Allegory Gallery May Project

Whoops! I fell a little behind on Allegory Gallery projects. Well, in May I was supposed to create an item and write a tutorial for it. I chose to do one of my crystal bracelets because it's a good way to introduce people to beadweaving, it can be done in any color, and it has a button clasp for an extra special touch. However, Andrew decided to postpone the tutorials for now, so I can share the pictures in my blog instead.

I decided to get a little fancy playing with different angles, to get some nice artistic shots that say "gallery worthy" to me.

This bracelet uses Dark Turmaline Swarovski crystals from Allegory Gallery, woven together with brown Nymo beading thread also provided by the gallery. I added some Japanese seed beads from Beyond Beadery and a button that I picked up somewhere along the way. I buy buttons wherever I find them. I chose red-orange as my accent instead of going with a complimentary color, as I am forcing myself to work more with contrasts, and I have a skirt with these colors in it.

Disclaimer: Some items in this blog post were provided for promotional consideration by Allegory Gallery.

Yellow! Yes, Yellow!

For the past year or so I've been attempting to broaden my color horizons, both in my personal wardrobe and in the jewelry that I make to sell. Yellow is a color that I really struggle with. I use it as an accent sometimes, but in general I am not a big fan of it. Bohemian Summer Crystal Bracelet is my attempt to embrace yellow! I've accented the Swarovski crystals with some of those exciting new hybrid seed beads (Japanese seed beads with Czech coatings/effects on them) in brown-mottled turquoise green. I've seen a lot of this yellow and turquoise combo lately and I'm surprised by how much I like it!

I'm really happy to see boho styles maintaining popularity, too. Living in a hot climate, I really like to wear lightweight, flowing garments during the Summer, and the boho prints really go well with my collection of tribal jewelry and my long hair. Hanging out with a lot of belly dancers, I see a lot of creative ways of combining clothes that are in style, bits and bobs from our costume collections, and unique jewelry -- especially after a gig, when we've changed out of our costumes but we still have a few accessories hanging around!