Our entry this week comes from Julie in Peterborough and it's called "Washed Ashore" bracelet. And here is it's story...
Washed Ashore is a lovely bracelet threaded on memory wire, a metal based continuous coil that allows any bracelet to flex and wind around the wrist, thus fitting most wrist sizes and maintaining it's shape. Colours range from light greens and teals, to dark ocre reds and amber oranges. The striking hues of this bracelet catch the eye due to their subtle contrast, especially with close up photography.
This piece was really an accidental one. I had just finished making a bracelet called 'Smokey Jo' and had some maroon pearls left on the table, along with some jade from another memory wire bracelet. When I saw the two colours together, I wanted to see how I could combine them without it looking wrong. I find my beads on a table, all rolling around are a little like an artists' palette, no rules or order, just a random mess waiting to be used.
There is a real mix of beads on this bracelet, and for £15.00 including delivery in the UK, it's a real synch. Dark teal glass crackle chips provide a nice grounding colour and shape, with their texture and unusual shapes. Green jade also does the same, but in a paler green, and turquoise semi precious stone chips add a bit of 'perzazz'! The turquoise stone was bought in the Canary Islands mandy years ago, as part of a twisted necklace that split and it is one of my absolutel favourite stones because of it's striking colour. The glass and jade came from the same supplier, with a mixture of bulk buys; not particularly romantic I know, but everyone has to bulk buy now and then ;)
I had a few brown lampwork beads in all shapes and textures in the beady box that did not match and looked a bit lonely, so I strung those into the mix as well. The green glass speckle beads with the white mottling were from an online store that I love, and you'll see in my other designs I also have them in clear glass and pale pink. They have a strange bobbly texture to them that I love. One little inconspicuous bead worth mentioning is a tube-like pale green glass bead with a frosted finish. It was bought at the Corn Exchange in Leeds, in 2004 (goodness I'm starting to feel old) in my student days. This is the first proper bead shop I ever went in, and I do not know whether it still exists, but I must have been in there for an hour or more. The poor lad I was with at the time wished he never showed it to me, especially when I spent £20.00 and then wanted to go back the next day as well.... when you get the beady bug, it bites hard!
Lastly, the cream of the bracelet is the unusual gold freshwater blister pearls, which I adore. These pearls are always unique; they can range from 10mm-40mm, and they are sometimes called baroque pearls as well. I have these in a range of colours, best seen in the "Hope" bracelet design, and I just love the forms, textures and depth of colour in each of these fascinating pearls.
I called the bracelet "Washed Ashore" because the greens remind me of seaweed, sand dune grasses and the frothy shore. The blister pearls are gold and unique in shape, like little footprints in the wet shore sand, and have that golden glow of the sun kissing sand at sunset The turquoise is the colour of the open ocean and the glass chips and smaller beads are like little pebbles that find their way to land.
This piece was really an accidental one. I had just finished making a bracelet called 'Smokey Jo' and had some maroon pearls left on the table, along with some jade from another memory wire bracelet. When I saw the two colours together, I wanted to see how I could combine them without it looking wrong. I find my beads on a table, all rolling around are a little like an artists' palette, no rules or order, just a random mess waiting to be used.
There is a real mix of beads on this bracelet, and for £15.00 including delivery in the UK, it's a real synch. Dark teal glass crackle chips provide a nice grounding colour and shape, with their texture and unusual shapes. Green jade also does the same, but in a paler green, and turquoise semi precious stone chips add a bit of 'perzazz'! The turquoise stone was bought in the Canary Islands mandy years ago, as part of a twisted necklace that split and it is one of my absolutel favourite stones because of it's striking colour. The glass and jade came from the same supplier, with a mixture of bulk buys; not particularly romantic I know, but everyone has to bulk buy now and then ;)
I had a few brown lampwork beads in all shapes and textures in the beady box that did not match and looked a bit lonely, so I strung those into the mix as well. The green glass speckle beads with the white mottling were from an online store that I love, and you'll see in my other designs I also have them in clear glass and pale pink. They have a strange bobbly texture to them that I love. One little inconspicuous bead worth mentioning is a tube-like pale green glass bead with a frosted finish. It was bought at the Corn Exchange in Leeds, in 2004 (goodness I'm starting to feel old) in my student days. This is the first proper bead shop I ever went in, and I do not know whether it still exists, but I must have been in there for an hour or more. The poor lad I was with at the time wished he never showed it to me, especially when I spent £20.00 and then wanted to go back the next day as well.... when you get the beady bug, it bites hard!
Lastly, the cream of the bracelet is the unusual gold freshwater blister pearls, which I adore. These pearls are always unique; they can range from 10mm-40mm, and they are sometimes called baroque pearls as well. I have these in a range of colours, best seen in the "Hope" bracelet design, and I just love the forms, textures and depth of colour in each of these fascinating pearls.
I called the bracelet "Washed Ashore" because the greens remind me of seaweed, sand dune grasses and the frothy shore. The blister pearls are gold and unique in shape, like little footprints in the wet shore sand, and have that golden glow of the sun kissing sand at sunset The turquoise is the colour of the open ocean and the glass chips and smaller beads are like little pebbles that find their way to land.
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