Colors of Spring Blog Hop - Driftwood

Almost two months ago Sally at The Studio Sublime offered up a bit of a challenge. Using Pantone's colors for Spring, she made several sets of her ceramic beads to match the Spring palette. I believe there were two of each of the ten colors and then an extra two of the Tangerine Tango, since it's the color for the year. She offered up the lentil beads in her shop and included four other beads in a surprise color of her choice. She called it the Colors of Spring Blog Hop.

By the time I heard about the challenge, the colors left were few. I opted for Driftwood. It's a grey with a touch of brown to it. However, I had no idea what color Sally would pair with it.

Here are the beautiful beads I received.

From the beginning, Sally said that it wasn't necessary to use the additional beads just as long as the lentil bead in the Spring color was included. I, however, was determined to use both colors. I pondered the yummy green with the driftwood for a while trying to decide what other shades would go with them. I ended up pulling out bead after bead and comparing them to the ones Sally sent me. I finally settled on a bright red and black.

Let me say that I really worked to make sure those shades didn't look too Christmas-y together.

I had decided that I wanted to frame the lentil bead in some way and the more I pondered this the more I knew that I wanted that lentil to SPIN also. In fact, I believe I dreamed that part of the design. I'm a rather fidgety person and often play with the jewelry I'm wearing, so a necklace that I can spin sounded like a lot of fun. After going through my wire I decided to use some galvanized steel that would almost reflect the gray of the bead while still highlighting the unique shade of it. I started by building the frame and arranging beads on a length of wire with the lentil that would help ensure that the lentil spun smoothly. This was much harder than I thought. I finally found that silver discs at either end worked perfectly.

After that, it was a matter of making the chain with the rest of the beads and decorating the frame with similar-colored seed beads. I also made a toggle clasp with the steel wire. Here are my final results.

 

It's really long so I can lift the focal to spin it!

And here's a quick video of it spinning!

I'll admit that it spins much better when I can use both hands and don't have to hold the camera in one of them.

Thanks to Sally for coming up with this challenge. It was a lot of fun. Now, I'm anxious to check out everyone else's colors and what they made. You should do the same! Here's the list of the other participants and their colors!

 Host: Sally Russick
Margarita
Therese Frank
Kim Bender

Cabaret
JLynn Jewels
Christine Altmiller
Sweet Lilac
Cherrie Fick
Jenny Vidberg
Driftwood
Sabine Dittrich
Hope Smitherman
Solar Power
Nicole Rennell
Erin Fickert-Rowland 
Bell Flower
Patti Vanderbloemen
Kristi Bowman
Starfish
Shannon Chomanczuk
Elisabeth Auld
Cockatoo
Alice Peterson
Donna Bradley
Sodalite Blue
Kristi Harrison
Cilla Watkins
Tangerine Tango
Lesley Watt
Maryanne Gross
Susan Kennedy
Courtney White Breul

Thanks for hopping by!