Adventures in Bead Embroidered Art

I've been toying with the idea of doing a small, framed art piece that's bead embroidered for some time.  This winter I began the process of giving it a shot.  After the rush of holiday markets and gift making, it was nice to just sit back with a relaxing project with no firm deadline looming... something that I realized might end up just being for me.  I'd love to share a bit of that journey with you!

It all started with a frame that I've had for about 24 years that I never actually used for photos.  I loved the floral textured look to it and felt like it would be a whimsical addition to my first attempt at bead embroidered art.  I pulled out my supplies and got to work!  

I used the original glass to measure the size of the bead foundation and then used my white gel pen to trace the frame's opening that would be my canvas.

Next up, I began positioning my main focal as well as other larger decorative pieces to lay out the general design.  Since the cabochon I chose  featured butterflies swirling around a red haired maiden, I chose a selection of butterflies and flowers to fill in the rest of the space.  I included some lovely polymer clay butterflies (artist unknown) as well as a brass charm then added in a variety of coordinating Czech glass flower beads.  At this point, I only glued down my main focal and was just playing with potential spacing of other elements.

Once I got my cabochon bezeled, I picked out some coordinating crystal cup chain to go around the bezel.  I love the effect but am no pro at getting cup chain to behave nicely!  With that corner of the piece done, it was time to get serious about the placement of my other larger elements.  I positioned things again and got it all glued down with some E6000.  Next, to create a little movement across the piece, I sketched in some swirls that began at the little gap left between the two ends of the cup chain.  I then used gold size 15 seed beads along those swirls.

From this point, I started outlining the embellishments with various rows of seed beads.  I also sewed down the beads and butterflies for added security.  (I always hate relying only on glue!)

This became a fun exercise in playing with various textures as well as shades of metallic.  I used a variety of colors and finishes as I continued to build out the design.  Teacup beads, gingkoes, and bugle beads helped fill in awkward spaces.  As I worked I would periodically put the piece into the frame to make sure that I stayed on track.

After many, many hours of quiet sewing, my little artwork was finally complete.  I named this "Lady of the Butterflies" and entered it into the Arts Consortium of Carver County member awards show.  It's both exciting and a little bittersweet that that someone has purchased this little Lady from the gallery show!  Honestly, I would have been happy to keep her, but hopefully she is loved wherever she ends up.  

Overall, I'm really proud of the outcome and look forward to trying my hand at some more framed pieces in the near future.  It's fun to break out of your normal routine and try something totally new!  Is there something you've been wanting to try?  I encourage you to get out there and do it!  

March 2024 Honey Do List

2024 marks the ninth year that my husband Eric has been giving me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... The Honey Do List!  I know that I'm not the only one who loves a good design challenge, so I'm hoping folks will continue to play along with us!  Thanks to all of you who have participated over the years... it means a lot to both of us!

Lately no one has been playing along with us, but we will continue on since I enjoy having the inspiration to make something each month.

This month's inspiration is from the pearl factory in the Czech Republic that we visited last fall.  I loved the colorful metallics here and the drips were really interesting.  I only wish they had offered some for sale at the factory...Sarajo would have bought a bunch! 

Well, I had grand plans this month but the Bead Cruise fun sort of got in the way of my productivity!  I still plan to make some little cascading pearl earrings with a mix of pearls from this factory tour and some coordinating Swarovski pearls for the Lowertown St. Paul Art Crawl in April.

But how about I talk about what I did finish?  I was determined to make a special bead embroidered necklace for the costume party on the Bead Cruise.  Luckily for me, I had a polymer clay cabochon made by Kimberly Cherwaty that was a gift on the cruise two years ago.  It was perfect for my flapper dress with a green beaded and sequined peacock on it.  

The majority of the beads that I used in this piece came from our trip to the Czech Republic....  Mixed metallic size 10s from Matubo, two different sized green pearls from the glass pearl factory, and copper colored O beads from Rutkovsky.  Oh, and the laser etched daggers were from the trip too!  I don't have a good picture of it yet, but I used some gorgeous leather from Kinga Bledsoe for the backing.  

Now it's your turn!  Please add links to/photos of your own creations below.  I love seeing what everyone else is making too.  Not ready yet?  No problem, I'll leave the link up open until late next month.  Check back on April 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next!  

