color and texture

Here's a close up view of this beads  interesting hue.

The Heroes Have Moved

If you have come here looking to find this week's bead hero then click here. We have moved to our new location and are celebrating the seed bead throughout the month of May. See you at unstrungheroesbeads.com going forward!

Vintage Inspired Three Petal Flower Bead Necklace

Inspiration for a creating a bright flowery necklace was plentiful yesterday as I sat next to my sunny open window enjoying the fresh spring air, testing out a few design configurations I had imagined. In my Wednesday post I mentioned the lack of jewelry that uses the three petal glass flower beads and as I played around with bunching them in threes I  began to recall images of vintage jewelry I have seen on our antiquing trips.  This is the result of that inspiration.

This is a wonderful necklace that is deceivingly simple to make.

Begin by cutting a length of antique brass chain to your desired necklace length. Then a 2-3 yard length of c-lon beading thread. Start the beadweaving on the toggle end by stitching a 12 bead wide by 4 bead tall peyote rectangle with the following pattern.

If you are unfamiliar with how to create a peyote toggle then please join us next week on our new blog site where we will kick off our month long celebration of the seed bead with instructions on creating a peyote toggle.
Weave in the tail thread (but do no cut it off) and stitch up the toggle. Then weave in six beads toward the  center and pick up six green seed beads and pass through the first link in the chain. At this point the trick is to insure that the chain stays facing the same way as you weave in and out of it. Here I started with a couple of loops that are 11 beads long and spaced 8 chain links apart.

The next step is adding the daisies. Pick up 5 green and 6 orange beads then pass through the orange beads in the direction they were strung being very careful to pull everything up to the chain as you do this step. Pass through the first 2 orange beads once more. 

Then you can pick up a yellow bead for the center and pass through the two beads opposite the two you are exiting in the same direction.

   Pick up five more beads and pass through the ninth chain link down from the link where this length of beads exits.

Repeat this step about half way down the chain until you get to the point where you will want to add your first 3 flower dangle. For you first dangle you will pick up 7 green beads, 1 leaf bead, 4 orange beads. Again, tension is important as you pass through the 4 orange beads in the direction they were strung plus one.

Now you can add the three petal flower beads by picking up 1 bead cap, 1 flower bead, and 1 yellow bead. Then pass back up through the flower and bead cap and the next orange seed bead, skipping the yellow bead.

Add the next two flowers in the same way before passing back up through the leaf and one green seed bead. pick up 3 green beads and pass through the fifth chain link from the last link you exited. You want all three dangles to fall on the same side of the chain so you will add a daisy chain length between each dangle to return to the same side. On the center dangle only pick up three green beads on each side and only skip one chain link and on the third dangle pick up the three and six green beads in the opposite order from the first so that the necklace drapes correctly.

Weave up the second half of the chain the same way you did the first omitting the daisies on the last two loops. It is okay if you have to fudge the number of chain links between these last two loops. No one is counting. Once you have passed through the last link in the chain pick up 16 green beads and pass through the last green bead from the last loop and that last link of chain to form the lasso for the toggle. Pass through the lasso 2-3 times to secure it before weaving back down through those last two loops to tie off your thread.
Now, remember the tail thread you left on the toggle at the beginning?  This was left so that you could go back and pass through where the toggle and the stringing meet a couple of times to secure this connection before tying off this thread.

Fin

These are quick instructions intended for beaders who know peyote and daisy chain stitch. If you are still new to beading and would like to create this necklace, please ask any questions below and continue to follow us next month as we celebrated seed beads at our new blog home with new component tutorials each week.

Thanks for reading!

Bead Hero of the Week

A google search for jewelry projects using three petal flower beads yields a lot of places to purchase the lovely drops but only one simple pair of earrings with the flowers dropped on a head pin. That story is a little different doing that search on Etsy, but not much (including our shop). This left me wondering, is anyone actually using any of these sweet little flowers or are they that hard to design with? Challenge accepted! These gold flecked orange glass flower beads are just too pretty to simply admire through a plastic bag. I want to display them around my neck or wrist.

I will be working hard over the next couple of days to design a great piece of jewelry that you will want to make and wear this summer. Check back here on Friday for a project full of sunshine and happiness.

What about you, do you have a design using three petal glass flower beads that you would like to share?
Let us know in the comments below.  We are happy for you to show off your work here.

Lavender and Lemon Anklet

If you follow me on pinterest then you can probably guess that my favorite color is purple, and my favorite color combination is purple and yellow. This week's hero is my favorite bead in our shop and it was so exciting to use them in my jewelry creation this week.

