Art Beads.com Review -- Glass and Silver (and another give-away!)

This month, ArtBeads.com asked its blog design partners to review their glass and sterling silver collection. This was exciting for me, because I loooooove the Czech bead selection and I immediately had an idea in mind.

One of the things I like to work into my jewelry designs is texture. The other thing I like to do is add color, and as many color combinations as I can get away with. I've made a number of what I call "Bead Soup" bracelets, and with that in mind, I set to work.

First, I poured all my beads into a pile.

I knew I wanted to make a multi-strand necklace, so I pushed beads around until I got a rough approximation of how many strands I could make and how the beads would look the best. I don't make many multi-strand designs -- in fact, I could probably count how many I've ever made on both hands and have fingers left over. But I wanted to show off all these beads to maximum effect, and cutting three pieces of beading wire, pulled out a hank of tiny black seed beads and strung beads for the next two hours.

You may wonder why that smallish pile of beads took me two hours to work with. Well, it's like this -- randomly placed beads are really not so randomly placed! This type of jewelry needs balance, and I found myself stringing along, only to pull beads off to start over with a few more here, a few less there.

But I think it was worth it.

The asymmetry was a happy accident. I meant for the necklace to lie like a regular necklace, with all three strands hanging from two large rings. However, as often happens, when I dropped the necklace on the table to run and grab the phone, I came back to find that the piece had fallen into a different arrangement. I quite like new look, and if the wearer wants to wear the necklace in a more traditional manner, it can easily be done.

I think of this style of necklace as a "Story Necklace", because each bead can be used to tell a story. I've seen this sort of thing used in nursing necklaces, where mothers tell a story using each bead as part of the tale they make up and tell their child.

I hope you like the necklace, and I encourage you to visit ArtBeads.com to pick out your own beads and create your own Story Necklace. You can buy their Czech beads by the piece, and don't forget to explore their other sections for more design possibilities.

And to make it that much easier to bead, ArtBeads and I are giving a lucky winner a $25 gift certificate to their web site!

All you have to do is leave a comment below and tell me what your favorite section of ArtBeads.com is. Be sure to leave an email so ArtBeads can email you the gift certificate. I'll announce the winner on December 22nd!

ArtBeads is also running a Holiday Cheer Sweepstakes on their Facebook page. You could win a $100 gift certificate to their fan site! Click here to enter.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I receive the beads above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.