sparkly!

A couple of weekends ago, me and my wonderful mum went to a jewellery class at The Bead Shop Nottingham.  It was Swarovski and twin beads.  I've only ever used Tila beads, so was looking forward to this.  For the uninitiated, twin beads are seed beads (the diddy little ones) with 2 holes, this makes them an oval shape.  Tila beads have 2 holes too, but they are square and flat.

We made this bangle.  Or rather, I made this bangle, everyone else made their own bangles.  I found the most gorgeous Swarovski crystals in the boxes our tutor put out for us, I knew I had to use them, even though I'd gone into the class with the idea of making a purple bangle.

I went for clear AB twin beads (AB just means sparkly!) and chose a purple seed bead, size 11/0, to match.  The bangle is reversible, above you can see the little domes made by the twin beads and the seed beads.

And this is the other side which shows off the crystals better.  In all fairness, these photos are CRAP so it's really hard to make out, but sparkly crystals and AB beads are a real pain to photograph.  Ah well, just imaging a sparkly bracelet, done that?  Good, that's what I made!