Tuesday Tidbits - Mixing Czech Glass and Semi-precious Stone

Ever wish you had the kind of financing that let you buy the highest quality semi-precious or precious stones in any quantity? Me, too. And unless I win a really big lotto jackpot, I don't think it's going to ever be a reality. But, I do think that sometimes a judicious mix of stones plus matching Czech glass beads works very well. You can have a lush look at a fraction of the price.

Here's a piece I started on what seems like ages ago, when I bought a spool of beautiful gunmetal chain from Rings & Things (scroll down to read about the garnet piece, it's in the second half of the post). I'd started out working on making components with garnet on black SoftFlex, crimping and adding them to the chain.

When I finished fiddling around with the garnet pieces, I decided to make it a 3-strand necklace but didn't have enough variety of actual garnet. So I got out the garnet-colored Czech faceted glass beads and went to town. All the smooth, round beads are garnets, the faceted ones are Czech glass. Here's what I thought was the finished piece:

But something bothered me about the composition. I decided to fiddle with it this weekend. Shorten here, move there - I think it's starting to look better...

...but still not happy. The garnets at the top of the outer chain - they've gotta go. I have a number of online friends and acquaintances who are writers and they all say of first drafts "sometimes you have to kill your darlings" - meaning that during editing, things will get cut out of the final draft. This apparently is true of making jewelry. I fiddled quite a bit on those garnet bits, but they aren't going to work out. Must be strong and say "bye-bye".

Where is my chain? Dug around in the still not completely unpacked BayCon bin and found it. Have hooked the tail end to the jumpring, the rest is still on the spool until I get the spacing right - links are not open on this chain, measure twice, cut once. And, to let you know that all of this is not without it's little foibles, one of the two jump rings, used to attach the 3 strands to the back piece of the necklace, went "sproing" and has completely disappeared *and* I can't find anymore just like it. Took one I was using for the clasp to replace. Will have to re-work clasp now.

Hooking on a link made from garnet glass bead and two TierraCast bead caps that match the one in the pendant. That part I'm connecting the bead to is the only part of the original third chain that will be re-used.

Link on left is in, positioned where I want, excess chain clipped off. Now for the other side.

Ok, done. Well, except for the clasp. I have to do that part, but I won't bore you with the details. New "final" piece. Will sleep on it, stare at it again later. Decide if it's really done. Who knows, could be a version 4 coming up...