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March 2023 Honey Do List

2023 marks the eighth year that my husband Eric has been giving me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... The Honey Do List!  (Y'all, time really does fly!!)  I know that I'm not the only one who loves a good design challenge, so I'm hoping folks will continue to play along with us!

Here's this month's inspiration and what Eric had to say about it:   

On our amazing walking food tour of Puerta Vallarta recently, the first restaurant we stopped at had these amazing painted and beaded skulls on the walls.  I thought this would be an interesting design challenge for my beady friends!  I took some jewelry making classes on the Bead Cruise, so now I'm one of you all!  

These skulls were seriously cool!  You can't tell from the photo, but the middle one's design was made from tons of tiny beads attached to the skull while the other two were colorfully painted.  I took inspiration from the idea of the designs more than the actual colors and patterns for my creations this month.

First up, I decided to revisit some fun floral cork from my stash.  Sadly the seller close their shop last year and I haven't found another source with as many options, but I still have some good stuff in my collection to play with.  Anyway, I cut teardrop shapes from the cork as well as tan Ultrasuede for the backing and did some bead embroidery to stitch the two fabrics together and give it a loop at the top.  It makes for a nice finished look.  I then connected some copper plated charms to the brass ear wires for some added interest.  These just sold but I could certainly make more like this or similar.    

As I was thinking about the beaded skull, as well as tons of other beaded little statues and other works of art on our trip, it reminded me of a couple of pendants that I had picked up randomly a few years ago.  I pulled them out and managed to whip up a fun necklace with one of them for this month's challenge.  

Last but not least, I switched gears and moved over to a skull theme.  Since I was fresh out of cattle skulls, I went for a fun sugar skull enameled pendant by Anne Gardanne!  I stayed with gold plated findings to go with the gold accents on the pendant and decided to really focus on the blues as well.  I used a mix of Czech glass, agate, and vintage speckled matte lucite.  Probably not the best time of year for this one to find it's forever home, but I guess I'll be ready for Day of the Dead this year!

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Art Elements Theme of the Month June 2020 :: Summer Solstice

The Art Elements Theme of the Month is appropriately the Summer Solstice.  I do so love the long days of summer... although since the Solstice has come and gone I know that they will be getting shorter from here.  Sigh.  Anyway, I focused on the sun for my two designs this month.  Looking on the bright side of life and all that!

For my first design I revisited the idea of doing a bead embroidered bezel around a bottle cap.  Bell's Oberon is a summer seasonal...  a great patio beer that I've been known to enjoy in the warmer months.  

I had one another sunny, summery pendant in my stash so it was time for some stringing!  I paired a lovely hand painted wooden pendant by Ashley Bonney of Summer Wind Art with a fun mix of beads.  It's hard to tell in my photos, but the sun itself is a lovely gold paint... thus my decision to use raw brass chain and findings.  I started pulling beads with the blue tones... I used a mix of Czech glass, faceted Angelite, and Aquamarine.  I pulled in a tiny bit of green with a trio of green lampwork glass beads (artists unknown) and wood tones with some coconut discs.

Here's hoping that the humidity here breaks and I get some patio time this weekend... in the shade of the umbrella.  This summer is going to be a little different than past years but I'm going to embrace it all for what it is.  Who knows, maybe it's time to pick up a new six pack of Oberon!

Honey Do List June 2020

Good Monday morning to all my beady friends!  I hope that you all had a lovely weekend... we sure did.  Lots of cooking, creativity, board games, and just relaxing.  For once I didn't leave my Honey Do List projects to the very last second, so that helped!!

2020 marks the fifth year that my husband Eric has been giving me a design challenge each month to get me out of my comfort zone and to help clear out my bead stash... it's the Honey Do List 2020!  I know that I'm not the only one who loves a good design challenge, so I'm hoping folks will continue to play along with us!

Here's this month's inspiration and what Eric had to say about it:

I struggled a little picking a photo for this month, but ended up deciding on this one.  While not incredibly colorful, I like all the icons and symbols present on this amazing bronze door in Prague.  Good luck on this one!  I promise some color next month!

