Fall Tiara and Barrette

I've been taking a little hiatus from it lately, but beading has been my primary crafty outlet for several years now. I think I needed a little creative energy boost because now that I've been crocheting and doing a few other crafty things, I'm starting to think of new beading projects I want to work on.  In the meantime, I'm going to share a few of my more recent past beading projects.

I made this tiara for my friend Heather Lickliter of  Stylized Portraiture. Heather takes amazing pictures, and specializes in fairytale portraits for little girls. You can see some examples of her work (including this tiara!) at Fairyography.com.

Heather particularly wanted something with an organic look and feel for her tiaras, so I came up with this design, and I've made it in a couple of colors. For this one, I used copper craft wire in two sizes to create the base and the branches. I embellished the branches with amber glass tear drops and dark brown freshwater pearls.

The back of the tiara is embellished with ribbons finished with the same beads used in the body of the tiara.

I made this matching barrette to finish the set. I really love seeing my work in Heather's, which is amazingly beautiful and creative. One of these days, maybe I'll talk her into doing a few "big girl" fairytale photos. :)