That's Why They Call It A Challenge

I have my shop on Etsy, and am a member of what they call a Street Team (I don't know what that means. The "street" part. As if it were a brick-and-mortar store? Clearly all I can do is make wild and foolish guesses), the Etsy Beadweavers Team which holds monthly challenges. One of the membership requirements is participation in some small number of the monthly challenges per year, not at all onerous.

I enter a few challenges a year, but I don't gather all my friends and relatives and ask for their vote, and anyway there's really stiff competition, as there are some incredibly talented beaders on the team, so I never place, but I can live with that. (I'm competitive only when I think I have a chance at winning. This is one of the reasons I don't play games of any sort: not only am I a bad loser, but I'm a truly obnoxious winner. That, and I think they're pointless and a bit silly. I'd rather knit or spin). The winner chooses the theme of the next challenge and quite frankly that's not usually my route (to inspiration), so I don't mind missing out on the main duty of winning a challenge. Apart from missing out on all the adulation, prestige, fame and fortune of course.

Builds character, so they say (living with the crushing disappointment, that is).

The current challenge (deadline was yesterday; voting opens on the 9th) was something inspired by a royal figure (real or fictional), and while I'm not frothing at the mouth to abolish all royalty everywhere, and I do find the institution vaguely interesting, I'm not a huge fan and I don't look to any of them as role models or any other inspiration, except inasmuch as it would be nice to be born into wealth and privilege.

So due to the Eh Factor, my mind kept on flitting right past the notion of entering the current challenge, until I had a bit of time (slow at work) to consider what might be inspiring. I thought to look at ancient civilisations and archaeological treasures retrieved from same. Not Egyptian though: too hackneyed.

My search keywords were clearly not good enough, as nothing much came back (no pictures of well-preserved royal jewels that I might want to recreate in seed beads), so I started thinking about particular royal families and the collections of jewels that monarchs were often given by visiting foreign dignitaries until I landed up remembering my brother telling me that the one place to be sure I visited before I died (hopefully not an imminent event) was the Hermitage in St Petersburg. From there I went to the last Russian royal family in power, the Romanovs, Nicholas and Alexandra.

I couldn't find much in terms of useable and inspiring pictures, but I did find this (click on the picture for more information):

I don't love the bows, but I thought I could work with it. I started with emerald green and silver, and then very quickly, it ran away with me and became this:

I'm not unhappy. In fact, I'm so not unhappy that I made matching earrings, which also did not make me unhappy.

I'm over emerald green and silver now, but I am feeling slightly inspired by the twisty bits between the bows on the original necklace.

Stay tuned (but don't hold your breath).