Pretty Palettes - June Reveal

It's the last Wednesday in June... and you know what that means! That's right, it's time for the Pretty Palettes reveal! Hurray! :)

This month's palette, chosen by the talented Molly Schaller, is proof that you really can find inspiration anywhere. In her post introducing the challenge, she wrote that she had been looking high and low for a color combination, to no avail... until she looked down at her pencil case, binder, and book she had recently picked up from the library. The combination of colors and patterns really popped out at her:

...and inspired her to come up with the following palette!

To match those colors, as well as the patterns from the inspiration photo, these were the beads that she picked out:

...And I actually picked out most of those same beads, as well. When I went shopping with my mother while on vacation, these are what I found:

The main differences are the size of the white howlite beads, the fact that the blue beads are wood and not magnesite, and the addition of the blue rectangles (the latter of which I didn't actually get to use). Oh, and you may notice that there's some matching paper under there, too. Yep, paper beads are going to make another showing this month!

I had so many ideas of jewelry to make with these beads... In the end, though, I only had time to make two sets. Still, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out... And so, without any further ado, here is what I made!


Set 1

When I was first designing this set, I attempted to use all of the beads I had picked out. Eventually, however, I realized that not everything worked with the vision I had... So, I put aside the crackled agate, rummaged through my stash for matching beads, and came up with this:

Surprise! It's a tassel necklace. :)

To make this necklace, I made four different colors of paper beads: red, brown, redbrown, and bluewhite. Four of each color are featured in this necklace--two in the tassel, and two in the mildly asymmetrical strands. (If you look closely, you can see that the strands are actually reverses of each other. *grin*)

I also made sure to add some dark brown wood rounds (leftover from March's Pretty Palettes, actually) and some 4mm grain stone... That way, both the dark and light shades of brown were represented, even though I didn't use the crackle agate.

After I made the necklace, I decided to also made some matching earrings:

These were so much fun to make! They're so much bigger than I usually create, and it was fun stepping out of my comfort zone. Using paper beads and the silver plated saucers helped cut down on the weight, so even I can wear them comfortably. (I'm incredibly, incredibly sensitive to heavy earrings, and never wear them as a result.)

The patterns featured in the inspiration picture really made me think of my college thesis, which included a section on Navajo textiles... So, with this set, I tried to stay true to both the color palette as well as the slightly Southwestern feel of the inspiration. Overall, I am very pleased with how this set turned out! :)


Set 2

After finishing up the first set, I wanted to work next with the crackle agate. I didn't finish making a necklace, but I did make a pair of earrings (seen above), and a bracelet (seen below).

To make the bracelet, I used grain stone and two shades of magnesite (blue and white). The leather I used is metallic rose; it looks brown in these photos, but it is in fact a beautiful muted red. I then finished the design--and made sure all colors were represented--by making dangles with crackle agate and wood rounds.

While the colors of the first set are very bright, the hues of this second set are much more subdued. I'm excited to make a matching necklace at some point--perhaps with those beautiful crackled agate ovals. We'll have to see!

So, there you go... Those are the pieces that I made for this June's Pretty Palettes! I admit that it was a fair challenge for me--those are not colors I usually think to put together. I certainly enjoyed pushing myself!

Thanks so much for stopping by today to see what I made... Happy Wednesday, everyone!