Wednesday 8 May 2013

Better Late than Never!

Sorry about the delay. After a lovely weekend with a visit to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, and then having an OU assignment due I didn't have time to put together a bracelet from the three beads that had a review last week!

But I'm really happy with the result (with Nic's very valuable help) I hope you all agree its worth the wait. Here is *Drum Roll* ...

Seaside Themed Bracelet!

It was pretty obvious the way I should go with Treasures being the only silver bead chosen. The Blue Agate are the perfect colour to be sea or sky and Light Blue Shadow, well, that goes really well with beach :P

Here is the combo!
I loved the way the light shone through one of my few remaining ambers and thought I would use it as a centre bead to signify the sun! The silver beads were co-selected with Nic. From Left to right we have Sandi (for a sandy Beach) Rolling Waves, Treasures, Unity (which looks like a beach ball) Tower (for sandcastles) and Viking Ship.

I wanted it to not be completely evenly spaced, but I couldn't leave it, so it's almost, not quite, even.

The glass beads were picked to the blue sea theme. Along side the Agates and Light Blue Shadow we have (L-R) Kimono, Blue/Yellow Unique, Blue/White Unique for the sky and clouds, Silver Mountain to balance with LB Shadow, Wave of Dreams for Waves on the beach, Beach, Blue Unique
Here's a few close ups:


And one last picture, I think the mini blogging mission was sucessful, I might cheat next time and write the whole weeks posts in one go, but Shhh!

Saturday 4 May 2013

This weeks purchases, thanks to Social Networks!

So, this isn't the combination from this weeks review posts, but I made up this bracelet for today's trip to the Museum and Art Gallery I was rather proud of my work and wanted to immortalise it here (so I could recreate it when I forget what it looks like!)

So last week Jools @JoolsJewellery posted a picture of their delivery of Royal Orange beads and after a quick conversation the very lovely Denise reserved their most sparkly bead for me and sent it from Bridgewater to Bristol for me to have :D It is very sparkly especially in natural light due to its 'Micro-Facets' (Thanks Jonathan for enlightening me to that expert term!)

The only issue I have with this bead is that its very bright and I don't have any other beads that are that orange, it's very bright. This doesn't matter when it is housed on my World Tour Bracelet, but I wanted to wear it to work and show it off. So I teamed it with some dark blue beads and wore it to work for a few days.

Then this week the lovely Zef alerted me to a sale happening at SWAG via the medium of Facebook. This gave me the chance to pick up the Chinese Zodiac Horse to go with my Limited Edition version, I didn't think I could get this bead much cheaper second hand, and I was being very good at stopping one bead!

This bead gave me the inspiration to pool all my Far Eastern themed silver beads into one combo. I put Limited Edition Chinese Zodiac Horse, Chinese Zodiac Horse, World Tour Sacred House and World Tour Chinese Auspicious with Royal Orange, Orange Armadillo and Christmas 2011 Blue Tinsel and Throat Chakra. Add a few twists and were away!


Friday 3 May 2013

Turquoise Striped Agate

*Warning, This post is rather picture heavy, I wanted to show the variety in these beads*

The final bead for this weekday review blog comes in the form of a final four beads!
These particularly lovely beads (if you happened to miss the title) are the Striped Turquoise Agate. Agate is a metamorphic rock and was given its name by Greek philosopher Theophrastus for all you scientist historians out there.
 



Trollbeads released 2 types if agate in 2 colours in January 2011. Pink and Blue. Striped and Plain. Due to the massive variances in colour and stripeyness these beads they are best seen in real life. I’m not sure why, but these beads didn’t sell very well and for a (not very) limited time in 2012 they were 40% off (the earrings went 40% off too (for a more) limited time)

I was always rather taken by the blue agate and when the offer came around I couldn’t pass it up! I have 4 really different beads and I have taken quite a few pictures so you can see the sides.


  
This bead is rather thin, thinner than the other un-faceted gemstones, but due to its vibrant colours they stand out beautifully in any creation! I know that Mars is fond of her Agates, so give her blog a look! 

It’s worth noting that they also have a Striped Black Onyx Kit which is really lovely too, but that is for another post!

So we have Light Blue Shadow, Treasures and Blue Striped Agates to work into a combo! Best get my thinking cap on!

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Treasures


The next bead to be reviewed is the silver Treasures bead.

Treasures Compared in Size to Porcupine and Stay Positive
This bead is one of my favourite beads, being round it work in pretty much any bracelet combo. It is a fair size, it’s bigger than Porcupine, but smaller than Joyful, and it’s hollow but is still a good weight.







 
Treasures Compared in Size to Porcupine and Stay Positive
The official description from Trollbeads reads ‘A silver Trollbead that's different from every angle. Treasures; for the love you treasure in your life.’






Here you can see the different sides.



It shows the treasure of the sea with a starfish, seaweed, flat shell and conch shell over it. I love the amount of texture with the bead and the fact that the holes where the bracelet goes are incorporated into the design and not ‘drilled’ through it. It features lots of open spaces within its design, but unlike Mesh or Ornament you have to look really closely to see the chain showing through. On the brighter leathers you may be able to see it more; unfortunately I don’t have any (yet) to try it out on!

I tried to compare Treasures with Love within, Chinese Zodiac Limited Edition (this one is Horse) and Angles Tip. It was hard to try and get photos which clearly show the size of this bead and I wanted to use as many options as possible incase you had the other beads, but not Treasures (you need it!) 



Treasures is often confused with Ocean which is the same size and carries the same oceanic theme. The way to tell them apart is that Treasures has a Conch shell on it and Ocean has a half a starfish verses Treasures full one.
 
I love this bead because of its starfish (and my obsession with the star shape) and because the shells remind me of going to the beach and hunting them out for my mum who loved all the designs and colours of the shells.


Let see what this gets pared with for the weekend!