Artsy Monday

Today I wanted to share a project I made over the weekend. This is something completely different for me but it was fun to learn and now I have even more reasons to purchase beads!

This necklace was beaded by me in about 5 hours start to finish.  The pattern is called the Russian Spiral and for the style I made it requires 3 different colors of square beads and 1 color of seed beads.  It was fun and I am still amazed that I made it!

I am definitely hooked. This is something I can do while sitting with my man while he watches TV. I have a hard time sitting still for too long but I can sit still for this. Win-Win!

Here are my and my friend’s necklaces. Only one square bead and the seed bead colors are different yet they look completely different from each other. What a difference the color choice makes.

Obviously, color choice is huge! This is true in all artsy and craftsy things.  While sitting in the bead shop this weekend there was one statement I head over and over and that was: “I am terrible at picking colors”.  I heard this from about 2/3 of the people who were shopping in the store that day. Luckily the store has some fantastic people who work there and are happy to assist.

Color frightens people; however, it doesn’t have to.  There are many ways to choose colors for projects.

Color Wheel from Dick Blick Art Supply 

First off is the trusty color wheel. This is one of the color wheels that I have. If you have never used one I recommend going to an art supply store and have them give you the run down. A good color wheel will help you see how the colors work together as well as why they work together.

Another way to put colors together is to visit the Pantone website. This is a fabulous site used by designers of industries worldwide. They are the world wide leaders in the color industry and if you want to see the trending colors for the year they are the place to visit. www.pantone.com Once you visit their site you will really begin to notice the trending colors everywhere!!

Picture from All Things Shabby and Beautiful. 

Click Picture to go there

Still another great way, this is one of my favorites, is to look at color combinations that you like in magazines, on Pinterest, on websites, etc. If you see a jewelry setting, floral design, painting, room décor scheme etc. that speaks to you, look at the colors the artist/designer used. There’s your color palette. You already know you like the way the colors work together all you need to do is take that picture with you and match away with you chosen medium.  In the image above you have the stunning color combination of purple, green and brown. They work great together in nature. 

From The Little Pea Boutique

Click on photo to go to Etsy Shop

From Blume And Jensen

Click on photo to go to Etsy Shop

The images above are using some of the same colors as the picture of the bench in the garden. Hopefully you can see the potential in using pictures for color selection. I think I'll be taking all three with me next time I got to the bead shop!

I am pretty sure I’ll be learning more beading techniques since I had such a great time with this one. Beading adds so much to so many items. The faerie I am working on will have some bead work on her outfit. It makes the outfit go from cute to WOW!

Hopefully I’ll post some pictures of that soon

Have a great week