How to make Rose Quartz POP!

Week 7 of the RedPandaBeads.com 2016 Spring Fashion Colors Series features the color Rose Quartz—a real wishy-washy color, in my opinion. I was wondering how Betsy was going to make this color pop and WOW, did she ever! My Rosaline Gold Bracelet and Printemps Earring patterns never looked so hot! Click HERE or on the photo above for exact beads used and links to these free patterns.

Need a burst of sunshine!

Week 6 of the RedPandaBeads.com 2016 Spring Fashion Colors Series features the color Buttercup, which Betsy has used to bead up my Twin Peaks Bracelet and Earrings pattern. Click HERE or on the photo below for exact beads used and links to this free pattern:

The hottest new bead in town: DiamonDuo!

One of the latest new Czech two-hole beads is the DiamonDuo bead, manufactured and distributed by Bead Master. These two-hole, diamond-shaped beads measure about 5mm by 8mm and come in 65 colors… if you can find them! They seem to sell out almost immediately.

I got my DiamonDuo batch from Betsy at RedPandaBeads.com a couple weeks ago and they sold out within a couple hours. She’s got a new batch in today—a restock of most existing colors and 21 new colors, available for sale, click HERE or on the photo below:

There aren’t really that many patterns out yet for the DiamonDuo beads but Bead Master has a few free ones on their website, click HERE. The sweetest, I think, is the Desert Blossom:

Linda Genaw has a spectacular free pattern up on her blog called the Arabella Earrings that uses DiamonDuo beads and size 15/0, 11/0 and 8/0 seed beads, click HERE or on the photo below. I made some using Turquoise Bronze DiamondDuo beads and Miyuki  #4204 Duracoat Champagne rocaille seed beads in all three sizes:

While rebeading a couple of my existing patterns to see if DiamonDuo beads could be subbed in for other Czech two-hole beads, I fell in love with the color combination of the Pastel Bordeaux and bronze that I used to bead up a new Trestle Band (click HERE or on the image below for the exact beads used listed at the bottom of the pattern page):

…and my Roundabout Bracelet looks entirely different and just fantastic using those Turquoise Bronze DiamonDuo beads  (click HERE or on the image below for the exact beads used listed at the bottom of the pattern page):

These beads are a blast!