I created this really fun dangly anklet on Julie's request. It is so striking and as much fun to wear as it was to make. This is a very simple project that uses just ladder stitch and fringe and works up very quickly. If you do not use seed beads often in your jewelry, the ladder stitch for this anklet is started by stringing 4 size 11/0 purple seed beads onto your thread and passing back through the first two beads in the same direction they were strung.

When pulled tight this will start your ladder with the two 2-bead stacks next to each other.  Continue the ladder by simply picking up 2 beads at a time and passing back through the previous two beads in the ladder. Every third row you can add a leg of fringe.

Here I strung 1-yellow, 9-purple, 1-yellow, 1-purple, the 6mm hero, and 1 purple. Skip the last purple seed bead and thread back up through the fringe leg and the ladder stack above it to attach the fringe and then continue with your ladder for another 3 rows. I shortened every third leg of the fringe a bit by adding 5-purple instead of 9 after the first yellow. You can make the fringe any length you like of course.

Add a spring ring on one end and a lobster clasp on the other by picking up 7-purple and the ring/clasp and passing back through the last ladder stack. Pass back through once or twice to make it secure. You will want to get a lot of wear out of this one!

You can get the materials for this anklet and your other jewelry projects for 20% off in our four day weekend sale using coupon code BEARTHDAY so go get some beads!

Bead Hero of the Week

The sun came out yesterday and it was so nice to get out and walk wearing a jacket and no hat, feeling the sun's rays hit my face. That seemingly insignificant walk has made me even more excited about spring colors. This week, these 6mm round yellow glass beads with the blue iris finish make a perfect spring hero, like small iris buds waiting patiently for their turn in the garden display. 

If you love these or just need beads for your next project, shop with us this weekend for our four day 20% off Birthday and Earth day celebration sale. Sale starts Friday 4/19 and runs through Monday 4/22 (the day we celebrate the earth and Jessie's birth!). Use coupon code BEARTHDAY to receive your 20% discount.

White is the New Green

Outside my window this mid April morning, the ground is white again and the trees are still bare. The idea that our Kentucky back yard would have already seen daffodils come and go seems a world away. I believe that leaf beads must have been made for Minnesotan beaders. An escape after a long winter to create with something green despite mother nature.

Snow in April is very new and exciting to me, but since I know I am in the minority of people enjoying this weather, this week's hero celebrates the spring that many of you are already experiencing and a few of you are waiting for.

 Leafy fringe is a great way to whip up a quick simple pair of earrings with minimal materials.

What does your spring look like (outside your window and inside your imagination)?

Bead Hero of the Week

It snowed here in Minneapolis last night and is supposed to continue through today and tonight until we have 3 - 8 inches (apparently snow fall is difficult to predict). It is beautiful and white, and as someone who has never lived anywhere that snow stayed piled high on the ground for the duration of winter, let alone snow in April, I am loving it. The natives however seem to tire of it and are looking forward to a few green leaves. For them I chose our bead hero this week.

These lovely green leaf beads are a staple for many spring jewelry and art projects. I have not passed through a spring where I have not used these somewhere in a bead project and this spring is to be no different, even with the snow on the ground and not a leaf in sight (except in the aisles at the home improvement store I work for).

 How about you, what beads does spring compel you to use in your projects?

 Let us know in the comments below and check back with us on Friday for a leafy project that will give Minnesotans hope for spring. 

Laser Beams Simplified

A challenge I made to myself was to create a simple project with just the bright yellow seed beads and white thread. I carried just these items with me on our little road trip to avoid any temptation of adding extra beads. Luckily, I was able to rescue the beads from the green monster who tried to eat them so I could string this week's project.

I made a simple peyote tube toggle and two small brick stitch triangles five beads wide at the base to separate the three strands 16in, 18in, and 20in long. The result is a great summer necklace to wear with your favorite sun dress or beach wear.

You can see how the yellow beads just glow with that white thread behind them. I love to switch up the thread colors behind transparent beads though so I couldn't help myself from stitching a peyote bezel for a bottle cap using a dark orange thread.

The orange thread changed the yellow to match the more yellow orange color on the bottle cap. A perfect color combo. Maybe some green thread next time will pull that laser beam yellow in another direction. Imagine what fun you can have with just a bag of transparent seed beads and a few different thread colors. Until next time, have fun and bead on.

Hero of the Week

As promised, our bead heroes have returned and this week we are featuring one unforgettable hero. A small but bold and striking bead that doesn't need to be large to grab your attention.

