Happy mid-summer, everyone! Can you believe June is over already? I feel like my summer is slipping through my fingers SO quickly. Probably, my insane busy-ness this month hasn’t helped. I have been making so much jewelry, it’s ridiculous. If you missed it, just two weeks ago I posted a super fun bead swap with my friend and fellow designer, Danielle Wickes, where we sent each other a mystery set of beads and then made jewelry with it. Because of the amount of time and creative juice that took up, I only got around to checking in on two of my patterns this month.

The first one (and the easy one) was a quick check in on my Dragon Blossom pattern. I usually whip up a few of these pieces in red, because the flower shape makes perfect poinsettias, but I wanted to experiment with using the pattern for a more spring look.

I thought the white and green combo looked a bit like lily pads, maybe? I’m not sure, but I think the pink/green/white combo really worked well and I might make a matching bracelet here soon.

I didn’t need to make any changes to that pattern, so I just enjoyed making the earrings and left it as is.

Then, I decided to tackle one of my oldest patterns – my SuperDuo Fishtail bracelet.

Click the photo for the pattern link!

As you can see, I made a LOT of new samples for this pattern. It desperately needed new photos, so I tried to get a good assortment of styles. What I love about this pattern is that it’s really simple – just a single column of herringbone stitch – but the different lengths and color options make it really customizable.

The bracelet is a really thin, delicate piece using mottled stone, pale green, and icy blue SuperDuos. The necklace is a looooooong strand that I attached this cool gold ginko leaf to, using an old SuperDuo bead soup that I had.

I also like doing a half-and-half version. This one has one side in a matte brown and the other is this gorgeous honey-yellow Rembrandt finish.

And my absolute favorite way to use this pattern is to make a rainbow gradient with all the SuperDuos in my stash and make a long triple-wrap bracelet. I think I’ve done variations on this bracelet… three times now?

The actual pattern didn’t get changed, but the cover photo has been updated and I had lots more samples to share. I also made the fun discovery that I can make two segments and use a cute connector to make a bracelet (the elephant bracelet in the middle). It was a very productive month and now I just have to list this giant pile of jewelry!

Aaaaand that makes 16/36 patterns reviewed at the halfway through the year mark, which is not good, huh? I best crank myself a notch and get beading!