An unashamedly polymer post

We have been working on new bead designs and on making some necklaces. And it has been so much fun. We are learning about design and also about how to work as efficiently as we can and how to keep things consistent.  We made some wonderful ivory beads and we love making these beads.Here are some of the necklaces we made up with our ivory beads. We really liked to combine them with our other beads like spice beads.We loved thinking of different things we could use to make textures on the ivory and it was good that we had some  dummies all covered with lokte paper and ready to wear the malas.  Lokte paper is traditional Nepali paper made from the bark of the daphne bush.We made many of our shisha bangles and had some of the fabric we use to make them even though we had run out of the brass forms.  So we made some beads and discovered how wonderfully they go with our khursani (chili) beads which contain real Kashmiri chili powder.Most of you will know about our wonderful spice beads which are made with authentic Nepali spices and a real favourite is our Gopya version (the secret one!)  We have been using gopya in some shankar (shell) shapes and loved putting these together.  One of the shapes was a design from our very talented Pramila who taught us all how to make them.  We thought they looked wonderful strung end to end or hung as long suspended beads.  Shells are very significant to some of us and it was fun to be able to use them in the jewellery.Thanks to the untiring efforts of Cathy B., a great supporter in Australia, those living in North Eastern Victoria will soon be able to purchase Samunnat jewellery at Sassy Road in Mt. Beauty.  Keep an eye out for our funky bracelets in particular towards then end of the year.Some of the necklaces pictured will go to our etsy store (re-opening in mid December) and others will be on sale at the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery when we have our fabulous pre-Christmas sale there on December 14.  There's more exciting news coming up but that is enough for now!  We're gearing up for the next big Nepali festival of Tihar!