Amber & Blue Daisy Bracelet

I love amber and I've added a couple of great beads recently to my collection.  I decided it was time to rejig my current amber bracelet but first I needed to dismantle it and add the new beads to the pile...

My amber bracelet is one of the few bracelets I have that remains permanently made up, so taking it apart always feels a little odd.  I absolutely adore amber and these are mostly uniques, apart from a couple of the Limited Edition World Tour Amber beads, as I have 3 Baltic Gold and 1 Runes; I've not collected any of the production ambers yet.

Out of habit I started to make another all amber combo, and then stopped.

I always do this (who doesn't love an all amber bracelet) but for once I gave myself a new challenge, to finally make "that" bracelet with amber and my Daisy bead; an idea I'd had way before I ever got my first amber or my Daisy bead.

To add some spice I threw myself a curveball; I'd also acquired a new glass unique, shown above, from the recent D4E big unique sale and I was keen to use this too.

Plan B was shaping up... an amber, blue and Daisy bracelet!  I set to work!!

I had to fiddle with the placement and choice of amber beads quite a lot - my beads are mostly all different but I did want some semblance of symmetry, well as much as you can have when the beads are all different shapes, shades and sizes.

It's taken a while to get used to this bracelet as it's not one of my normal colour combinations (and I've been wearing a lot of X and my black lambskin Story bracelet recently) but after a day or two on the wrist I'm beginning to appreciate it all the more.

New Bead Resolution No. 1 - Amber beads, the end! (...for now)

So 9 ambers and a half amber bracelet later and it was all coming together very nicely.  Then my bead compulsion kicked in big style and I had to finish it... so I did... or so I thought I did...

I'd finished my amber bracelet off with 2 lucky knot beads but when I was looking at these photos I thought I needed a little bit more contrast as I had a lot of mid toned amber beads in this combination and it felt like my faceted ambers overpowered the bracelet slightly.

So along came the next (and final) 2 amber beads to finish this New Year's Bead Resolution.  I love the one that appears light but because it has a brown core it shows up as dark.

  NOW I'm finally ready to finish this bracelet.  

I kept most of the central beads in place but rearranged the rest of them, I'm much happier with it this way and it's already had several trips out, it's a keeper!

New Bead Resolution No. 1 - Amber beads, the hunt continues!

2 amber beads and I was on the hunt for some more... although what happened next took even me a bit by surprise, what I hadn't appreciated is how beautifully amber beads photograph.

I had chosen 4 amber beads to make up a kit of 6 beads in a "buy 5 get 1 bead free deal".  Only I wasn't 100% sure on 1 of the ambers so I asked the seller to pull another 5 amber beads so I could have a look at some more - I decided I'd replace 1, maybe 2 of my original choice with 1 or 2 from the other 5.

The Magnificent Seven!  (all amber ooaks)

The seller sent me some gorgeous photos and therein my problems started; because whilst in the group of 4 I wasn't sure on 1, maybe 2... in a group of 7 they all looked amazing.  Thankfully someone else had already snagged the other 2 I'd chosen or my guess is I would have bought all 9.

So what's a girl to do?  I decided despite my lack of bead budget I really needed to keep this group together!  My only saving grace was that I didn't add any more beads to this to make up 2 kits of 6... no really I didn't actually do that; though it was sooo tempting!

The Magnificent Seven with my World Trade Baltic Gold (3rd from left)
and my Big Amber Ooak from Denmark (far right)

Side shot of all 9, I could have photographed these all morning...

Now I have 9 ambers... time to try out a half amber bracelet.

Lots of sparkle and now I can finally tell you where my Jugend and Transformation beads ended up!

How having a plan doesn't always work (quite the way you intended)

Looking back at January from the safety of February I think I can say for certain I went a bit mad.

It started off innocently enough as my New Year's Bead Resolutions were my attempt to focus my bead collecting, and equally importantly my spending, into a streamlined method of acquiring and buying that would be more cost effective and would let me achieve certain goals, such as having an amber bracelet, without getting too sidetracked or having multiple bracelet ideas on the go and having to buy even more beads just to get one finished.

I should have known that as logical as I can be in my working life, that the bead collecting part of my brain wouldn't respond in such a sensible manner.  What actually happened was I bought more beads than I've ever bought in 1 month before, and I went so over budget that the budget line couldn't even be seen with The Hubble Telescope.

To be fair to myself, I did stick within my New Year's Bead Resolutions, I, er, just hadn't thought it through enough to put a definite limit on quantity - the quality I think I have down to a tee.  From this point of view I think you'll enjoy the beads to come.

One of my resolutions was to focus on the buying of bargain beads off my wish list.  The first sale opportunity was offered by SWAG with a whacking great big discount on beads; this saw me secure Silver Jugend (a bead I have been after for a long time), Lavender Prism, Light Turquoise Prism and Labradorite.

My original list was a lot longer and indeed for several days it looked like I was going to secure my first ever gold and silver bead, Daisy, along with the silver snow bead (which I am still looking for) and a multiple of turquoise prism.  Unfortunately the Sale was plagued with a lot of problems and was very oversubscribed so that left quite a few orders that couldn't be completed, and even with the best efforts by staff to locate beads and deal with the orders there were still some disappointments.  A month further along and those have passed and we are all left with some great beads at what were some of the lowest prices I've ever seen for new trollbeads!

Buying Labradorite online sight unseen was a huge risk, the photos of the bead look as if it has some "flash" in the bead but these are only ever picked up by the camera, in reality this is a lovely green faceted bead which will work well with natural colours on a bracelet, it goes very nicely with my Limited Edition green jasper bead and I imagine it would work well with a lot of my brown beads, but no flash.

Silver Jugend on the other hand is every bit as lovely as it looks, it really is a beautiful silver bead and if you were going to get just one of the chunkier silvers this would be my No.1 recommendation.  It works well with Transformation and I currently have these sat on a... oh sorry I'm getting ahead of myself there.  That will all come later as I have a few more, a'hem, a lot more beads to blog about before I can tell that particular story!

Finally I was able to add to my prism collection with light turquoise prism and lavender prism.  Some of you may remember I came close to having light turquoise prism earlier but was foiled by some flimsy packaging!

I had started (in earnest) following my resolutions and was very pleased with the progress I'd made by early January.  At the time I naively thought this was a head start, not the continued pace of what was to come!