Mid-Week Mutterings - A New Lanyard + Kyanite and Vintage Swarovskis from The Beadin' Path

When I was in L.A. one of the strands of beads I bought was a set of glass coin beads in a light blue with subtle white stripes that reminds me of blue lace agate. I decided to make a new lanyard and strung it with light sapphire Druk beads and a matching light blue opaque Czech glass bead between 4mm scalloped Tierra Cast bead caps. Since it's a lanyard I put two lobster claw clasps on it and it's 29" long.

The next piece is a necklace, 24" long with a silver flower clasp. I noticed how well the kyanite beads I had also purchased in L.A. went with the Indian Sapphire vintage Swarovski Sunflower beads from The Beadin' Path, so I used some of those and matching Swarovski bicones. There are floral decorated Bali silver tube beads from the Rings & Things road show, silver disk spacers and Tierra Cast scalloped bead caps as well.

The Rings & Things Gemstone Index has fascinating historical information on this stone and notes that it is also "widely used for industrial applications, especially in the manufacture of spark plugs, electrical insulators and heat-resistant ceramic (to reduce shrinkage as it expands)." I particularly liked this part of the introductory sentence "kyanite can become the sparkle in a necklace or the spark plug in an engine." I could use some spark right about now!

I'm working on something with the charoite and peach sunstones right now, hope to be able to share it soon!

Constructing New Pieces from Sale Purchases

I've had a cold for the last several days, which makes me a bit fuzzy brained, so I haven't had enough concentration available to blog about the pieces I've been working on lately.

I saw some bracelets on sale at a department store in the mall in Fayetteville, made from large silver metal links connected by small rope patterned open links in gold metal. I didn't particularly like the bracelets, but the links gave me ideas for some jewelry I would like, so I bought four to disassemble and use the links.

This first necklace uses the large silver links, silver jump rings, and Brazilian "flashy" kyanite stones I bought back in the summer, on silver eye pins.

I also wanted a more delicate piece with the kyanite, so I made this one using the Bead Gallery silver circles as bead frames, like I did in some previous pieces, for a small round silver bead, silver eye pins connect all the bits and pieces. I really like the kyanite - it has depth and a lovely shimmer; I hope I can find more of it.

The next one uses the large silver links, some smaller silver ones I've had lying around for a while, and two gold jump rings to connect them.

This last one uses the gold rope pattern links and silver rope pattern links from Sterling Effects. I like the double chain look, although I kind of wish I'd had enough to do a triple.

Each of them were made to sit at approximately collarbone length. In my next post I'll show some gunmetal and hematite pieces I've been working on.

I'm hoping to feel better in the next day or so and do some major reorganizing of my workroom. I particularly want to create a workspace with a longer surface that I can set up some specific areas for the tools and equipment I need to start trying things like poly clay, metal clay and resin.