Not Right For One, But Right For Another

In the spirit of crafting and friendship I worked on a nice simple piece of jewelry that someone asked me to make. I love practicing my wire work, so was excited to give the piece a try with subdued black painted material and sparkly glitter stone embedded with glass flowers. The black chain and wire is one of my harder mediums because the paint can chip off if I over do the pressure and the wire bending. So it is always a challenge to form perfect wire wraps that don't lose paint. After a few hours I managed to get five stones onto wire and connected to the chain. Which made a nice long larent. Only it turned out that the piece wasn't large and gaudy enough to fit my friends taste, or at least that's what she told me when she saw the piece. So like a good soul who hates to wast supplies I re-worked the chain and formed a multi strand piece. It was my son, Colin, who decided after seeing me take the completion photo that the piece looked like something Nana would like. So we took it over to her place to see if she wanted the piece. Colin was definitely right, the piece did suite Nana much better. I still haven't made a gaudy piece for the friend yet. Even though I have more of the stone left. I just cant get into massive gaudy pieces.

Simply For Family

This piece was made for a a family member who end up at the hospital. I was shopping at my local bead store when one of sales clerk started talking about how stones have healing and emotional properties. Ive heard this a few times before, but never bothered to put faith into it. But thinking of the rough time a family member has had in the hospital, I thought I'd take her advise and make a piece for her. The stone is amazonite. According to my rep at the supply store it is believed to be the "Hope Stone" and is very lucky. If you put faith into the meanings of stones then this one is believed to promote kindness, balance, practicality, and physical stamina. All off which she needs in her time of healing. The other reason for the stone, I love the color of soft green. I paired the stones with simple wire and beads. In the beads I added jade, jasper, and earth greens to balance the stone. Since the necklace turned out so nicely I added a set of earrings so that they could be a complete set. In fact I loved the piece so much that I've since purchased two more sets of the stones and beads in case I want to make another couple of sets.

Formal Necklace

Saw a pattern of jewelry I liked on some website, which for the life of me I cant remember the name of. I liked the simplicity of the lines and beads. Only I wanted to jazz it up a bit. Make a more formal piece and use a little of my fire polished glass pendent beads. After a lot of modification and thinking I managed to rework the piece to include strings of beads that have glass beads at the end. The piece is very very musical to wear as the glass loves to move around. Its definitely not a piece you would wear every day. Though my daughter did try to claim this piece. She loves the sound of the glass as she moves.

A Long Time~ Bangle Inspired

OK I started this piece back when the Bangles were scheduled to make the play offs. Hence the orange and black color. The rope alone took me a lot of time to complete because I just kept getting bored with the piece. After I finally had the right length, which isn't shown in the picture correctly since I coiled the rope for it all to be seen, I made a 3D poinsettia flower to attach. The black beads for the flower base was just for showing off how nice the orange beads look as a trim. Since this was my first attempt at making 3D bead work, I'm storing this piece in my jewelry box. If the team ever make the playoffs again, I'll pull it out and wear it with pride!