Pretty Palettes - May Reveal

It's the last day in May! 

It just so happens to be the last Wednesday in May, too, which means that it's the day of this month's official Pretty Palettes reveal! Woo!

For this month's palette, the inspiration was succulents:

Not my picture!
This lovely collage is by Molly Schaller, and can be found here. 

What lovely shades of green! From that picture, this palette was derived:

...And here are the beads that I picked out to match it:

You'll be so proud of me! I actually stuck with the official beads this month! (Well, except for the white shell beads--I chose rounds instead of coins. Ha! Still, I suppose four out of five isn't bad. *grin*)

From those beads, I made two very different sets. Instead of just telling you about them, though, I'll go ahead and show you! :)


Set 1

The main inspiration for this first set came from the succulents themselves. While I was at my local Michaels, picking out my beads, I happened upon these lovely paper succulent cut-outs. While they are technically stickers, as soon as I saw them, I knew I wanted to use one of them as a pendant.

So! Once I got home, I got to work making them strong and sturdy enough to be a pendant.

...Satisfied with my handiwork, I glued a bead in its center, and then started to design the necklace around it. 

Here is the final result:

To augment the pendant, I used the 6mm white shell and aventurine beads, plus the 10mm jasper rounds. They are wire-wrapped with 22 gauge aluminum wire, and the look is finished off with a toggle clasp (whose swirly design reminds me of the succulents themselves).

Interesting enough, this was actually my first time working with aluminum wire... it caught me off guard with just how soft and pliable it is. I found myself going slower while getting used to it. Not complaining--not at all!--it was just different. It's always fun trying new things... And I'm very happy with how this set turned out as a result.

Oh, and I made matching earrings, too. ;)
They can be worn both with this set, and with the next one.

Set 2

After making the first set, I had a lot of beads leftover. Most of them, actually. While deciding on what to make next, I remembered this paper--the swirl of which really reminds me of the design seen in the succulent collage shown at the beginning of this post. (Go ahead and look again--the resemblance makes me happy.) 

So, I decided to turn it into beads.

...And then I decided to just start stringing everything randomly on a very long piece of tigertail, and this lariat was the result:

The lariat uses the paper beads, the aventurine and white shell rounds, the quartizite chips, the seed bead mix, the leftover 10mm jasper beads--as well as a few things from my stash (namely, the triangle leaves and the vintage green bicones at the ends of the lariat). 

The design is a mix of a set pattern and random stringing, and can be worn with either the earrings shown below or with the previous set:

Now, I don't usually make lariats... They definitely aren't my go-to style, and sometimes I forget they are an option. The combination of the long slender paper beads and the seed beads just seemed to ask for it, however... And having such a long piece enabled me to use all of my leftover beads. I greatly enjoyed playing around with so many different shades of green, and really like the overall look of the finished piece.

So, there you go! That's what I made for this month's Pretty Palette's Challenge... Thanks so much for stopping by today to see my creations! Be sure to stop by the official Halcraft blog to see what everyone else made, too.

Have a wonderful last day of May, everyone!