Saturday, March 21, 2015

Working with the new Czechmates Crescent two hole bead

As you may know I am a Starman Trendsetter, which means I receive newly designed beads and I get the chance to play with them and see what I can create.

How good is that?

Image 1 - Here is the newly released Czechmate Crescent two hole bead. Like a Moon shape aren't they?

Having had a lot of other commitments to get done I had not had much time for just sitting and bead playing. So when I made the time I picked the Crescents to play with. Also me being me, I had to have some bright colours also.

My aim here is to show you the different looks you get with the placement of the crescent. Image 2 - on the right - you have the crescent ends pointing upwards.
When I reached this point I felt it was okay BUT worried about the points catching on other clothing or scratching someone.

Image 3 - on the left - The pendant was taken back to the bezel and this time I added the crescents in with the end points facing downward. It made for a tighter, more compact design, no points to scratch anyone.

BUT - I wasn't happy with the result.

I felt you couldn't see the back layer of green fire polished beads enough.

Image 4 - on the right - I placed the crescents with the inside end tucked under the mauve size 11/o seed beads. I felt the result was interesting enough and went ahead finishing off the pendant

BUT - I had a nights sleep and woke thinking "I can do better". So, again, the pendant was taken back to the rivoli bezel.

Image 5 - on the left - I needed to increase the circumference for adding in the crescents. I could do that using seed beads but decided I wanted a rigid and 'instant'  extension so I went with 3mm bugle beads (hard to see in the pic).

This gave me the larger circumference I wanted also a greater angle to the crescents for adding the fire polish and the round beads.
When adding in the orange beads I could see the green fire polish weren't going to be large enough. as the circumference has increased more than expected. I was happy with that so a colour change happened and I was able to add in a blue 5mm dyed howlite round bead.

So the end result was great curves, great showing of all beads in each layer and an attractive pendant.  I shall sleep soundly tonight.