Jello Necklaces and Polka Dots

Day three of madly making things for the Boogie on the Bricks event on Saturday, and today I am playing with some old Mexican ceramic beads we bought when we first opened our bead shop way back when.

This piece just tickles me.  It reminds me of that “Mad Max” style from videos like “Synchronicity” by The Police back in the day. 

Detail.  The round yellow beads are the Mexican ceramic, while the black discs are coconut shell and the yellow discs are old Czech glass (I love rondells as a design element, I just can’t get enough of them).

Inspired by that piece, I went on to make several more (we bought a LOT of those beads, though most of them are tubes).

This one is the green and aqua range, with size of the beads around 12mm –14mm.  I used some faux ceramic 6/0 seed beads to fill out the piece, as I don’t like to hide fun beads near the top of a necklace, where they may be hidden by a collar or long hair.

Detail of the green beads.

Another one, in the pinks, reds and oranges range.

This one is with larger beads, 16mm-18mm.  I used rondells in between each donut, and two of the smaller tubes at the end.  For some reason this series reminds me of Jello, so they are the “Jello necklaces” of the post title.

I am also using other beads in stash:

Choker, made with old horn beads (the long tubes), polka dotted lampwork from India, and wood and glass rounds.

This one is made with sandcast glass beads from Africa, aqua white heart pony beads from India, and more of the Moroccan ceramic rounds.  I love the teal-ness of it. 

And, finally, the polka dots.  These glass beads were from Java, I got them at a really cool wholesaler called “Elephant Talk” when they were located in Charleston, West Virginia.  They had all kinds of really cool stuff, from intricate lampwork beads, pendants shaped like corn, leeks, mushrooms and more, and those wonderful carved flying dragon puppets that you can see in funky boutiques.  The other beads were ceramic discs from stash and more of the 6/0 seed beads.

The lesson that I took from all of this is that I need to remember how much abundance I have, and that I only need to open my eyes to see it.  None of the beads used to make these pieces are new, they have all been sitting in my studio the whole time, just waiting for me to wake up and realize what I have.