Pretty Palettes :: July 2016 -- Starry Night

One of my favorite parts of summer is the relief that comes from being outside at night after the heat of the sun has dissipated and the warm breeze caresses your skin. Here in Indiana, we've been experiencing a heat wave, and nighttime is the most comfortable time--some would argue it's the only time!--to be outdoors.

The starry summer night sky is the theme for this month's Pretty Palettes blog hop, hosted by Halcraft USA and Miss Erin Prais-Hintz. For more about this month's inspiration, visit the Halcraft blog.

Some of my favorite stargazing has happened in the Adirondacks, where there isn't the ambient light from cities that can mask the starlight. One spectacular night I happened to see 25 shooting stars in a matter of only an hour!

The image Erin chose this month reminded me of that night:

Click for a larger image from Ryan Hutton: https://unsplash.com/photos/Jztmx9yqjBw

Erin chose some beautiful Bead Gallery beads for her project, but I knew exactly which beads I wanted to use for this project because of the way the purples, pinks and blues danced around in the heavens as they do in this image.

I bought these beads because they reminded me of the gorgeous sky in the image above. 

Bead Gallery's iridescent citrine nuggets

Bead Gallery's shell drops

All I needed to do was to figure out how to take these two elements and create a piece I loved. Like I said, it's been quite a hot, hot couple of weeks here in Indiana, and I wanted to make something I'd like to wear right now. I didn't want anything too weighty, so I balanced the irregular texture and over-the-top finish of the citrine nuggets with black seed beads for a stylish 4-strand choker. 

And although I considered making a necklace using all of the shell teardrops, I chose to use just one as a pendant with the citrine nuggets clustered around it. The pendant necklace is about 18 inches long and looks great layered with the choker, or it is pretty on its own, too.

For more information on how to play along with the Pretty Palettes blog hop, just click over there! Erin will post August's Pretty Palette inspiration next Wednesday, August 3rd.

An InLinkz Link-up

You can make your own Starry Nights Necklace set with Bead Gallery beads from Michaels Stores.