Even though there isn't really color to speak of in Eric's inspiration photo, there were a lot of thematic possibilities.  The first thing that jumped out at me were the Comedy and Tragedy masks at the top of the doors.  I immediately thought of some vintage brass stampings that I picked up at last fall's Inspired by Nature Retreat when we did a giveaway table.  For some reason I have a ton of the comedy ones, but only one tragedy... so I'm not sure what I'll do with the others.  At least I had a set perfect for earrings!  I didn't buy them for these earrings, but I just happened to pick up these really cool West German resin beads at the perfect time.  I added gold plated spacer beads and raw brass ear wires to complete this look perfect for any thespian!  

A lot of my time went into this next piece.  My sweet friend Alexa had gifted me an amazing polymer clay cabochon by Sherri Kellberg of Beadazzle Me last July in hopes of getting me excited about doing more bead embroidery.  It took me a little bit, but after the Bead Cruise this year I was finally hooked!  With the kitty sitting in the left bottom corner of the doors and the metallic patinated look of the cat face, I felt like this was a good time to tackle this fun piece!  I decided to try something new with this one due to it's size... I learned how to add a pin back underneath the Ultra Suede backing.  

Now it's your turn!  Please add links to/photos of your own creations below.  I love seeing what everyone else is making too!  Check back on July 1st to see what Eric has in store for us next month! 

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Art Elements Theme of the Month May 2020 :: Butterflies

I love me some butterflies and moths so I was a happy girl when I saw the Art Elements Theme of the Month challenge was all about butterflies!  I may have an embarrassing amount of butterfly art beads... so the biggest problem for this challenge was deciding what to use.

I had to start with some beautiful faux tin butterfly charms from Humblebeads that came with cute decorative copper charms attached.  The just seemed perfect for Springtime!  Of course I had to dig around for the perfect Humblebeads discs to coordinate with the charms.  Instead of going with a super matchy bead on the top, I picked a Czech glass flower in a bolder coral color to make it pop.

I had also just snagged a few pairs of enameled butterfly and moth charms from Blue Hare Art Wear in a recent show so of course I had to whip up a sweet little pair of earrings with some of those!

Next up, I made a long necklace with a gorgeous butterfly wing pendant by Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati.  This was a special edition piece that she made only for her Simple Truths Sampler Club.  Pictures really don't do this little treasure justice (especially mine since lighting was iffy when I took them.)  There is a lovely iridescence to it that I wish you could see.  I strung the pendant with tons of yummy Czech glass and Swarovski Pearls with gold plated chain at the back.

Even though I had tons of other butterfly charms and pendants, I turned my focus toward my newest obsession, bead embroidery!!  Even though I took some classes on the Bead Cruise a few years ago, for some reason this year really got me excited about doing more with it.  (I'm hoping to share a little post soon sharing a bit of my bead embroidery journey.)  Anyway, the rest of my designs took a little more time as I learn and play with this new medium.

First up is my very first totally original design... this is the piece I'm most proud of this month.  The idea started with a butterfly shaped porcelain button from Round Rabbit that I've had lingering for years.  When I started plotting it out I thought I could keep it to a nice rounded square shape.  As I worked on it though it continued to grow and morph into a more organic shape.  Here's a little peak at the progression this pendant took in its shape and orientation. 

And drumroll please.... here's the finished pendant!  I'm so happy with the texture and movement I managed to get in the background.  I think it feels really rich.  I'm currently wearing this one on some simple brass chain.  The pendant makes enough of a statement all on its own!

I wanted to let you see the back of this one too.  I used some cork for the backing instead of the more traditional ultra suede. 

My last completed piece is a pendant with a gorgeous ceramic cab by Lisa Peters Russ that I got in another recent Facebook sale.  I'm still pretty new to doing peyote bezels, so every time I successfully bezel something I'm over the moon!  I had fun picking out different bead colors and textures for this one trying to echo the colors in the cab.  I used a navy blue ultra suede for the back of this pendant and plan to just hang it from chain.  I can assure you it was unintentional, but I like the way the top loop echoes the shape of the flower detail at the bottom.  Happy accident!

I didn't quite get my last piece done, but it's ready to trim and get it's backing now.  This is another fabulous cab by Lisa Peters Russ.  This one has a nice matte finish.  Wanting to add a pop of the red and corals from the cab's flower, I gave this one a little crown of flowers to match.  I feel like being a seed bead hoarder is finally paying off since I have tons to choose from for bead embroidery projects!  I need to decide if I'll do a simple brick stitch edge or go for a pretty picot.  If you have opinions on that, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks so much for stopping by to see my little collection of butterfly designs!

