Spring is finally here, well at least in my challenge piece

I have spent the past few weeks working on my entry for Etsy Beadweavers April Challenge "Spring around the corner"  I started out with a Lily flower (see earlier post) but it turned out larger than I originally envisioned.  I tried various ways to encorporate it into my design but the more I looked at the I realized that it was way to big (at least for me) to wear as a necklace.  The Lily may reappear as a brooch or something as I still love the look of it.  While I was walking each day I noticed that the crocuses and daffodils were starting to emerge and changed the focus of my design. 

I created a green netted necklace base using green 8/0 Czech seed beeds and 5 mm green bugle beads.  The necklace base is like a green picket fence with the flowers emerging.  I also noticed that the cherry blossom trees along my street were also starting to bud and flower and I realized that "Spring" was really just around the corner.   The crocus flower and daffodil were an amazing amount of work for such little flowers.  I worked the crocus in a peyote stitch using two colours of Delica Metalic Luster rainbow in Purple/Gold and Rhubarb and 15/0 purple luster.

The daffoldil was created using a combination of herringbone for the main body of the flower and peyote for the petals and I used two shades of yellow Delica beads.  The cherry blossoms are made with Czech opaque white, clear and inside pink 11/0 seed beads.  I had a lot of fun creating the petals for the flowers and I am really happy with the results.  The voting for the challenge will start on April 9 and run until April 15.  And I am sure that their (as usual) will be many beautiful creations to vote for.