Confessions of a Crystal Hoarder Blog

November has brought me peace! No more signs littering lawns, no more fund-raising pleas for me to ignore. This year (and every year) I elect to bead. 

November’s box built upon my growing BHCC collection. I received these vintage metallic beads that were a perfect match to another size that arrived a few months ago. I like that they’ve been developing more patina since they came to live with me. I paired them with modern gunmetal colored filigree caps and a donut that happened to match. (Lucky me!) The filigree reminds me of the first frost on my windshield in the mornings.

I put the 60” strand of faux pearls to use in a right angle weave bracelet combined with a blend of seed beads and some Picasso finish rounds. The bracelet has enough glitz for holiday parties, but enough texture to match the omnipresent leaves on my deck. I had enough pearls to create a second layer of embellishment over my 1.5” wide base.

This playful bracelet was made from corrugated brass bead caps from the box. My original plan was to pair my new brass blossoms with corrugated beads from boxes past, but it felt too stuffy, and I combined them with anodized aluminum jump rings instead.

I started by cutting the bells into eight segments with my shears. And yes, those freshly cut corners can be sharp.

Then I used wire wrapping pliers with barrel tips (not tapered) to gently curl down the newly-formed petals. I curled every other petal to form the low base, then went back for the second tier.

Here’s what the opposing pairs of petals look like from the back side.

Lest you think everything I make turns out well, I wanted to show you my attempt at a festive kumihimo swag using the red Italian glass and green striped glass beads. I guess that ease I was feeling bled over to my beading tension!

I hope that your beading this month has been stress free…but not tension