Beaded Beads

Lately I have been playing around with beaded beads.  I thought I'd have a little go and see what I could make that were self supporting but that would also allow you to see the structure of the bead as well.

 I started with the green bead at the back.  It's made with some cheap Indian glass rounds and lots and lots of thread to keep these heavy beads still!  Then I made another using Swarovski faceted rounds.  I'm not much of an orange fan but thought it looked quite cute.

 Then I tried again with some Swarovski pearls.  This one is my favourite by far, possibly because I love the colour!  I threaded this on some plain silver snake chain and turned it into a very simple necklace as a birthday present for one of the girls at work.

Then I moved on to Cindy Holsclaw's rather fabulous Disco Ball beaded bead and I absolutely loved it!

I had loads of leftover bicones in some pretty random colours so I thought I'd see how the Disco Ball beaded bead would translate to them and they really worked!  As you can see, I didn't add the lace overlay so I had to go through each bead quite a few times in order for them to stiffen up.

But then what to do with all these random beaded beads I had made?!

A cute little charm bracelet worked wonders as yet another gift.  Luckily she is a bit of a champion of colour so this was right up her alley!