ZNet Shows Diamonds in the Rough Reveal!

If you follow this little blog o' mine, you may remember that I was part of the design team that was selected to  play with the new sea glass components from Znet Shows. Well, they are an extremely generous group of people, because I was also allowed to partake in their newest design endeavor; taking some overlooked wholesale beads, and giving them some fresh life.

I was allowed to chose from a long list of beads that were being passed over, and Znet sent me a huge collection of beads to play with for free! Every beader's dream, right? You can also enter to win a gift certificate from Znet Shows, so you can play with some of their cool beads--check out the end of this post for how!

One of the first stones I wanted were the carnelian flats. They were perfectly organic in their irregular shapes and the color was beautiful and deep. The warmth of the stones begged to be coupled with some lighter, more feminine components, including a lovely mauve shell pendant.

 

Here is a close-up of the pendant. I added an opalescent quartz nugget to make it more 3-dimensional.

Below are a pair of matching earrings, which are surprisingly light, for having the big chunky carnelian beads. I made some copper ear wires to finish them off.

For the next piece, I knotted the rhyolite nuggets on some irish waxed linen, and used one of my own lampwork beads as a focal.

 

Next I grabbed some of the round tiger's eye beads, and made some funky, freeform earrings. A photo can't quite catch how fun these are, since they have a ton of movement to them!

I also grabbed some tiger's eye, this time in a cube shape, to make this funky, tribal, bib collar necklace. It's strung on a piece of black rat tail, so the bib can be the star of the show!

Finally, I was able to craft one more necklace. I wanted to use another of the gorgeous shell flower pendants that I was sent. What came to mind was a perfect necklace for summer. Shimmering whites, with a hint of mauve from the pearls, perfect to with that little sundress you've been waiting to wear!

I did not get to all of the beautiful beads that were sent my way--there were so many of them! I also received some tiny bamboo coral rounds, some poppy jasper rounds, cool grey fire agate beads, and a pair of smaller flower pendants.

If you want to see the actual beads, click on the links above...and if you fall in love and buy some pretties, tell them Rachel sent you!

Now, if you would like to get some chances to win a $20 gift certificate from Znet Shows, check out the Diamonds in the Rough Top 20 vote on Facebook! Click on an individual picture, then click "like" to vote for it--and you can vote for more than one! Good luck!