Choosing A Color Scheme: Tips & Ideas

One of the most challenging aspects of creating a beautiful piece of jewelry is choosing a color scheme that "works."  Whether you are going for a bold look, subtle, romantic, autumn inspired, or modern, it can be difficult to choose colors that convey the feeling you are trying to express and that work well together. We have all seen beautifully handmade jewelry pieces that would have been spectacular if the colors had not been a little "off."

Golem Studios Ceramic Pendant

So how do you go about deciding on a color palette? The easiest way is to take whatever your focal bead is, and coordinate around it. For instance, if you are making a necklace around a gorgeous Golem Studios pendant, then look at what colors are present in the pendant itself and use those colors in your design. You can use red Toho seed beads, blue Czech glass beads, etc. Even if your focal is a solid color, use that solid color as your starting point and build around it. 

Swarovski Color Carousel

If you are a fan of Swarovski Crystal, there is a great tool at your disposal: the Swarovski Color Carousel.  Choose your main color, and this color wheel will automatically generate harmonious colors, contrasting colors, even the appropriate pearl color.  As an example, I chose Siam as my main color and was then told that Ruby, Burgundy, and Garnet are harmonious colors. Erinite and Emerald are contrasting colors to Siam, and the appropriate pearl is Crystal Burgundy. Even if you are not using Swarovski Elements, you can use this tool to generate beautiful color stories. 

Sample Color Palette

Other websites to check out include Kuler.adobe.com and Colourlovers.com. Both of these sites are free and offer thousands of color palettes for you to look through. The palettes have been sorted by theme, popularity, etc. so you can quickly narrow down your selections. There are so many choices in just these two sites alone, you will surely be inspired by a color scheme. 

  

© Design Seeds

A third website to check out is Design Seeds. This site takes a photograph, picks out all the colors from it, and gives you a handy color swatch palette to work off of. Seeing the colors in the photograph is really inspiring and gives you a better idea of how they will work together.  Once you have chosen your colors, you can then purchase beads to match. When picking out the beads, I like to have a separate browser window open with the color palette displayed so that I can easily see if the beads I am considering match my color scheme. 

Another great way of arriving at a color scheme is to take a piece of fabric, scarf, shirt, or dress where you really like the colors and use those colors for your jewelry design. An added bonus is that if it is a piece of clothing you are working off of, and you know you look good in it, then you know your jewelry colors will look good on you too. 

Finally, a tip I learned from a fellow crafter was to go to the paint store and pick up some paint chips. You can then use these to develop your color schemes. You might also find the free booklets offered at paint stores helpful too. These usually have "designer" schemes pre-arranged and you can pick out the one that appeals to you. 

Hopefully these ideas and tips were helpful! We would love to hear how you arrive at a color scheme! 

- Julie 

Bead Soup Blog Party Reveal: Julie's Bead Soup!!

It's Bead Soup Blog Party day and I am so excited to reveal what I made! First off, a huge THANK YOU to Lori Anderson for arranging all this. Coordinating 360+ artists was an enormous task. Please visit her blog prettythingsblog.com to see all her amazing work, and if you get a chance, say thank you. Also, after you finish reading this blog, don't  forget to visit my friend and fellow Beadaholique designer Andrea Morici's Bead Soup reveal. Just keep scrolling down, it's the next blog post. 

Just as a refresher, my partner is the talented polymer clay artist JuLee Wolfe. She creates fantastic beads in polymer clay using a variety of techniques. You can check out her blog here: http://thepolymerpenguin.blogspot.com/ I had the pleasure of getting to know JuLee during this event and we found out that we had quite a bit in common in addition to our love of beading. 


For my Bead Soup mix, I was thrilled to receive a wide array of handmade beads from JuLee::

The pink and green beads were just for me! 

The color palette I found very inspiring. Black, red, and gold are colors which I had not really worked with before in jewelry making, but ironically, I actually use them a lot in the decorating of my house (so I love them!). Next, the large focal beads with their detailed designs and textures drew me in and reminded me of several things: Medieval and Tudor England, Morocco, and Ancient Mesopotamia. I also briefly thought of a Victorian carnival as well, with striped silk drapes and spices in the air. Can you tell I have a love for history?  From all these themes, I chose Morocco. I hope everyone likes the result:

The colors were so rich in JuLee's handmade beads that I didn't want to distract from them by adding any new colors to the equation. Therefore, I decided to play off the existing palette and bring in matte gold seed beads, gold bali style beads (which I beaded around), carnelian gemstones, Czech matte black fire polished beads, and red and black 13/0 charlottes. For my findings, I used brass which matched the clasp JuLee sent and faded into the background instead of drawing the eye to it which gold would have done. 

I felt that playing off the texture of the focal beads would be fun so I added a lot of bead weaving elements including the beaded bails on each side of the necklace and some bead weaving up near the clasp. Finally, I wanted to duplicate the rounded shape of the beads in my Bead Soup mix so I decided to make multiple round beaded beads.

So that is the process I went through to create my piece. I had so much fun and I feel so honored to have received such lovely handmade beads. In addition to the joy the beads and beading brought me, Bead Soup also garnered me a new friend and that is priceless.


Join in the fun and visit all the blogs participating at the official Bead Soup Blog Party Page!