The beauty of glass beads

Steve has been busy in his studio creating lots and lots of beautiful glass beads.  Over the last several weeks dots, encased dots, plunge dots, wraps, spirals, florals, dichroic, monochromatic, hollow, beads within beads, and organic beads slowly but surely began filling bowls in the kitchen and dining room.  It seemed that anywhere you looked there was a container of beads.

While beautiful by themselves, the beads were not meant to fill bowls, but to be used in earrings, bracelets and necklaces.  We enlisted the help of Steve's sister and niece, who have been making jewelry for awhile, to design some jewelry with the beads.

While they were busy making jewelry, Steve went back to making more beads.  The bowls quickly filled up again and it was time for us to start making jewelry too.

We needed earring and necklace designs for all the new beads.  We looked at examples of lots and lots of jewelry, and I worked up a few sketches based on what we liked.  The designs would highlight the beauty of the beads, not overshadow them.  In the mean time, the beads Steve's sister and niece had been working on came back all neatly wrapped.  We looked at what they had done with the beads, and had several conversations about styles, color combinations, materials, tools, sources, etc.

With beads and designs in hand, it was time to put it all together.  We spent several evenings matching colors, stringing beads, bending wire and wrapping beads.  Now instead of bowls of beads we have beautiful earrings and necklaces!