Sunday, April 14, 2013

Dazzle-It Summer Love Blog Hop Follow Up

For those of you who are interested in even more colorful jewelry inspiration, here are all of the finished projects in one spot. For links to each of them, see the full post on the Dazzle-It Blog! 

Monday, April 8, 2013

Summer Love Blog Hop with Dazzle-It Beads!


How great are these colors? One glance and I'm ready for a summer fiesta! This particular fiesta just happens to be online, with my fellow Dazzle-It blog-hop participants. These gorgeous (and surprisingly affordable!) beads were sent to each blogger to be styled in to our own unique creations. I am going to show you what I came up with, and later this week I will share the links to everyone else's beautiful creations! I'm all about mix and match, so I decided to create a trio of simple pieces focused on a single color theme, and as you can see below, my color is green!


I started with the Dazzle-It 20lb 1mm Pure Hemp, which was just narrow enough to fit through the chinese symbol beads. I cut a 16" length of the white hemp, as well as two 16" lengths of the green hemp. I strung 5 of the beads in to the center of the white hemp. To hold the beads in place, I knotted the white hemp on either side of the beads, but inserted a length of green hemp on either side before I cinched each one. Like so: 


That left me with three strands on each side, which is exactly what I needed to braid both sides. I braided the entire length on either side, which left me a enough to tie the bracelet on the opposite side in a nice little bow. 


The green square beads I strung on single strand of elastic for a quick and easy accessory. To balance those pieces out, I created a single strand hemp bracelet, knotting one of the green peace sign beads in the center. All three could be worn together or separately! 

Of course no post (or Fiesta!) would be complete without a little music. I'd recommend The Orishas

To find the Dazzle-It line near you, email to info@dazzle-it.com