Use Lucite Beads to Harvest Some Great Autumn Jewelry
Frost is on the pumpkin! November is a time of chilly, brisk mornings and a warm sun shining in the cool afternoon. The bounty of the garden has been harvested, and now its time to enjoy it! It didn’t seem like enough to put out the autumn decorations… the gourds and pumpkins and cornucopias that adorn my home and give off a flavor of fall didn’t seem to whet my whistle. So I set about adorning myself!

Lucite moonglow
Off I went to my bead case, and sure enough, it didn’t disappoint. Mind you, right now I have my bead case decorated Tsunami style and it could use a good organizing. But as soon as I saw a strand of Lucite orange moonglow hiding beneath some silk cording I knew I had to do something with them. I grabbed some sterling wire and got comfy at my desk. 

It’s the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown
There’s something about pumpkin. The rich color, the fluted round shape, the texture and feel of the solidness of it. Oh, and the potential for it to turn into a rockin’ awesome Jack, or at best, some terrific and mouth watering pumpkin pie. What potential and inspiration! Something with pumpkin flavor was about to be created from my pliers! Selecting a sweet little strand of olivine daggers that would give the moonglow beads just enough greenery to suggest that they’re pumpkins, I did a simple loop with a roll of my pliers to connect them together. A simple clasp connected it and I must say, this is one of the most simplest bracelets I’ve built, with some of the prettiest results.

Hypnotic and hooked!
Here’s what I recommend. If you’ve never done this before, then it’s a must do. The next time you’re at the Beadin’ Path, go to the Lucite section, and select a bunch of moonglow beads to put on your arm as though you were attempting to wear 100 bracelets. Just keep putting them on there, in all colors and styles. Pretty soon you’ll start holding them in the corners of your elbows and clutching even more to your chest. The colors will begin to make your eyes do the happy dance and the glow in the beads will put you in a trance! They are amazing and no other beads are like them. They simply gleam with a glossy sheen that is slick to the touch and dangerous to your wallet! Orange, olive, brown, amber… you can’t live without them! 

More pumpkins
Recently Halie at the store sent me a bag of delicious Lucite beads in a round shape… but with ribs, so they look like pumpkins! They’ve got a fantastic matte finish so they exude pumpkin texture. Two of them found their way onto sterling headpins and I used a 4 mm Swarovski bicone in Colorado Topaz to give it a stem, and then crafted a curly-q in 26 g wire to wind around the base of the stem. A 3 mm Swarovski bicone in Chrysolite gave it a touch of green to finish it off. Adorable! These beads also come in a fantastic amber color and could instantly be transformed into a gourd. 

Unearthing more treasure
While putting away my leftover beads a strand accidentally fell the floor. Once retrieved it occurred to me that this strand was begging me to let it be a pair of earrings also… since they look like a beautiful stalk of wheat! Don’t you love when something crosses your path and WHAM! You get knocked in the head with an idea! This Lucite strand is the buttery light brown of maple candy, and the herringbone design gives the impression of a swaying wheat stock. Really a lovely shape! So I got my headpins back out and rummaged up some Olivine Swarovski bicones for the top and bottom to help steady the beads on the headpins, and there they were. Like it was meant to be.

One I missed
I found this adorable little corn husk bead in our Lucite section… that I don’t own yet! This would make a really cute pair of earrings for this time of year. Have to put that on the must have list!

Going seasonal, but not holiday
With the changing of the seasons, there’s much to be appreciated for inspiration. And I’m not talking about spiders, ghosts and jack-o-lanterns or even candy canes and Santa for that matter. There’s something to be learned in the atmosphere of mid August or January, when we don’t have a specific holiday to focus on. Activities, air temperature, and the colors in nature are some of the things that can manipulate the course of our designing with beads. Take advantage! There’s so much out there to see and soak up.

“I’ll take orange, brown, amber and olive over any color any day of the week. These are the colors that light my internal creative fires, and I can never go wrong when I use them! It doesn’t matter that I was born in March… I’m a November baby in my soul!” Hildee Marronde, lampwork artist and bead collector