When I was selling clothing, people used to talk about "their colors", or worry about matching things in their wardrobes. To me it was simple. When you buy clothes in the color groupings you like, those things will work together. If you wear scarlet, you don't have to match one red scarf to one red outfit, because that scarf will probably work to a couple of the several scarlet outfits or pieces that you have.
The same thing works with beads. I prefer beads in the aqua range. I also like olive with a orangy pink or with blue. And I like red and black. So as I work on beads I usually have piles of related beads that I've taken out for a project (or more likely for 4 or 5). And often I'll have some things in the other groups shunted off to a side.
Because of this I have a couple projects that have serendipidously appeared.
I have a bonus bead in turquoise with much more line work than I would have choosen for myself, and I was trying to it and another set of "turquoise" beads with turquoise stones. It matched perfectly with some olivine colored green tourmaline I got at BABE. From there the other components just came together.
I also had out some onyx leaves from BABE sitting off to the side, while I was looking at some Bliss beads of black with red flowers that I'm going to put with graduated onyx beads. I had also gotten some from Heather that had roses plus berries and was wondering if I should mix the two sets. The reds were slightly different, and when I put them aside, they ending up sitting next to onyx leaves. You know those berries are just the thing to put with the leaves. Serendipity strikes again.
Tina