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New Lampwork Beads, Amethyst Earrings

The pinks in this photo just don't show up as they do in life. I tried and tried to adjust for color and had it until I saved the image for the web and it stripped out a lot of my red color when compressing the file to .jpg. What would be to my advantage at this time is those people viewing this on monitors that punch up the red on everything :-D.

This lentil bead set is actually quite lovely. As you can see I like to work small. The lentil bead is only about the size of a dime. It has a pink and purple theme going on even though the pic doesn't show it as well as I would like it to. Again I used that delicious Moretti/Effetre Opalino Rose. The color reminds me of pink alabaster Swarovski crystal beads. I will have to compare those to this pink sometime. I also used silver pink, rubino oro, and lavender. The thin stripe through the center of the lentil is a result of a reaction between two or more of those colors. I was kind of experimenting so I don't remember exactly what I did. The resulting bead is quite stunning. The two accent beads are solid opalino rose. The spacers, Tibetan silver (a silver/zinc/steel alloy with a nice "heft").
These beads are for sale in my Etsy shop

These are my version of Eni Oken's "Mini Mosaic Earrings". I used grade A amethyst rounds from Magpie Gemstones. Swarovski pearls and crystals and sterling silver wire. The main part of each earring is just the size of a dime, very small, like my lentil bead. Those little beads around the outside are tiny 2mm Swarovski crystals. The tutorial for these earrings can be purchased from Jewelry Lessons.com.

Thanks, Eni Oken for providing such a great tutorial and for the photography tips (even though I still suck at it).

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