Twofer! NEW Vortex Flower pendants and Art Beads Spring blog!

Hello friends!

It's been awhile huh? Being sick will sure do that to ya! Well I have a special treat for you today since my new design and the art beads blog seemed to fit together this blog will be loaded with AWESOME!

BIRTH OF A NEW DESIGN- Vortex Flower's
So as I was playing with my cane glass and other rods I had this idea to do these kind of round shaped ruffly flower design beads. As I was melting the glass and using the heat and gravity to shape the glass I had noticed that I really liked the kind of ruffly disc shape I was getting rather than the one I had originally set out to make.

I made a bunch of these new style beads and had been designing in my head. I made the first pendant and somehow it didn't quite turn out how I had imagined it in my head.Here you can see the very first prototype design. Melissa said it looked like a Mexican hat. LOL. Hmm, that wasn't quite what I was going for. It still looked like a flower to me, but it seemed like it had lots some of it's unique form with so muck stuff pouring out of the bottom.So back to the drawing board I went to refine this new design I had in my head. I had remembered a design I had done awhile back that sold right away. I think I wanted my new design to be more on this style that the design above.So I took this older design and brainstormed about how to make it work with my new bead shape. I went back to my fiber design board and grabbed out all kinds of Czech glass bead, Swarovski crystal, c-lon cording, bells, daggers, spade drops, drops, and leaves and got back to work.The first "Vortex Flower" pendant was born! You know I HAD to start with lime green and aqua for my first design as they are my very FAVORITE COLORS!

I had just received the new blog theme for artbeads.com which just happened to be spring! How perfect for my new design and the blog to go hand in hand!So what is an incredible new pendant without some GORGEOUS hand-dyed silk?!
I absolutely LOVE color so I chose the Tahitian/Aqua blend silk for this pendant. As you can see it's just MAGIC all together. I called this one Vortex Flower- Tahitian Sea.

So after being very happy with this new design I went back to work to make more pendants! I re-did the original pendant above in the new "Vortex Flower" style.Here is "Vortex Flower- Cranberry Mango". I used Pink/Orange blend silk to finish off the design. Isn't the color just PERFECT?! I was so excited at just how well the match was when I had made the bead before picking out the silk!

This next pendant is where the bulk of my materials went. I used a variety of glass to work on this design. I picked a lot of my favorites. It seems like black and white beads are somewhat hard to come by. Luckily artbeads had some fantastic beads from which to choose including some fabulous vintage beads, which I also adore! The vintage beads I used were the white glass talons, and the small white glass curled leaves.Here is "Vortex Flower- Reverse" named for the contrast of black and white. I used some of my favorite Japanese drop beads called magatamas. I used 4mm black opaque magatamas, and 4mm opaque white magatamas. They add wonderful texture with their smooth zero oval shape. You know how much I LOVE spade drops so I had to sneak some in there too. I used the gorgeous white pearl luster small spades for some lovely shape and texture. To finish off the design I ended up getting lucky! I was looking for just a plain black cord, but they happened to be out. I was perusing the other multi-colored silks and found one I liked WAY better! I used the Blue/gray blend.
Here is a photo of all of the Vortex Flower necklaces together with the silk coiled up.
Here you can see them longer.

The great thing about the silk cording being 3 feet is that you can wear them doubled as a choker or long.
"Vortex Flower-Vanilla Sugar" ended up being a bit trickier. I wanted this pendant to have more of an ivory look so I really had to do some searching to find some more Ivory type beads and then some very pale yellow type beads. I totally lucked out by finding some Ivory waxed linen to do this pendant as the only c-lon I had was pale yellow! When shopping for beads I got some fantastic topaz swirl small spades to add to this design. You may have thought that adding something with brown would have made it too dark, but it was a lovely soft contrast along with the soft yellow, pale green, matte metallic green/gold leaves and the brass bells.
Since I am showing all of the Vortex Flower pendants I made I wanted to include this one. Unfortunately this one is a gift and is in transit to it's destination.This is the only Vortex pendant that got a tiny lampwork heart dangling out of the center. It has some special meaning so that is why I added it to this pendant. I used Messy's fantastic pinks and purples to make this lovely color combo. I used Cranberry, Simply Berry, and Blush along with some effetre colors.

DISCLAIMER** Genea Beads has received the following beads from artbeads.com free of charge. Genea Beads is honestly reviewing these products and have not been paid for this endorsement as it pertains to the products received.**

THE BEAUTY OF BULLSEYE.....
So I had been playing with Bullseye glass lately and thought I would take out one of the doodles from my sketch book and translate it into glass. I used a variety of odd lot and regular stock Bullseye glass to make the following beads. As you may know Bullseye is notorious for making super SATURATED color and some of the most BEAUTIFUL pinks and purples along with streaky and glittery glass! Caution** The following colors may cause the shortness of breath. **This design was from my sketch book at it is called "Heart Fruit". The inside is a tornado twist of variegated streaky green glass with glitter encased in a generous amount of clear. On the top a streaky amethyst heart has a curled vine of yellow green with a leaf sprouting from the top.
"Love Flower Mini" is a 3 bead set with 2 streaky glittery green spacers and a lentil with a heart flower on top in streaky amethyst. The stem and leaves are yellow green.
As far as these beads go I was saving the best for last! Here is "Heart does your garden grow". As you can see there is a fantastic variety of streaky lavender, blue violet, salmon, bubble gum and cranberry pink! All are on a base of clear with a streaky green glittery tornado center. See I TOLD you BE makes me want to "J" in my "P's"! Isn't is SOOOO pretty?!

Well this concludes my update for this week. I hope you have enjoyed my new designs, beads and review of artbeads fantastic selection!

Have a fantastic day!

Much love,

Genea