Bead Cruise 2018

I'm just back from a wonderful week of jewelry making classes, seeing old friends, meeting new people, fun in the sun, fabulous prizes, yummy food & drinks, and much more.  Where was I that all this happened?  On board Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas for the seven night Bead Cruise, of course!!  This is my fourth time setting sail with Heather Powers of Humblebeads and a group of other wonderful instructors and participants for the Bead Cruise and it's a blast each and every time!

Our ship, the Allure of the Seas, at our first port, Labadee.

This year we left out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and headed for Labadee, Haiti; Jamaica, and Cozumel, Mexico... more about that in a bit.  Most of us fly down at least a day before the departure date... some folks went on a bead store field trip on Saturday, but I got in that day and just headed to the group hotel.

Getting to and on the ship is always a bit of an adventure starting with our shuttle to the port with tons of bags and supplies in tow... but eventually we always manage to get everything on board and settled into our staterooms and classrooms.  After grabbing a light lunch, I found my roommate for the week, grabbed cocktails, and toasted to the wonderful times ahead!

Waiting for the port shuttle with my friend Erin Prais-Hintz... Can you feel the excitement of going on her first Bead Cruise?

Met up with my wonderful roommate (and fabulous instructor!) Tracy Stanley to kick off the trip right!

After dinner on the first night of the cruise, there is a little welcome event where everyone gets to meet up, get the week's schedule, receive our goody bags full of wonderful items donated by the cruise's sponsors, and participate in a pendant exchange.  I ran out of time to play along with the exchange last year so I made sure to get back into the swing of things this time!

Pendant Exchange:  L) The pendant I made with a design and components from Vintaj.  R) The lovely and delicate pendant I received from SandyWetzstein.

If you aren't familiar with the way the Bead Cruise works, there are classes scheduled during the day on the at sea days.  You get one full day class and one half day class included with your registration and have the option of adding up to two additional half day classes.  This year, I decided to break out of my rut and try something new... bead embroidery!  My all day class was "It's A Hippy Thing" with the sweet, patient, and fun Kinga Nichols.  I'm a long way from having this bracelet completed (as you can see from my in progress pics below) but I'm getting there for sure!  I'm super excited to learn how to make a peyote bezel around a cabochon.  Now I won't be sad when I see a lovely bead only to notice that it's actually a cab!  I loved the way Kinga set up our class supplies buffet style so that we could pick our favorite one of a kind cab, the silk color, the leather, and the button individually.  I picked the orange color way for the cab and beads but decided to use the teal silk. 

The next day we were back ashore on Royal Caribbean's private piece of Haiti... Labadee.  I wasn't off the ship for too long, but did enjoy taking the little boat ride to the far side of the island and checking out the artisan market.  (I didn't get there the last time we were there for the 10th Anniversary cruise.)  It was super hot and humid so Heather, Erin, and I headed back to enjoy the pool while most people were off the ship.

Myself, Heather, and Erin on Labadee.  Lovely water of the Caribbean!

The next day was spent exploring Jamaica with a group of my fellow Bead Cruisers and our local guide "Mama" Maxine and guide-in-training Bobby.  We spent the first part of the way driving across the island to Dunn's River Falls.  None of us were interested in trying to climb the falls (it actually looked like a nightmare to do that to me!) but we enjoyed their beauty and many of us did at least get our feet wet!  After a yummy lunch of jerk chicken, fried plantains, and Red Stripe beer (for me, anyways) we headed for a quick tour of the lovely Coyaba Gardens.

Vistas from the drive, and a peek at Dunn's River Falls.

Some cool plants from Coyaba Gardens.  The top right is called Cat's Whiskers!

Later that evening, we had our Neverland themed costume party.  I was too busy dancing and checking out everyone's costumes and jewelry to get many pictures but I did snap a shot of a cute Peter Pan and Tinker Bell!  My costume was a super lazy pirate outfit not worthy of pictures!

After two days in a row on the islands it was back to class!  My half day class was my roommate Tracy Stanley's "Let's Color It" class.  She taught us a fun method for adding color to metal with Prismacolor colored pencils.  I have to admit that I spent a lot of my class time picking out some of the fun shaped metal blanks that Tracy brought and getting them prepped so that I could easily play with the color at home.  I did get one pendant mostly done, though.  I still need to seal it and I'm also thinking that I will add some sort of riveted element to it... just have to decide what that will be first!  This was a super fun technique and I'm already thinking about ways to incorporate it into future designs.

