A while ago, I bought some pink magnesite beads with the idea of turning them into a necklace with a pink heart gemstone/fossil pendant as the center piece. Then my Etsy Team, the Creative Handmade Artisans, decided to have a Spring Team Challenge, with the theme being the Pantone 2011 Color of the Year: Honeysuckle. Now I know you're thinking "Honeysuckle is yellow, right?" Well, apparently honeysuckle flowers can be pink as well, and that's the shade of the Pantone color. I thought the pink magnesite necklace would be perfect for the challenge.
This past week I sat down to finally begin work on the necklace, and let's just say, it wasn't happening for me. It just didn't feel right. Then I thought about how I've been wanting to do a cha-cha style bracelet for a while, too. Cha-cha style is when you take a ton of beads and attach them along a chain so the bracelet is just full of beads. I knew the pink magnesite stones couldn't stand on their own, so I started pulling other things out of my vast bead collection. Then I just started layering them onto an aluminum chain. Thus, the Honeysuckle Cha-Cha Bracelet was born!
For a little bit of shine, I decided to use some larger pink pearl-finish beads. For a little sparkle, I pulled out some pink crystal and pink glass beads. I filled in with pewter-looking antique-silver finish beads. For contrast, I grabbed these light green glass beads that never seem right in my bookmarks (I plan to make another cha-cha bracelet sometime with them and the same bead in different colors). I think they look like little leaves on the bracelet.
Still not thinking I had enough beads for the bracelet, I used some silver-lined pink glass seed beads and some pale pink seed beads, and finally finished off with tiny pale pink pearl-finish beads and some opalescent pink beads. That's when I quit. Not so much because I felt there were enough beads (I still had room for some more), but because my poor fingers hurt from bending all the wire and because I didn't want the bracelet to get too heavy. I needed a clasp, so I used one that I had with tiny light rose Swarovski crystals on it.
All in all, I'm really happy with how the bracelet turned out. When my fingers recover, and I pick up some more headpins, maybe I'll tackle the bracelet using the green, teal, and blue oval beads. Plus I've had this idea for a while to use a bunch of "misfit" beads to make a bracelet. Then maybe I'll figure out what to do with the poor pink heart gemstone/fossil pendant that didn't get to be used for this challenge.
Let me know what you think of my Honeysuckle Cha-Cha Bracelet!
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