I love geometric beading! I love the preciseness, how the beads line up so perfectly, and how a project can sprout spikes and folds! During the past few months, I’ve been exploring the Warped Square and creating several pairs of earrings in that technique as well as writing tutorials to go with them. But as much as I love geometric beadwork, I am equally enamored with bead embroidery…the carefree and sometimes random placement of beads and embellishments that are so integral to the design of a bead-embroidered piece! So I’m taking time to play with a new project! Several days this past week were spent creating a collection of sparkling resin faux fire opal cabochons…a dazzling spectrum of red, orange, gold, green, blue, indigo, and violet rounds that will be the central focal accent of a new floral brooch design. Each of the six petals will be festooned with several types of pearls, Swarovski flat-backed crystals, Delicas and seed bead embellishments! In the above photo, I’m arranging various components that will grace each petal. I haven’t glued anything down at this point so I’m free to move, add, or subtract pearls and crystals until I’m completely satisfied with the composition. As yet, I haven’t decided on the various colors of beads I will use, although I am liking the metallic blue/green 15/0 Toho beads shown. Of course, I’ll be taking step-by-step process photos as I go along and I’ll be writing a tutorial and offering kits for this new design…it will be finished just in time to welcome the spring season!
