Trollbeads Inspiration: Mossy Blues

If there’s one thing that North Vancouver does well… it’s growing moss.  We do moss like nobody else… thick, fabulous sheets of it that invite barefoot walks and afternoon naps.  I think it’s odd that some of my gardening friends treat it as a weed, grumbling as it grows madly all over their shade gardens, and working busily to keep it at bay.

Personally I love the stuff, and actively cultivate it.  It protects the ground and helps to keep it moist over the super dry summer months, keeps the weeds to a minimum, and is green all year round.  Love it.  It’s the lowest maintenance ground cover ever, and uncomplainingly shares its space with all the other shade loving plants.

So when I designed this “Beautiful blue” bracelet, with its mossy accent tones it brought to mind my favorite bed of moss in my garden.  I couldn’t resist a little “al fresco” photo shoot, to share it with you.  The moss is ridiculously lush at the moment, thick and sproingy, and glowing emerald green in the Spring sunshine.

It still bears the tiny forest of oxblood seeds from last Autumn.  Don’t they look just like the little stripes in the “Parasol” patterned unique shown above?  Many of the beads on today’s bracelet are from the newest wave of classic core uniques for Spring of 2014.  These glass are, for the most part, quite tiny and very intricately detailed.

I’ve had questions from readers wondering how to integrate these tiny beads into their existing collection of regular sized production beads… I can understand the hesitation, but for me they simply offer another way to play with size in a design.  I like a bracelet to taper at the ends, so that’s an easy spot to fit them in.  In addition, I prefer a mix of sizes through the main part of the bracelet, to allow the eye a spot to pause and rest.  Think of it as punctuation for the composition – it lets the eye know where there’s something especially lovely over which it should linger.  In this case, I have chosen silvers that I think are really beautiful.  I wanted the viewer to fully appreciate their form, so I tapered down to each one with a smaller glass.  Each little grouping of glass is made up of a larger central bead, framed by two slightly smaller ones.  It gives the overall bracelet a pleasant rhythm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clockwise from clasp:  “Fish Lock”, “Unique”, “Ladybug”, “Unique”, “Silver Mountain”, “Unique”, “Forget me not”, “Ancient Palace”, “Labradorite”, “Unique”, “Chrysanthemum of November”, “Unique”, “Dendritic Agate”, “Unique”, “Troll with big feet”, “Unique”, “Purple Rippling Bubbles”, “Unique”, “Mom’s Bouquet”, “Unique”.

C.