Mid-Week Mutterings - Romance Trio Necklace

Before I get to the title piece, I have to point you to Wendy Gibson's Craft Dinner post. She has created a wonderful jewelry set from a selection of vintage Lucite from The Beadin' Path that is amazing and wonderful! The pendant and bracelet feature lemon moonglow Lucite buttons used in a delightfully creative way.

Ok, on to today's necklace work in progress. When I first started beading I made some pieces with rose quartz, silver beads and matte crystal beads. 3 or 4 years later the silver has really tarnished and the matte crystal beads have a gray look to them from the beading wire I used. I don't remember what brand, but it tarnished the insides of the beads, I guess.

I unstrung them and decided to re-use the quartz (carved knots and small rounds), some rhodonite beads and light rose matte glass beads with the Romance Trios in a three-strand necklace. I've added some light pink glass leaves on pinch bails and length-wise drilled glass tulip beads, too.

It's still a work in progress - more dangles to add later. Getting too late to finish tonight for the publication time of this post at 6 am tomorrow, plus I need to get my beauty sleep!

My Birthday Just Keeps Happening!

Two of my dearest friends recently emailed me to be on the lookout for a package with my birthday present. It arrived today with these lovely beads in them! All in shades of pink, because whenever I've hung out with them, at conventions or whatever, I've just about always worn one of my collection of pink polo shirts every day. Pink is a good color on me - something I didn't realize when I was younger and "hated" pink. Live and learn!

I can't wait to figure out what these are meant to be and share pictures! I think I see two different designs in that assortment.

No review or interview today, but I hope to get back on track soon. Meanwhile I'm going to have a lovely new Lucite necklace to share soon, so keep checking back!



P.S. - and now a brief word from our sponsor:

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Finished Five New Pieces Today

I was very productive today! This morning I was thinking about what else I could do with those light topaz beads I had used with the blue yesterday. I decided to go for a darker contrast color, and after a bit of pulling out this and that, came up with olivine deep cut nugget Czech glass (I just did a review of this bead and noticed that Artbeads is having a 20% sale on their Czech glass through Feb. 5th - sounds like a great time to stock up!) and garnet (stone) beads.

The spacers are from a necklace I bought 4 or 5 years ago and wore maybe twice in the first year and it's been hanging on my necklace tree ever since. I decided to unstring it and make other jewelry from the parts. I'm not sure what metal the spacers are, but after all these years they're still bright and tarnish free. They're also pretty heavy for their size.

Then I was wondering what else I could make with the olive beads and pulled out some 'green lace stone' (really, that's all it says on the label) and was going around with just those two colors but it lacked something, so I started pulling out more this and that. When I got to the rhodonite beads, I knew I had found what it needed.

The green lace stone came in a set with the squares and small round beads, so I took the round ones, more rhodonite and some pale olive faceted bicones to make the next one. After that I remembered I had some yellow "turquoise" cubes with a diagonally drilled hole and thought those might be interesting with the remaining green lace stone. Again, it needed color, so I pulled out some amethyst glass bicones.

I liked the amethyst and green, so I used the remaining olive glass beads with the amethyst bicones for this last one.

I did some photography and have three of these up on Etsy. Tomorrow, more photography and more listings, possibly more beading. I'd like to know what you think of the photos I used in the listings - if you have a moment, please look and let me know.

The Non-creative Side of Business

Today I did paperwork. Got my sales and expenses spreadsheet all finished up from my saved receipts and other docs. Went to the online state sales tax site to see if I could do my taxes online, but it wouldn't accept my info. Will have to call the franchise tax board on Tuesday (Monday is a state holiday).

Then I went upstairs to read for a while and fell asleep and got up a couple hours ago. I worked on a couple of my pieces in progress - a knotted one with rhodonite and ecru Gudebrod FFF silk, and a jump ring chain and howlite necklace and a byzantine chain. I've moved back and forth as I felt like it on these for a while now. The byzantine chain in particular will take a while to finish. All of these reflect how much I like tiny stuff, which is why I put the quarter there. I usually prefer to work with 3 and 4mm beads, tiny bead caps, tiny jump rings. I have to wear a stronger pair of reading glasses for working with the tiny jump rings.

Variations on a Theme with Pearls, Adventurine, Amethyst and Rose Quartz

A couple posts down I wrote about an amethyst, aquamarine and rose quartz lanyard necklace I strung and then re-strung. I liked the color combination so much I wanted to do another, complimentary piece. The larger beads are adventurine, amethyst and rose quartz. I used small sterling silver rondelle spacers from Artbeads.com and silver bead caps I found at Global Beads.

The pearls are very nicely shaped freshwater cultured pearls I picked up last winter when I was down in Orange County. It's about 29" and very light - perfect for an eyeglass lanyard/leash, or just to wear as a necklace with the other lanyard.

I had a large rose quartz donut in my box of pinks and a large snap back bail that fit it, so I thought I'd see how that looked. Not sure it will work - the donut is very pink and the beads in the lanyard necklace are very pale. But the bail slips on and off easily after I rounded it a bit to go over the bead caps, so it's not a permanent addition.

Of course, now I'm thinking that with the right shade of pink pearl...

(This post brought to you via the magic of technology which allowed me to compose and post date so my blog wouldn't be completely dark during my conference week.)