Thursday, September 14, 2017

Allegory Gallery - Kaleidoscope Mystery Competition Reveal

It's been a rainy, grey week here in Cincinnati... and that means that it's a perfect time a jewelry reveal! 

And this is not just any jewelry reveal. This time, it's for the Kaleidoscope Mystery Competition, put together by Allegory Gallery--about as far from "rainy" and "grey" as you can get! 

I mean, just look at these colors:


This kit was truly beautiful. Now, I know I say that about all of the Allegory Gallery kits... but that's because it's true! They have an eye for color and detail, and I love their selections. This kit was certainly no exception.

Sadly, none of the pictures I took of the actual kit turned out well. I suppose I was in a bit of a rush to start playing with the beads! Still, I think you get a pretty good idea of the beautiful components from this picture, taken from the official Allegory Gallery listing:


The colors were bright, full of saturated hues and a fair amount of pink. There were seed beads in two different sizes, a strand of glass chips, and a luxury bead blend much like the one seen above. Oh, and in addition to the handmade clay pendant by Andrew Thornton, there were also two matching polymer clay beads (I'm assuming he made those as well--they just match so well).

I had ideas for two different necklaces, but I only had time to make one.

Let's see if you can guess where this is going (and yes, that is one of the matching polymer clay beads I was referring to)...



...If you said "she's making a tassel," you'd be right!


After I made the tassel, I picked out a random selection of beads from the luxury bead blend and wire-wrapped them together using 22 gauge wire. 

Here is the finished result:


The beads include clear and frosted glass, shell, pearls, and the occasional gemstone. Almost all of the components were from the kit... only the 4mm brass rounds, iridescent rainbow rounds, and two-tone glass rounds were from my personal stash.



I debated between using antiqued silver or brass as the metal. As you can tell, I ultimately chose the latter--the necklace colors are incredibly rich, and I thought the brass deepened them and gave them more visual weight. 

...Honestly, it makes them look like jewels.




Now, I know that I've been making this style of necklace quite a lot recently... and I don't regret it one bit. In fact, my only regret is that I ran out of time and couldn't make the other necklace I had planned (which is actually different, and hence a bit more time consuming as I figure out the design hurdles). Hopefully I'll get to it soon, and it goes well--when I do and if it works, I'll be sure to post it!

So, there you go! That is what I made for this challenge... Thanks so much for stopping by to see my reveal! 

Have a lovely day, everyone!

1 comment:

Thank you so much for taking the time to comment! :)