I just happened on Bead Trends Magazine Facebook page this past weekend and was pleased to see this nice video – apparently they have a YouTube channel - which describes some bead art jewelry trends that are quite nice.
As usual I always hope for more on the bead weaving art form of beading; but the beaded jewelry items featured in this video are quite unique and lovely…Enjoy!
Those that know, realize that bead color choices and selection is quite exhaustive so it’s really kind of nice to have a trend color chart to reference so we’re not searching endlessly to match current fashion colors.
Bamboo is the first color listed on the chart. Mustard and Mustard Yellow immediately come to mind so this is an easy one for trying to figure out which bead color works back to Bamboo. The beads and bead mixes I selected for the collage starts with the solid color in Miyuki Japanese Tila beads Mustard. The bead mixes can be searched on two names Honey Butter aka Marigold.
I always like to know what’s inspiring to a designer in fashion, but especially in bead art jewelry designing as it often tells an interesting story.
Designers Chris Benz, Lela Rose and Kenneth Cole created the following pieces for Pantone and talked about not only what inspired them but the signature and prominent colors that they worked with while designing for Fall / Winter 2011 Fashions; so let’s start with the color Bamboo.
Chris Benz fondly reflects on his travels to Savannah Georgia in 2010 inspired his use of the color Bamboo and speaks of the prominent colors he uses as swampy colors in the moonlight: Licorice, Pirate Black, Mood Indigo and Cypress; splashed with Rust, Freesia, Hot Coral, Super Pink, Algiers Blue and Antique Moss. Chris’ signature color is Sponge which he describes as a Green-Beige.
Lela Rose was inspired by the obscured imagery and hazy aura of the artists’ Gerhard Richters’ paintings while visiting The Chicago Art Institute; so this along with her signature color Sea Green, she’s selected these prominent colors: Bronze, Tanger and Burnt Clay.
Kenneth Cole was also inspired during his travels to Ireland while sitting in front of a warm fire in an old Irish castle. With Saffron Yellow being his signature color which he likes to layer with other spicy colors: Terracotta, Red Apple and Fire Orange.
What an amazing array of color which will certainly inspire the creation of stunning bead art jewelry designs!
Mustard Yellow is clearly an obvious choice for the color Bamboo, but there are some more bead color options which could offer similar color ranges but because these colors are transparent rather than opaque like the Tila beads pictured above they take on less o the mustard yellow color: Transparent MAB Light Topaz, Transparent Light Topaz, Transparent Amber.
Metallic Matte Gold is another good choice.
Remember that the bead colors mentioned are consistent across bead types which includes seed beads, fire polished beads, Czech Glass Druk / Pressed beads, Swarovski Crystal NOTE not all bead types carry the same range of colors.
I came across this amazing YouTube video about the history of Vintage bead art jewelry on All Earz Jewelry blog.
I learned a lot in a little over eight minutes, but one thing that stood out for me was the term used by the narrator throughout the video – Bead Art; and believe me as you see the designs you will recognize that not only are these bead art designers unique, but that you just might have a treasure trove of their designs in your jewelry box!
Atlanta Vintage Jewelry is apparently the originator of this video. Check their website for their current selection of Vintage Bead Art Jewelry and a list of Vintage jewelry suppliers.
Pantone’s color forecast for Fall / Winter 2011 is spectacular as usual and sure to stimulate some amazing bead art and jewelry designs.
I will elaborate more in another post about what fashion designers are saying about how the 2011 Fall / Winter colors inspired their designs, but for now I wanted to basically give a shout out to some online bead stores that really help bead art jewelry designers by offering the current seasons color palettes for beading.
I do believe that the availability of Pantone’s colors every season inspires more bead stores to create mixes of color coordinated beads and bead mixes.
I attempted to coordinate beads and bead colors when I first discovered the value of using the Pantone color charts but must admit that I found it a bit overwhelming. So I’m thrilled to find the following information available online.
Preciosa-Ornela website currently offers a bead color palette which seems to coordinate nicely with Pantone’s colors for Fall / Winter 2011.
Phlox, Deep Teal and Bamboo – shown in the above color chart - are the dominant in these Preciosa Bead Fashion Trends News Flash – check out their website for more colors.
Jesse James Beads is another website that creates bead mixes based on Pantone’s Fashion color palette (currently Fall 2011 not seen online, but it’s still August). Many of their mixes look lovely; however, personally, I would just suggest to be sure to read what makes up their bead mixes as I noticed that they seem to include Czech Glass, Japanese and Chinese beads in the same mix.
Swarovski Elements Crystals and Beads and Pendants are probably one of the best at following every color fashion trend up to two seasons in advance so we certainly want to keep an eye what they have in their Crystal bead pipeline. There are so many sources for Swarovski Crystals, but HarMan Beads is a terrific resource for determining in advance what’s coming in Swarovski Crystal – you’ll probably want to bookmark their webiste.
