Summer Sunset in Arizona

This one has been a long time coming, hasn't it?  It seems to me like I have been working on this one forever, and frankly I am tired of looking at it.  Did you ever get that way about a project?  The obvious thing to do would be to put it down and come back to it, but with deadlines looming for the BJP and wanting to get my Artbeads Blogger project finished, I knew I had to work on it straight through until it was done.

My challenge this month was to come up with a project for both the BJP and for the Artbeads Blogger project.  Artbeads gave me the theme of summer and I had 3 product categories to choose from:  charms, pendants and glass beads.  Living in Arizona, I hate summer.  With a passion.  I had to dig very deep to find any redeeming quality about summer in Arizona.  Finally I thought of something...our sunsets.  Summer sunsets in Arizona are absolutely glorious.  The array of colors you will see is amazing.  yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, blues, purples...in all varying shades and levels of vibrancy.  Some are subdued and some are shockingly bright.  I had it in my head to try to do my best to depict a sunset using beads.  My end result was pretty close to what I had imagined.  Not exactly, but close...closer than on some other projects, that's for sure!

This piece was quite a challenge for me.  I had to choose colors that realistically show those of a sunset and also blend them sufficiently so they didn't just look like stripes across my fabric.  I chose to use Toho beads from Artbeads.  I find that they look much nicer in embroidery projects than the delicas.  Toho has just about any color you can imagine!  I like them, too, because they are much more economical than delicas and the rounded edges seem to lay better around turns and curves than the delicas.  The only thing I was disappointed in when looking for my Tohos for this project was that Artbeads was completely out of stock on all solid colored black beads in any finish.  : (  I needed black for the shadowed cactus and ground area.  What I found was a hybrid called Jet Picasso.  It is mottled gray and black.  For this project I thought it was too gray, so I added in some solid black beads that I had in my stash.  If you are looking for something a little more interesting than just plain black, though, I would recommend this color.  It is very different.

(Jet Picasso with black mixed in.)

Arizona Sunset

(I think it looks best smaller so you can really see all the colors together.)

(But here it is a little bigger.)

There are different 10 colors in the sunset, all in Tohos and all blended together.  It got very tricky for me especially when I had 3 colors all converging at the same points.  For a little whimsy I added some sparkling Swarovski stars in the sky.  I just love how they twinkle on the page.  Then, I added some awesome little antique silver charms.  There is a cactus, boot and cowboy hat.  As if the large cactus in the center didn't say Southwest enough...had to add the cowboy elements for a little fun.  Here are some close-ups of the charms:

Here is a closer pic of the stars:

And here you can also see my very favorite Toho color of all...Frosted Silver-Lined Cobalt!  It is the most vibrant color I have ever come across in a bead, and I just love it!!!  Electric is a word I would use to describe it.  I would use it in every project if I could get away with it!

Whew!  Now that this one is done, I'm feeling a little lost! lol  I've got a cuff half finished that I started when my beads arrived for my Sunset project, so I guess I will be off finishing that one.  Maybe tomorrow I'll get back to it.  I have terrible carpal tunnel, and I've been working my poor hands numb and stiff to get this one done. 

'Til next time...Bead happy!!!

(As always, comments and critiques are very welcome!)

FTC Disclosure:  Artbeads.com provided products to me free of charge.  I am not being compensated in any way to give my honest opinions of their products.