Color Study

I’ve been in a playful mood with big beads. I mean really big beads, as big as 4cm in size. The bigger, the better!

For one thing, large beads would get noticed due to their size. If they’re hung on a single chain, they’ll be a statement piece. People would see them undistracted. Then, another good thing, the presence of colors, motifs, textures, shapes and other features applied on the beads would be visibly recognized.

Recently I’ve done color experimentation with three large focals. Captivated with the multicolors on each focal, I was intrigued to make simple long necklaces based on their palette. I’ve stocked up Swarovski crystals in rainbow of colors and I thought finding the matching colors of the crystals to be paired with the focals would be a fun challenge. It would be impossible if I couldn’t find some. And yes, I was right!



There are yellow, orange, dark pink, sparkling brown, dark green, light green, red, turquoise, and white. I reflected all of them in variety of crystals except brown. Leaving out one color wouldn’t disgrace the overall look of the necklace. The complete design of the necklace is shown in here.



White, green, orange, red, blue, black, yellow… What a mix of bold colors! Here I tried minimalism. I wanted one color to play dominantly, so I picked bright red as the dominant color accented with green and blue without overwhelming the presence of the heart focal. If I used this method with other colors from the focal palette, the result wouldn’t be much different. The focal bead would still be a centre of attention. Click here to see the necklace in full.



Now I wanted to expose this focal with unmatching colors of the crystals. The variegated brown and blue give the flat-sided focal an earthy feeling and I searched different colors that bear a similar feeling. Red magma – the new color from Swarovski – is the one. When I put all the beads together, they clicked right away. See the entire necklace in here.

Most of the findings used for these necklaces are oxidized sterling silver. Dark-colored sterling silver makes the beads’ colors pop and is also a wonderful alternative to black cord.