Trollbeads Design Challenge: Day 12

Today I took inspiration from a silk blouse that was a recent gift from my husband… the patterns and colours make my heart sing, and I decided to play with its palette in a bracelet composition.  I began by picking out the principal

colours that made up the core elements of the design.  Those rich blues, subtle greens, creamy ivories hit of coral and touch of saffron all play so beautifully together.  I had no trouble finding all the right colours in my bead tray, as I favour every single shade.  In fact, the challenge here was editing down all the appropriate beads to a

grouping just big enough for my bracelet.  I could have filled a necklace!  The next challenge for me was to hint at the saffron and coral elements without overwhelming the blues, creams and greens.  Every time I added a rich tangerine note, or golden amber, it seemed to dominate the palette too much to really feel like the

original inspiration.  In the end I settled for a sedate blend of celadon, navy, teal and denimy blue, with the only hit of gold coming from the ribbons of the azure bubbles and the gold dust in the desert beads.  It’s not the riot of colour I origianlly envisioned, but I do like it!

Clockwise from clasp:  “Basic Double Lobster Clasp”, “Limited Edition Peacock Pearl”, “Unique”, “Azure Bubbles”, “Etruscan” (retired), “Unique”, “Blue Desert”, “Blue Green Feather” (retired), “Family of Mushrooms” (Lithuania World Tour), “Grey Armadillo” (retired), “Jugend”, “Sapphire?”, “Carved Flowers” (retired), “Aventurine” (retired), “Auspicious” (World Tour Hong Kong), “Unique Amber”, “Chinese Zodiac Limited Edition Rooster”, “Christmas in Australia Limited Edition”, “Unique”, “Limited Edition Kimono series”, “Petanque” (retired), “Azure Bubbles”, “Limited Edition Peacock Pearl”.

C.