My main piece in progress... I love how even though my rubber stamp work was a little sloppy, the process was pretty forgiving.

Our last port was Cozumel, Mexico.  We stopped there last year and I did a cooking at the beach class at Playa Mia.  I had so much fun last time that I signed up for an excursion that included the same fabulous cooking class but added on some tequila time and a chocolate tour and tasting as well.  I didn't take many pictures (too busy cooking!) but snapped the shots below at the Mayan Cacao Company tour.  A fun, if a bit rushed time was had.  I even grabbed a nice bottle of sipping tequila to bring home to my hubby!

I ended up signing up for two bonus classes this year... one with our lovely hostess Heather and another with Kinga.  I was more than a little nervous about trying Heather's "Welcome to the Jungle" polymer class because it involved making canes.  I was pleasantly surprised by the relative ease of the process and think my beads turned out pretty darn well for it being a first attempt and working with a bit of a time crunch.  I had some ends of the cane that I had lopped off (it gets more distorted on the ends) but they still looked ok.  I decided to try making some little leaf charms since I had some larger sized canes.  Check back on Friday to see a couple of pairs of earrings featuring some of these newly made beads and charms for the We're All Ears challenge. 

It's hard to believe the polymer clay magic that creates the leaf canes that then get applied to your beads!  

Kinga's bonus class "Zeno, the Tiniest Fishie Bracelet" was a great way to end my set of classes.  Much more straightforward and beginner friendly, since it didn't involve bezeling a cab.  I had fun sitting and working on the backstitch outlines in class.  I got more of it finished while waiting for my flight home at the airport, but still have a ways to go.  I'll have to share when I get hime all done.  I was pleased to discover through Kinga's two classes that I enjoy bead embroidery... and it's one more tool in my beading tool kit!

So, eventually my fishy will look like Kinga's samples... I hope!

The last night of the cruise is always bittersweet for me... I'm sad to say goodbye to all of my beady friends but ready to be back home to my husband and kitties.  After dinner, Heather always hosts a Farewell Party before we all have to go back to our rooms to finish packing.  This year, a fun addition to the party was a little photo booth action with lots of amusing props.  Here are a couple of pics of me with Tracy and then Erin and Heather.  Heather also gave out a few more prizes game show style... I won a lovely bunch of sari silk from Design Talented One and a butterfly pendant from Gardanne.

Before I say goodbye to all of you, here's a little collage of some of my favorite things around the ship.  A couple of shots of my favorite area... Central Park, an outside area with real plants and lots of seating tucked throughout; my first chocolate martini... dessert for me on several nights; part of a cool art installation showing the progression of creating a carousel horse; and my favorite towel animal by our stateroom attendant Bob!  Not pictured, but the Oceanaria show at the amazing AquaTheater was super cool.  It was mix of diving, acrobatics, aerial daring, dance, and more with a "stage" that was sometimes covered with only an inch of water and sometimes was deep enough to dive into from 60 feet!

Thanks for sticking with me through this long post... assuming that you're still reading!  LOL.  I write these posts as much for myself as a diary of sorts, so I want to do my best to capture the highlights of all my adventures.

Art Elements Ornament Blog Hop!

This is my second ornament blog hop of the month... I participated in on hosted by the Art Bead Scene blog earlier in the month and you can see all the entries HERE.  Now with the Art Elements challenge, I'm continuing with variations on a theme from what I made for the ABS hop and sharing more of my adventures in needle felting and bead embroidering Christmas Ornaments!

This year I decided to try my hand at making some needle felted Christmas ornaments.  I got inspired last year when I saw a blog post by my friend Diana Ptaszynski over on the Art Elements blog.  (You can see her tutorial HERE.)  I was intrigued by the idea and already had some wool roving that I had bought to felt some beads and focals...  now I just needed to collect some cookie cutters and better needles.  I gathered my supplies this fall and got busy once everything had arrived!

Here are a couple of process pictures... 

Me getting all stabby on a Christmas tree.

Some shapes felted but not embellished.

