Trollbeads Inspiration: “More is More” Fantasy Necklace

Amethyst and amber makes such a perfect colour combination for Autumn, don’t you think?

Today we’re playing with the classic palette of deep, lustrous garnet and a royal tone of purple.  Inspired by the exceptionally pretty stone on this Fantasy necklace, we decided to tease together a quick and simple necklace, using the elegant “Freedom Feather” silver pendant as a focal point.  This useful pendant is designed to frame the droplet at the bottom of a fantasy necklace, and gives a much more substantial and dramatic effect than the droplet alone.  It feels like an integrated part of the necklace, not an added “bead”, and could easily be worn completely on its own on a Fantasy necklace.

We could have placed the Freedom Feather silver, and left it at that beautiful and simple design.  We could have just added an amethyst bead above… or maybe just the faceted cherry amber and amethyst… but no.  We were in a “more is more” sort of a mood… so we stacked the necklace with a raft of delicious beads!  In the end, that’s the joy of the Fantasy necklace as a design tool – it only takes a few moments to create a new design, so it can be composed and redesigned however you like, as often as you like.

C.

 

Trollbeads Inspiration: Shades of Amethyst

Thank you to Cristi for today’s composition…

We’re fortunate to have two exceptionally lovely Amethysts in the gallery at the moment, and together they display the unexpected range of expression within this natural stone.  For many years we’ve received the faceted version of this stone, and it showed a very narrow range of variations – a little darker, a little lighter here or there…

Recently we’ve noticed the range has become a little more diverse, with some very dark and very light examples appearing.  With the release of the Summer Stones series we were thrilled to see a huge variety of colours, clarities and patterns.  It’s given us an even greater appreciation for this stone, and we reach for it now more than ever.

In an interesting side note, the spectacular icy blue notes on this bracelet are courtesy of some of the colour change glass beads in the Trollbeads collection.  If you are not familiar with this phenomenon, there is a certain shade of light lilac that does change dramatically depending on what type of light it is exposed to.

The prism shown above is the “lavender Prism”, and in natural or incandescent light it does appear distinctly pink in comparison to what you are seeing in this photograph.  The photo at left is its usual look!  In my photography light box, with filtered compact fluorescent light, the glass is transformed and appears an amazing ice blue.  You can see that the pale blue chess unique undergoes the same change of appearance… in the shop it is distinctly lavender.  This phenomenon has been known to take some of our clients by surprise, as they arrive home with their new treasure, look at it in the kitchen under fluorescent light and are astonished to see that it looks totally different than in the gallery!  We’ve learned that we must let our ladies know about its little quirk.  There are quite a few beads among the uniques that can perform this party trick, and I’ve often thought it would be fun to build an entire bracelet on this theme… perhaps with some “Inner Glows’ sprinkled in for extra drama!

C

Clockwise from clasp:  “Swan Lock”, “Universal Unique”, “Purple Prism”, “V For Victory”, “Unique Armadillo”, “Dice Unique”, “Amethyst”, “Universal Unique”, “Wold Tour Big World”, “Chess Unique”, “Amethyst – Summer Stones Series”, “Unique”, “Proto-Dice Unique”, “Smiling Cylinders”, “Lavender Prism”, “Purple Flower Mosaic”.

New at Tartooful: Earrings by Trollbeads!

We recently took the plunge and stared bringing in the collection of earrings by Trollbeads.  I don’t know why it has taken us so long to explore these lovely designs, but I’m so pleased to have them in stock now! I’m impressed: they’re very affordable and truly beautiful.

It’s very simple:  first you select a style of comfortable, functional hook.  There are silver ones, gold ones, ones with both metals mixed, and even ones with tiny diamonds.  They’re pretty enough to even wear on their own.  Next comes the fun part:  you choose decorative silver or semi precious stone ornaments to create a wide array of different looks for your earrings.  It’s very “Troll”… The silver has the distinctive Trollbeads look about it, but scaled perfectly to be lightweight and delicate for earrings.  The stones are subtly faceted and slender so the light illuminates them from behind.

As the holidays approach we’ll be expanding our selection of earrings with each order, as I anticipate these will be on everyone’s “Lust List” this year!  Pop in to see these list worthy treats for yourself…

C.