When our daughter was about eight years old we let her pick out the colors she wanted us to paint her bedroom. She likes bold colors just as we do. She picked green and blue for the walls and for the trim she picked a color called Laser Beam Yellow. That name very much suits these beads even more so than the Transparent Frosted Lemon Yellow name they came with. They are transparent though so you know what that means, color play with thread! This Friday I will share  with you a super simple necklace that will look great with your summer beach wear and a pendant that uses a different thread color to change the look a bit - but certainly not the boldness.

Until then, let us know what you think of this week's hero in the comments below. Does the intense color frighten you or do you embrace amazingly bright colors in your beadwork?

Road Trip!

If you came here looking for the Hero of the Week yesterday and thought we forgot this week, have no fear - we did not forget and a new hero will return next week to the same bead place at the same bead time! What I did forget was to leave this little explanation here for you as to why our beady heroes are taking a break this week.

 We, the Unstrung Heroes clan and tag-a-longs, are going on a road trip and our shop will be closed from Friday 3/29 through Monday 4/01. We apologize if this is inconvenient for you but we are super excited to travel a bit so I hope knowing we are happy will ease your pain a bit. In the meantime here are some lovely pictures of spring leaf beads to ooh and awe over while you await our return.

 Have a great weekend and if you have a request for a hero feature in April let us know in the comments below!

Green Duos Enhance Spring Wrist Jewelry

Texture is one of my favorite things about wearing bead woven jewelry, and the bracelet I made with this week's green super duos hero does not disappoint there.

The contrast of the smooth glass of the two hole seed beads and the matte texture of the seed beads in these multiple woven strands create a very enjoyable weight and feel on your wrist.

If you are inspired to make your own you will find the green duos, the seed beads, and the thread in our shop. The button is from my own embarrassingly large collection. Do you collect craft supplies like that too?

Hero of the Week

This week our hero is a repeat shape but in a fresh new color for spring.

A fresh new color calls for a fresh new design to inspire your spring jewelry making and complete your 2013 spring wardrobe.

Check back Friday for inspiration in using super duos in your beading.
We need inspiration too! Tell us in the comments what your favorite bead (or bead you love but need a bit of inspiration on what to do with it) from our shop and we will feature it in a future week and you will be our hero!

Pretty in Pink and Lace

Strawberries and cream round beads with a whip of creamy white seed beads on top (I should get some breakfast) make a deliciously sweet little wheel that can be used for earrings or a pendant.

You could even make a few without the fringe and connect them for a lacy spring bracelet or anklet.

Whatever you create, it is hard to resist being inspired by the lovely finish of these variegated beads.

Have a beadful weekend and play with what inspires you.

Hero of the Week

Colors named after fruits and cream sound so refreshing..(blueberries and cream, oranges and cream, banana cream)... you get the idea. This week's hero looks as sweet and refreshing as it sounds - strawberries and cream 4mm round beads.

What will you make with this tasty color?
Tell us about it in the comments below and check back Friday for more jewelry inspiration.

Warm Weather Jewelry Makes a Splash

Citrus spritz seed beads swept images through my mind of laying back in a beached chaise lounge, barefoot and bathing suit clad with a huge umbrella overhead, a book in one hand and a tall glass of a deliciously light, alcohol laced, lime drink on ice in the other. This barefoot, bathing suit look is, of course, not complete without a great looking anklet to finish the picture.

In the previous post I talked about the effect thread color could have on seed beads and for this project I used a white thread so this delicate bead color would stand on its own.

If you want to make this project to wear with your summer attire you can find the beads, the thread, and the clasp in our shop. A ladder stitch base determined the length and then the brick stitch (or comanche) triangles were added to that. Loop on a clasp and you have yourself a great piece of jewelry to show off against your pretty tan this summer.

What images do citrus spritz seed beads conjure in your mind?

Hero of the Week

Our bead hero this week is one that I have been drooling over since I saw it and I am having so much fun creating a great piece of jewelry with it this week. 

This very light green transparent seed bead color is aptly named citrus spritz and it does look as though clear glass has been spritzed with this lovely color.

 One of my favorite things about weaving seed beads is using different colors of thread, especially with transparent beads, to create different colors and effects and these are a perfect candidate for that kind of play. You can enhance the color, change the color, or simply let the color be itself simply from the color of thread you use with them.

This is definitely one versatile bead to add to your stash that could be used alone (as I will show you Friday), or added in small amounts to break up heavier colors, or strung with shiny glass and crystal beads to frame their sparkle.

How would you play with this fun color?

Stained Glass For Your Wrist

A simple black frame to contain the gorgeous primary round glass beads.