I did a little more bead embroidery on this second batch of ornaments than on the first round.  (You can see my first three attempts HERE if you missed them.)  I think my favorite might be the star!  I lucked out when I went to buy sequins that Michael's had a great multi pack of different colors and sizes as well as a package of little gold stars.  Initially I had thought that I would just needle felt the white stripes onto the candy cane, but I was worried that I wouldn't be able to achieve consistent, straight lines that way.  I decided to do sequin and seed bead stripes instead which adds more sparkle to the mix for sure!  

The only one that I'm not totally thrilled with is my little gingerbread man.  The brown that I was able to find makes him look a bit burnt and I think his expression is sort of demented.  Part of the problem is that the way I did his smile makes it look like a really toothy grin... Maybe I should have tried needle felting a little bit of white to make his eyes and smile.  Thoughts?  Suggestions? 

Thanks for stopping by to check out my second round of needle felted ornaments.  I got a big ol' tub of fun cookie cutters and I hope to make more of these guys in the future... maybe in time for next Christmas!!    This is a blog hop... you can see what everyone else created by using the links below.  

Guest Designers

Kathy Lindemer

Hope Smitheran

Denise McCabe

Paisley Lizard

Samantha Wescott

Sarajo Wentling

Divya N

Linda Newnham

Melissa Trudinger

Art Elements Team

Susan Kennedy

 Caroline Dewison

Laney Mead

Cathy Mendola

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt

Lindsay Starr

Claire Fabian

Niky Sayers

Wishing you all a very happy holiday season!  May it bring you peace and joy!  It will be quiet around here for a bit as I celebrate Christmas with family and friends over the long weekend.  I hope to sneak in some creative time to make new jewelry to share with you before the year is over.



Inspired by Reading: Vampires in the Lemon Grove

The October selection for the Inspired by Reading Book Club was the suitably creepy short story collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell.  I can't say that I was overly excited to see this title on the year's reading list.  Strike one: I previously tried to read the novel Swamplandia by the same author and just couldn't get into it.  Strike two: I'm not really a short story fan in general.  But being a good sport and general team player when it comes to this sort of thing, I gave this book an honest try.

I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed reading this collection... and even made it all the way through!  Many of the stories left me scratching my head a bit and wondering what actually happened, but that didn't bother me too much.  The tone in many of the stories was almost otherworldly and absolutely eerie... they all had a strangeness to them.

One of the beads that Eric and I picked up at Bead & Button was a wonderful bronze bat bead made by the talented Bob Burkett.  Inspired by the titular story, I thought this would be an appropriate time to make Eric a necklace with his bat!  The main character can no longer transform into a bat, but his wife Magreb can... and uses that ability to fly beyond Clyde's reach and spend her nights in the cliffs.  I used some steel wire and some crusty looking Tibetan agate beads that I just acquired and kept the rest simple with black chain.  I often get in trouble with my otherwise patient husband for not making him jewelry.  I'm hoping this little Magreb necklace gets me off the hook for a little bit!  And an added bonus... Eric now has a new bat necklace just in time to wear to the Twin Cities Horror Festival that starts this Thursday!

I also kept thinking about the second story, "Reeling for the Empire."  I really wanted to try my hand at needle felting some oblong, cocoon-like beads out of the colorful wool roving in my stash.  (I've actually been wanting to make some beads ever since I took Heather Powers' needle felting/bead embroidery class on the Bead Cruise a couple of years ago.)  I was originally thinking of making some earrings... and maybe I'll revisit that idea the next time I'm feeling stabby.  Since I waited until the last minute, I wasn't feeling up to trying to get two "cocoons" of the same size and decided on making a charm style necklace instead.  I used two different colors of wool roving to represent how each girl spun silk in a unique color.  The felt is so light that I needed to add some weight to the pendant so I used one of Andrew Thornton's funky porcelain beads (also picked up at B&B) and some Czech glass.

The felted "cocoons" seemed a little naked and boring on their own so I decided to try out my rudimentary bead embroidery skills to add a little more visual interest.  (The lesson learned here is that it's much trickier to do even simple bead embroidery on a 3D object than a flat one... especially when it's so small!)  The green cocoon might look a little more like an acorn now, but that may not be a terrible thing for selling this long necklace.  I think the market for cocoon jewelry is a fairly narrow one!  The embroidery took me WAY longer than I anticipated, but I think the results were worth it.  I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and tried something new... so I'm calling that a win!