Imperial Bauble by Julie Ashford - a Christmas gift for a friend

After a very lengthy ordeal with a very incompetent estate manegemtn agency, one of my colleagues exchanged on her brand new house a few weeks ago. I was so excited for her!

I really wanted to do something special for her, she's easily one of my favourite people. So when I saw Julie Ashford's brand new Imperial Bauble design pop up on Bead and Jewellery Magazine, I couldn't resist. I knew it was the perfect thing.

During the early making stages, I quickly fell in love with this medieval colourway

After ordering a kit from Spellbound Bead Co in the frosty white colourway (will totally make a gorgeous wedding gift for the next pair I know that gets married post-November), I got delving into colour options. I know my most popular colourways are always based on a custom order - usually colours I wouldn't normally put together.

So when this lovely lady said she was decking her new halls with red and grey, I set to buying every silver and red bead imaginable - whether it was needed for this stunning pattern, or not!

Like, I've never seen Game of Thrones, but this is Game-of-Thronesy, right?

I ended up going for a red bauble, with red Swarovski crystal rivolis and pale grey rondelles. And from the bottom of my stash I'd dug out some gunmetal-coloured size 8 beads to set the whole thing off. At least, I thought they were size 8's...

To form the curvature of the waves around the bauble netting, a variety of different seed bead sizes are used. I've nmever had more respect for Julie Ashford as I now do, having made one using one bead in the wrong size.

The superduos stand upwards like a crown around the bauble ring

The result of my aforementioned error, was such that the mesh barely fitted around the bauble. Swarovski rivoli backs are foiled, pointed and a little sharp. So the result of squeezing this poor little bauble into the netting, was unsurprisingly, scratches all over the bauble. Doweth.

To shield my lucky recipient from this clunky incompetence, I used some beading glue to hold the rivolis in place over the embarassing scratches.

Totally worth it. I'm thrilled with the finished result.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, even if the other half decided that it looked like 'something the devil would hang on his Christmas tree'. Why would the devil have a Christmas tree in the frikking first place??!

Merry Christmas, everyone! Freddie