Halcraft's Pretty Palettes Blog Hop Reveal

Have you checked out Erin Prais-Hintz' inspiring Pretty Palette posts on the Halcraft USA blog? If not, you're missing out on a great opportunity to stretch your beading muscles. I love how it feels to design with colors that aren't on my usual "menu."

Here's how it goes: Erin posts an image with an amazing color palette, and you follow along using her guidance of bead choice--and any others you might want to use--to create a project. Then you write a post about it on your blog and link up to the Halcraft USA blog to see what others have created. It's so much fun to see what others have made using these inspiring palettes and beads.

This month, I was lucky to have a beading buddy want to participate with me! Joyce is a friend who I recently learned has a talent for beading that had been on the back burner. Joyce's daughter and my daughter are friends, so we planned some time for the girls hang out while we treated ourselves to a play date of our own!

It was so wonderful to sit and chat over tea and cookies and BEADS! Joyce told me that she'd put her beads away in a special cabinet after her daughter was born, and she had wanted to pick them back up again. She was game for my challenge, and I'm so excited to say that we're going to make the Pretty Palette challenge a monthly "play date" for ourselves as well as the girls!

Here's this month's palette, which Erin pulled from the fabric of a dress that a friend is wearing to a wedding:

I love this palette--and the dress that inspired it--but it's definitely out of my normal range of colors.

It took a little bit of time to choose our directions, but once we got started, the time flew by. Joyce made some amazing earrings. She didn't put earwires on them because she has to use a specific type for her sensitive ears, so she's just holding them up in the photo. I wish I would have taken a photo of them on their own, as I loved how she was able to use wrapped loop drops to really make them special.

Joyce's choice of shirt goes really well with our color palette this time!

 Here are my own creations. Once I got started on the earrings I had a hard time stopping! I used mostly blues and purples, with a gold chain and inspiration beads.

Lots of little wrapped loop gold drops make these simple earrings look deceptively complex.

Beaded links and an amazing faceted bead give this necklace a vintage appeal.

The wrapped loop drops with bigger focal beads make a relatively simple bracelet a standout.

The textured chain makes these earrings longer than some, but I think the length is balanced by the pretty blue faceted drops.

More wrapped drops give sparkle to simple earrings with a lot of texture.

Here is a photo of the carnage on the table when we were done.

Remember these great little bead cups from my book club post? They still get a lot of use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even William got in on the fun and was quite the helper!

I hope you enjoyed my blog hop post! Visit the Halcraft blog again on February 5th for the next Pretty Palettes reveal from Erin. And let me know if you hope to play along, too!