Spring has Sprung

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Roses are red
Violets are blue.
Want a glass flower?
I’ll make one for you.

Springtime. Doesn’t that bring out the poet in you? It does me. Ok, well, maybe I’m not really that much of a poet. But the suddenly warm afternoons, colorful crocuses in my garden, and the newly longer days have rejuvenated my creativity a bit, but perhaps I should stick with beads and not poems.

So how about a new spring bead? Floral of course. I’ve decided I want to try something fun and abstract and bright. Striped cane lollipop flowers with raised design stems and leaves. A simple, but for me, slightly challenging design. Raised designs have never been my forte, but putting raised designs on long, thin flattened beads has been a tiny bit tricky, as it’s very easy to crack one end of the bead while applying the design to the other. And of course I don’t want to overheat things and melt in the raised sections.

I can’t quite decide which design variation I like best. Two leaves per flower, four leaves per flower? Bubble centers in my flowers or not? Should I add a little garden green to bottom of the base bead? Then there is my biggest question: How do I go about expanding my color pallete? While I’m trying to be abstract, I seem stuck on orange-ish flowers on blue sky backgrounds. Too realistic perhaps? Where should I go from here? Would blue flowers on yellowish backgrounds work? Or pink flowers on purple backgrounds? Or do I need to stick with the blue skies of spring? I may have to play with some more color combinations. Any ideas?

Linda beads and blogs from her home in Salt Lake City,  Utah.   Her creations can be found on Ebay and Etsy!