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Decorate your designs with shining dichroics 

By Bethany Waldrop Keiper

 “It was a thing of beauty and was sent -- to live its life out as an ornament.” -- Robert Frost 

 You don't need expensive jewels or tangled tinsel to glow this holiday season ‑‑ as long as you have dichroic beads. These unbelievably gorgeous beads are a glittering, glowing eyeful of glamour. They almost always garner a second look, and their unique shades and sparkle are likely to provoke the question, "Where did you get that?!?"

Their bold colors are not for the timid, but their design possibilities are endless, and their glow transcends the holiday season to be perfect for designs throughout the year. This column may not be as long as others I’ve written, but that is because a picture of one of these gorgeous beads speaks volumes.

Go for the glitter with this show stopping necklace.

 Black, facetted, firepolished beads with their elegant sparkle are the perfect setting for these stunning green puffy hearts. Tiny black stripes across the hearts are the perfect tie‑in with the black beads, and this necklace, with earrings of your own design, will be the talk of any holiday party you attend. This design is the perfect sparkling accent for the classic little black dress, or for emerald green velvet.

The rainbow-colored, glittering sparkle of this heart looks great in just about any setting or design. The gold, garnet, cobalt, bronze, black and green found in this bead give you a wide variety of design options and color pairings.

Give it its own private spotlight on a necklace, or as a single dangling charm on a golden link bracelet.

 For added punch, combine it with other dichroics in colors found within the heart, and add plenty of golden accents and bead caps to keep the glamour going.

Opaque black beads bring out the darker spots in the dichroics, and also add space, helping you to stretch your bead budget.

As you can see from these pictures, even though pieces may have the same colors or shapes, each one is different; each piece has its own certain way of sparkling. The color changes come from the surface of the beads, which both refracts and reflects light.

Depending on the types of beads you choose, you will find some have a more glittery appearance than others, as illustrated here.

The bead on the left has a much more glittery or textured look than the bead on the right.

Move over holly berries, there's a new color in town. Sparkling garnet dichroic beads are a dramatic twist away from the same‑old red holiday tones. These would also make a stunning necklace. Try a combination of facetted gold beads and smooth black beads in between each richly-colored garnet “berry” bead.

To learn more about how these beads obtain their unique finish, check out the Beading Culture column in the September edition of The Beading Times.

All dichroic beads, featuring Flat Heart Midnight Rainbow beads, Puffy Heart Evening Emerald beads, Small Round Bronze Night Glow accents, and Large Round Garnet Glow beads, are courtesy of and available at The Bead Peddler®

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