This is an end of season trend wrap of four jewelry fashion trends that I think would look fabulous in beads.
Fall / Winter 2011 Fashion Season is right around the corner but there’s still lots of HOT weather left in most parts of the country to still rock Summer trends.
Along with other sources I really like looking through the trends as forecasted by the Direction Accessories Trend Forecasting (photo’s) report which follows the trends seen on the runways.
I’m sure there’s lots of beautifully designed beaded items already created, and if yours fit any of these trends, please share.
Here’s one item of many highlighted during London Fashion Week categorized as POOF and totally appropriate – as these earrings from House of Holland makes the statement; ‘this kitchy Poof adornment is sure to score some fashion points. We can't wait to cheer this trend on--with our chic oversized pom-poms in hand, or on our heads, of course!’
Handcrafted and hand beaded hair accessories, well, there never seems to be enough of a selection. One material that came to my mind for creating some of the most unique hair accessories is used by Polymer Clay bead artists; I’ve seen such breathtakingly beautiful polymer clay creations which would certainly lend themselves to some amazing handcrafted, hand beaded hair accessories. Again, perhaps I’ve missed what’s already been created, so please share.
Can it be that wooden beads will come back and make a fashion statement? The wooden accessories pictured below are sure to inspire some amazing pieces. I perused Artfire and Etsy and to my surprise didn’t see much that stood out as a fashion statement which means there’s lots of room for amazing bead art jewelry designs in this category!
But I think, well know, that my favorite trend is the Friendship Bracelets which,not unlike the Cuff bracelet style which are still amazingly popular, the Friendship bracelet too seems to have staying power.
I love the versatility truly basic design, and also with the many different materials and beads that can be used to create these bracelets bead art jewelry designers are only limited by their creativity!
Here’s a display of an interesting design selection on this website Polyvore of friendship bracelets:
Even though we’re wrapping up Spring / Summer 2011 creating with the Seasonal colors as forecasted by Pantone is a terrific way to keep your handcrafted, hand beaded, bead art jewelry designs on trend!
I’ve been selling my beads online for some years now on various online ecommerce venues including my own websites.
Some of these sites, when in their early stages, I came across only to decide against selling on them as they just didn’t quite have the same look and feel as the venue I was currently selling on.
When I could no longer ignore the press, forum comments about others that were gaining increased sales on one site - which became a sort of poster-child for selling to the handcrafting community - I decided to revisit that particular site. It was evident almost immediately that I had certainly been missing out on valuable sales and opportunities – my decision to not get on board sooner immediately came to mind!
I didn’t make the same mistake when I came across Artfire.
There’s always a learning curve of new features, down time when populating a new site, trying to manage both sites simultaneously and filling order – interestingly enough sales do increase.
The recent opportunity to express why Artfire sellers selected it as their main selling venue; along with the incentive to possibly win a $500 gift certificate got me thinking and as a result listing my reason for selling on Artfire.
Here are the top 5 reason why I enjoy having a Pro-member account selling on Artfire:
Here are the coupon codes for March The Bead Stylist Artfire Bead Studio.
Take advantage of this Triple Coupon Play for the Month of March in honor of March Madness & National Craft Month:
Coupons can not be combined, but they can be used multiple times.
The Directs Trend Finder Reports are so on point with the trends in jewelry and accessories that will be worn with the current seasons fashions. Although a subscription website I was able to glean what they dish for free here.
As we all know beads are always in fashion but it’s always fun to see what and how they fit into Spring / Summer 2011 fashions.
Loving the following look long layers of strategically placed small and large monotone beads and the idea of embellishing the strands with a bead woven piece of bead art jewelry – stunning!
It looks like we will be seeing Tassle's everywhere! Just check out what Ann Taylor’s working this trend into their jewelry line. Tassles and beads are, at least in my mind, are almost synonymous so it will be fun to see what bead artists and bead art jewelry designers will do with this trend for Spring / Summer 2011.
Will feathers stay on trend for Spring / Summer 2011?
The top two pictures are all Peacock feathers; I had no idea there was so much variety in this particular feather (feathers pictured available upon request).
Just curious,which of these trends will have the most influence on your designs this season?
Typically I like to look at the way fashion designers accessorize their designs to see if there is a particular trend surfacing in jewelry.
Other places to look are of course the fashion magazines, but television shopping channels really need to keep their finger on the pulse of what’s happening in this area, and two of my favorites are HSN and QVC.
I came across this blog post on QVC from Michael O’Connor which gives a terrific overview of what’s happening this year in jewelry trends.
The following bullet points are taken directly from Michael’s blog post. Two of my favorites that I will be keeping an eye on are numbers one and four – I’m especially interested to see how bead artists develop these trends in their designs.
