Friday, December 20, 2013

Bear in a Meteor Shower

It took quite a bit of thought and trial and error to come up with a basic arrangement for this bear pendant that I was happy with.  The cabochon at the top is charoite - a purple stone from Russia with some chatoyance.  The star is vintage glass.  I glued the bear on, then worked a row of bead embroidery around her before I glued the cabochons on.  I find it very difficult to stitch beads between two large glued-on pieces because there's no give in the backing.  So this procedure solved that problem.

Before I settled on this design, I tried many combinations of labradorite, charoite, moonstone, and various agates.   But none of them worked for me.  And all of them were too similar to the two pieces I just finished - the wolf and the puma - with the animal head in the middle and a cabochon both above and below.

This design is going to be a meteor shower.  The glass star will be a shooting star with white rays curving downward against the purple sky.  Below the bear will be several vertical lines of beading with beaded strands dangling randomly from them.  At the tips of some, or maybe all, of the beaded strands will be tiny vintage glass star-shaped buttons that I was able to buy on Etsy.  It should make for both a beautiful and a unique piece.  At least I hope so!

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