I am intrigued by the possibilities associated with all the new shapes of seed beads. I am a beadweaver.
I take tiny pieces of colored glass, needle and thread and I stitch them into pieces of artistry. (At least they are artistry to my eye, others may not agree) These new shapes, particularly the 2 holed ones, are a HUGE development to the beadweaver. The opportunity for design is staggering, inspirational and mind blowing. The only downside here is that my hand is not yet able to bead for hours. I can, at best, expect to bead for 15 minutes before I have to rest it. Hopefully that will improve by leaps and bounds, Lord willing.
So with that limitation in mind, I have been playing.
The first thing I did was find the cheapest way to own some of these amazing beads. I shopped in my home town, I found some twin beads and some super duos. Both in limited colors and finishes with the super duos being noticeably more expensive. I wondered why.
Next I turned to online, much better selection but still the prices were still high, super duos more so. I took a trip through online shops, ebay and such finally finding myself at ETSY. ( long story shortened for your reading pleasure) What I was looking for was a good balance between price and selection. I spent many days looking through different sellers and comparing prices and shipping, selection and colors.
I ended up choosing a few to buy from to compare shipping times and customer service. Nitty gritty I have 2 etsy shops I really love, one being in the states and run by a very nice, very accommodating woman named Tamara. Her shop is called Beads to Weave and can be found here https://www.etsy.com/shop/BeadsToWeave
And one in Prague, Czech republic.(One of the things that is absolutely awesome about the internet is that every one is only a click away. :~) The shopkeeper's name is Olga. She was equally nice and helpful.
Her shop is called ScarraBeads and is found here
https://www.etsy.com/shop/ScaraBeads
Bost shops are great, a little better prices from Scarrabeads but the shipping is higher (duh they come from the Czech republic!) and it takes about 8 days to arrive while Beads to Weave packages come so fast I think she has a transporter! I have no affiliation to these shops other than I have shopped with them and enjoyed the experience and the product.
After receiving the beads I looked online for others experimenting for a simple jump off point. Deborah Roberti has free tutorials and I started with these http://www.aroundthebeadingtable.com/Tutorials/Starburst.html
This is my first version
I changed the daggers but that was pretty much all. Both the super duos (SD for rest of blog) and twins in this piece worked pretty much the same. The purples in the center are SD matte violet and the peachy ones are twins. In this piece the twins weren't too bad, all though they definitely seem to have a flat back to them. The SD were symmetrical and stacked together beautifully.
This one, in purple,
is done the same way as above, except I used delicas for the 11's.
The center beads are twins and they are very irregular and different in both shape and sizes, hard to find 5 that were similar enough to use. The outer ones are SD, again, no troubles they are a joy to work with.
So I now made a matching set, using roughly, the Starburst pattern from Deborah.
Sorry I forgot to turn the pic. I put drop beads in the place of my daggers and her rizzo's. One of the spots I put the briolette shaped bead. I am very happy with these and now wanted to make a matching bracelet. The first problem I needed to overcome was there are 5 points and I needed an even number to be able to connect them side by side. Here are a few I tried based on 6 instead of 5.
Although I like these they are tending to ruffle and then the petals are hard to see. The top right piece has Rollos on 3 sides. It ruffles the most.
This is what I am playing with now.
Im not sure this shape will lead to a bracelet. I kind of off on a tangent now but
I am having fun playing with these beads. I think the super duos are the ones I will stick with. The twin beads seem like they may be improving as the peach ones seemed better than the purple ones, or could the purple ones be a knock off? Who knows? This reminds me of a snowflake.
So what is everyone else doing with these?
