Polymer and Pearls - Last One

This is the last Polymer Clay bead in my bead stash.  I used Peacock Green and Pale Cranberry pearls, both from Artbeads.  Strung on Soft Flex Extreme Flex 925 Sterling Silver Metallic Flex Wire, Fine (0.014 in diameter).  Now that I have made necklaces with all of the Polymer Clay beads I will have to decide which beads to tackle next.

More Polymer Beads and Pearls

I put together some more necklaces with the Polymer Clay beads that I've had in my stash for quite a while.  I bought a number of these beads my first couple of years going to the Bead & Button show and they've been sitting in my stash ever since.  I've been trying to work through some of my bead stash lately and these are easy pieces to work up.  I had to order some more Soft Flex and clasps, and some more pearls and my orders came in last week.  For this one I used Glorious Green pearls from A Grain of Sand, accented with Blue Peacock pearls from Artbeads.

For this one I used Blue Peacock pearls from Artbeads and accented with leftover Glorious Green pearls from A Grain of Sand.

For this one I used Blue Peacock pearls accented with Purple Peacock pearls, both from Artbeads.

All of them are strung on Soft Flex Extreme Flex Metallic Flex Wire, Fine (0.014 in diameter).  I used the 925 Sterling Silver for the first one and the 24k Gold for the other two.

Polymer and Pearls

Polymer clay is pretty big in some circles, and early on in my trips to Bead & Button I bought a number of polymer clay beads.  They have been sitting in my bead stash ever since.  Last week I decided to pull them out and make some necklaces.  I like to use pearls with the polymer clay because they have a similar glossy finish.  So, I ordered some freshwater pearls from Artbeads and they came last week and this morning I did the assembly.

For this bead I picked Pale Cranberry and Olive Green freshwater pearls.

For this bead I picked Purple Peacock and decided to add in some of the Pale Cranberry pearls.

For this bead I picked Butterscotch and added some Peacock Blue pearls.

All of the necklaces are strung on 24k Gold Extreme Flex Soft Flex Metallic Flex Wire, Fine (.014 in diameter).  I use the fine Flex Wire for pearls because they generally have small holes.  I have a few more polymer clay beads, but am still working on finding the right colors to go with them.  I may end up with gemstone beads instead of pearls.

Tiger, Tiger

I bought these polymer clay beads my very first year working for my sister at Bead & Button.  That would have been 2002.  It has been sitting in one of my project boxes all that time.  I dug it out this morning thinking that I would do something else with it - Chinese knots - but then discovered that I had strung this and decided to go with it.  As for the name of the piece - I've always loved the poem and the beads just seemed evocative of tigers in the jungle.

There was a short story in an Isaac Asimov Science Fiction magazine that I read years ago that was inspired by taking the poem by William Blake (Tiger, Tiger) translating it into Sanskrit, running it backwards and translating it back out to English - I think that was the order of operations.  The result was quite...transcendental...and actually made more sense to me than the original poem.  The story was pretty good too.  Bright, bright burning tiger.