Sakura Lei Collar and Earring Set, or the allure of Turquoise and Red.

Oh turquoise, how I love thee; let me count the ways.....or should I say shades. This shade block is one of the pictures that popped up when I googled 'green to blue'. Caribbean shades of azure and aqua....I also love teal, moss, sage, mint, cobalt...essentially, anything from blue to green. And one of my favourite colours to pair it with.....

red. 

The opposite of the turquoise shades I love. Red, is....red. Add white; it becomes pink. Darker, and it quickly becomes brown. In this post, I talked about working with red in isolation. How I love to wear it, but not to work with it....(although after Andrew's challenge, that has changed a little!). One exception to this has always been pairing it with a shade of turquoise. I have a LOT of jewellery (including at least one Beads and Beyond spread that I can think of off the top of my head) in this colour combination. All shades seem to work....there's so much to play with in beaded jewellery - light, texture, size, as well as tone, tint and shade. (If I sound like I know anything about colour theory, I don't. I just wing it, and bow down to the likes of Beverly Ash Gilbert, colour goddess :-) These are just words I've picked up from my regular bead blog trawling...)

So, when The British Bead Awards came around again, it't no surprise (to me at any rate!) that I reached for my favourite colour combo; this time in shades of mint and deep coral. I had had the idea for a bead woven and wirework collar for some time now and once I had the new flower design sorted - took a little trial and error but as I've been making beaded flowers for years, it was really just an adaptation of my original shape - I was away. I worked right up to the wire with it, but I have to say, I was chuffed to bits with the end result when I was finished. The flowers are attached with large seed beads stitched behind; thin brass wire is then wrapped around the handmade wire and ribbon base and the flowers are picked up individually. Needless to say, they came on and off several times before I was happy with it! 

So without further ado, here is my Sakura Lei Jewellery Set - 3rd place in the British Bead Awards, Seed Bead Jewellery. 

After pondering the draw of this particular colour scheme, I decided to take a visual trip down my own jewellery memory lane, and see what other versions of this combination I have used in the past. I thought I'd share some of them here....

I was amazed as I looked through my work, just how much there was with this colour scheme. And if you stretched your idea of red to encompass pink, and maroon; even more.

It's also interesting to see how my photos have changed...well, interesting for me, possibly not so much for you! I'm a big fan of the natural, grey-ish matt backdrop now. This time last year, I favoured white but it's somehow too stark for me now. How about you - what do you like to shoot on? I am constantly tying to work on my photography skills (I'm currently a student of Kerry Bogart's Snaptastic class) and I am pleased to see a general progression over the months. 

Do you have a favourite colour scheme? Do you take your cues from the beads that lie in front of you or reach for the beads to recreate an idea within your head? Do you like red and turquoise as much as I do?! I'd love to hear your thoughts :-)