With Spring in Mind

We've had cloudy, rainy days for a while, but it's not been too cold and the sun is starting to come out more each day - it's pretty sunny right now. The tree out back thinks it's spring and has started putting out some blooms.

I've started to think about spring as well, and that's what inspired this knotted necklace. I'm using a rose quartz donut, rose quartz oblong nuggets and small round beads, jade beads, Swarovski bicone crystals and glass seed beads. The tassel is made with diamond cut sterling silver curb chain, jade leaves, Swarovski crystals with sterling ball end head pins and a little rose quartz flower.

Here's how it looks draped - it hangs at about the collarbone level on me. I still have some small tweaks to do, specifically, a couple of the jumprings on the tassel need to be closed up a bit.

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.)

A Bit of Sprintime as the Days Grow Colder

Maybe this is more of a springtime piece, but as I was poking around my beads looking for something else to go with the turquoise nuggets, I pulled out some chunky rose quartz beads and amethyst nuggets. I'd used these in other pieces, so I didn't have that many left over, but I remembered that I'd seen some lovely necklaces here and there with the pink, purple and a light green.

I went to my green stone box and there were these aquamarine chips I'd bought and also some very pale adventurine that were just the right colors. Deciding how to space them was a bit of a challenge, until I realized I had tiny silver ox beadcaps that would go great with some small pearls for in between the rose quartz and the aquamarine chips.

(Click for larger image)

Since I didn't have enough nuggets to go all the way around, I used the nuggets for the clasp ends and smaller round stone beads (this was how I used the palest adventurine beads, since I didn't have round aquamarines), plus more freshwater cultured pearls to go around the neck.

I did that work (and the post) Friday night and Saturday morning, before I put the hardware on it, I decided I wasn't happy with how it looked - just seemed off balance. So I re-strung it like so:

...and I was much happier with it, so I put on the clasps.

(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.)

Did I Mention Flickr?

I have just about everything I've ever made posted up on Flickr - stuff that's not on Etsy or here can be viewed there.

New Items Up at Etsy Using New Photo Layout Ideas

As I mentioned I was going to do in yesterday's post, while I was out getting items to send to my son, I stopped by Jo Anne Fabrics and bought 10 lengths of textured, solid colored, silk-like material to use as drapes for my product shots. I've also decided to try using a translucent white, hand-shaped jewelry stand to drape my necklaces around for the "teaser" shot. Here's an example with the peach moonstone and copper piece I finished today:












After mailing my son's packages, I made a stop at Global Beads and picked up some beautiful quartz beads with threads of gold in them. I had some other glass beads I'd been trying to figure out how to use, and I think I'm on to something by combining them with the new quartz - I'm just not sure yet.








One of the things that has me hesitating, is that I found 12 tiny round beads in the mixes I bought down at Beadniks in Santa Monica that go perfectly with the glass beads - but not enough of them for the full design. If you know where I can find more of those small round beads, please let me know!












The other thing is that the quartz seems a bit 'rich' against the pattern of the glass beads.

I'm working on a new piece in the meantime, this one of yellow glass and white mother of pearl 'rice' beads, which I think will be a beautiful eyeglass lanyard when it's finished.

That Voilà! Moment

Sat down with an older piece today that I had never been quite happy about. Unstrung it and put it on my bead design board and started playing around for about half an hour. I think I've finally figured out what I want to do!

I added some newer beads I love, and wish I had found more of, but I found them on the discount shelf at Michael's (where they've completely re-designed their beading area, in many ways it's much, much better now) and some antique gold tone matte seed beads, made from who knows what material, I think it's a coated glass. Those I found a few months ago, at a wonderful store called Global Beads, when I was doing a lot of antique gold tone pieces (see this one at Etsy for the bead) and felt that "voilà!" moment. The picture is a bit dark, took it with my phone camera.










Here's the bead I like so much - it's got a little milleflore type flower in it and a foil lining in the center.












This evening, while looking for a good price for some silver lever-back earring components, I also found a large supply of the bead I've been looking for - in quite a few colors, except for the color I want. Artbeads had them, called "flat hexagon" beads. If I ever find them in a pale pink, I'm buying a couple pounds of 'em.