A Look at How a Design Begins

I thought I would give you a look at how my design process begins.

First I had it in my head that I wanted to do something with chain, maybe a bracelet.  So I got some of my chains out to look at them and try to get some ideas.  I laid them out on my bead tray – with a handful of jump rings thrown in for good measure.

Then I hunted around in my stash of beads to pick out some shapes and colors that might look good with these chains.  I found some beautiful millefiore hearts that just called out to be paired with the black chain, some black snowflake glass cubes that would match either of the silver chains, and some grey Swarovski pearls.

You can see that I also changed the color of the mat in my bead tray.  That’s because I put a few handfuls of Swarovski crystals on the tray, and I couldn’t see their true colors on the brown mat.  I really like the way the hammered silver chain in the back looks with the dark blue crystals and the copper-colored beads next to them.  While I was matching these into color groups, I had a new idea.  Anklets!  That’s what I’ll do with one of the chains. 

Now it will take me about an hour to pull tubes of seed beads, pour little piles of beads on the tray, and decide which colors I want to use.  Then I look at them under the Ott light, change my mind, and do it over and over again until I’m satisfied that I have a pleasing color combination.

I’ll take some time off from writing now to do that and finish up this post later.

Cat