The painting for this month’s polymer clay beads challenge has a colour selection that is totally Not My Thing. These aren’t colours I wear. These aren’t colours I work with. Heck, in the rather parched and cold looking landscape I live in, these aren’t even colours that show up here. I was at a bit of a loss over what to make and what to post.Then, Susan White, a fabulous Millefiori Glass Beads artist from my hometown commented that this pile of beads in my Flickr would be just the right colours. And she was right. I took the stack of the smaller Natasha beads, linked them with wrapped loops made from my first batch of antique brass wire and made a simple 20″ necklace in wild summer colours.You know what? They totally go with the painting even if they are Not My Thing.Little crocus earrings are particularly hopeful because the real ones won’t show up here for a bit unless they’re under the fresh batch of snow. This is part of a series that will hopefully be all about prairie flowers made from my own canes.When I made this necklace, I needed to figure out a way to get the flowers to sit flat and not dangle around like they do for most of the pieces I make with this type of bead. I still wanted to be able to use the pretty stacked seed beads on a headpin for the center. Nothing if not picky huh?My solution ended up to make it a wrapped figure eight loop in the back. Still using a two inch headpin, instead of a single loop, make a double one and bend it so it lays flat, parallel to the Red Agate Beads. I still had space to do a wrap at the top of the link, which keeps the bead from flopping around. Now the flower is ready to be added to your chain. One the white flower necklace there are little three or four link sections of chain in between each flower.
