December bead soup palette: the finale

Yes, I might have forgot to show the last two versions of the december bead soup as there was a lot of things happening in mid-december. And now December (and the year) is almost over... So instead of seperate posts, here's a summary of all the four posts I wrote on the other blog.

First a recap of what the first two versions looked like.

For the third week, I wanted to add colour and my first choice was brown and dusty purple (or more precisely burgundy pearls). Crystals in light burgundy and alchemy were also added. The light burgundy crystals are of the kind that makes you go "I promise it looks better IRL...". Hence why I did one version without both the crystal beads and rivoli as you could see at the top of the post. But I still stuck with them, thinking they'd work better once I added the last colours. 

The burgundy pearls and matte brown leather also works well as a colour combo in their own (see end of this post).

For the finishing touch, I added more matte beads. Now focusing on light rose and gold tones. The rose and topaz luster beads are one of the reasons I kept the light burgundy crystals as they bridge the gap between the dusty rose and dusty purple tones.

As with all bead mixes, it's worth adding and removing different beads to find a combo that suits you needs. You can either do as I did and start with a couple of colours and add to that -- or you can go the other way around by first just throwing in all colours you like in the mix and then remove the ones you don't like or feel doesn't fit in.

Personally, I'm rather fond of the simplicity of the first combo while others might prefer the last with all it's various hues. Others still might prefer the alternative version that you saw at the beginning of this post. Either way, it's not just about the colours themselves, it's also about the proportion between the colours and how they are grouped within the design. Sometimes it looks best if you mix up all the colours, other times it's better to separate them into group and use them in different parts of the design -- as illustrated by the pic below where the final "bead soup" has been divided into three lots.

And so here it is, my december bead soup palette experiment. Maybe I'll do it again sometime, though there are other variations I want to try first. Whether you like the result or not, I do hope it still might have inspired you to play around with your beads and try different colour combos.