Celebrate the Colors of Fall

Owl Cuff

 Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.  ~Albert Camus

I adore fall and October is a particularly special month.  In October, fall colors peak in Michigan and my husband and I celebrate our anniversary, a wonderful 18 years.  This year October begins a new venture for me as well.  I was asked to participate as an Artbeads design partner.  When I received the theme, "Celebrate the Colors of Fall", I immediately knew I wanted to incorporate a bottle cap I purchased during a show in Flint.   My friend Sue took me to a local market that sold beers by the bottle and we splurged and purchased a handful of brews with interesting caps.  I paid $10 for two bottles of Hitachino Nest Beer when I fell in love with this adorable owl cap.  I recently turned one into a cuff and its picture begins this post.

To select my products, I did a search on the Artbeads site for picasso.  I love the multi-dimensional finish of these beads.  I tend towards the triad approach in my color schemes and this finish has never let me down.  I was thrilled when I received my selection a few days later.

First, I must say I'm a big fan of Artbeads packaging.  It's so simple, yet elegant at the same time.  Each package includes an inspiration card that is beautiful to behold. The first item I included in my design were the Czech glass spade beads (code: CR-SP018) in Orange Silk Picasso.  I'm in love with these beautiful beads.  Although the peacock daggers I used on the cuff are luscious, these spade beads have a rich, two-toned colorway and an unique shape.  Strung on wire, they stack nicely, and used, as I have here, they provide a lovely accent for the cap.

After selecting the spade beads, I chose a selection of beads matching the colorway, but strayed a bit from my original concept once I began working on the piece.  What I didn't incorporate were the silk cord and copper cones originally planned for the back strap.  Although gorgeous paired with the cap, I liked the fullness of the beaded design better.  The silk cord matches the cap perfectly and I may need to make a trip to Flint to get another bottle of beer to use it on the next design.

For the strap, I fell back to my favorite technique, the embellished spiral rope.  I utilized four products in the rope:   Czech rondells, Czech grooved rectangles, Czech Ovals, and Toho seed beads. 

 The result is a fine tribute to autumn and represents the colors of the season shortly before the leaves fall to the ground; the colors of Halloween, pumpkins, and chocolate flavored candy corn.  You can almost smell the mulled wine (hmmm, wonder if there is a recipe for mulled beer...maybe that's carrying things too far).

Owl Necklace

Disclosure: The above mentioned beads from Artbead.com were kindly provided free-of-charge by Artbeads.com, within the frames of Artbeads.com blogging program. The author of this blog has not received any payment from above-mentioned company. The post above represents only personal opinion of the blog author.  You can find additional participating artists and their blogs on Artbeads' facebook page.