should look and this is my second try at getting it to do what I see in my mind - red center circle, yellow sides and a parallel row of red drops around the outer edges. We'll see what happens this time as sometimes it take multiple revisions to get to the end product.

A Bead Cave is great for fostering creativity. Besides renewing old friendships you learn a lot, make new beading friends and eat very well. Electa & Pam were wonderful hostesses in a beautiful desert setting.

Bead Crochet has Arrived

When you see examples of bead crochet jewelry at Target I guess you could say that the technique is popular. While shopping in Target yesterday I ran across 4 different bead crocheted items. Ball necklaces; plain ropes with adjustable chain clasps; a looped chain necklace and a multi-chain, chained stitch necklace.

The large looped chain necklace is made with rather crude 10/0 beads and the individual invisible closures are not very invisible. However it is an idea that you might want to try with your own patterned or colored closed loops.

The bronze multi strand necklace is a rather neat idea if you can't get beyond crocheting beaded chains. It has randomly crocheted 8/0 bronze beads and drops done with a bronze metallic thread. It is 10 strands gathered into cones at the ends and has a chain & hook adjustable clasp.

Here is a detail of what the individual strands look like.

If you used brightly colored beads with some leaves and flowers interspersed in the strands you would have a great Summer look. It should make up very quickly.

Designing Bracelet

I took me a day to do the base for this Summer Bracelet and then everything I thought I wanted to do as a surface embellishment went wrong. Monday the 5mm cubes I tried to use didn't work - they wouldn't nestle together well. (Note to self, next time try an every-other pattern.) So I took those rows out. Then I tried some beautiful blue faceted rondells and got a total surprise when I took them into the living room - they turned purple! I didn't know I had Alexandrite glass beads. Well I had half of the embellishment done when I discovered that and the purple just didn't go with the other blue accent beads. Plus, the thread kept breaking and I kept stringing the pattern wrong. Two days of struggling and not liking what I was doing; I took those top rows out. This afternoon I went looking for another bead/color combination and the bracelet you see was finished in 2 hours - it went together like a charm. I guess it was meant to be. I did discover that by using an odd number of size 11/0 beads at one edge, the dark center bead offset itself in a small zig-zag. I rather like the effect. This bracelet designed itself at the end.