Tags
Andrew Thornton, Green Girl Studios, Mary Harding, Purple Haze II, Re-Art Swap, Sarah Moran, Swoondimples, Z-Beads
I am the slowest jewelry maker ever. It can take me hours to make a necklace. But this is a wonderful time for me when I don’t think about anything else and am completely immersed in just the making of the piece.
I thought it might be interesting to see how a piece starts and then how it ends. I had some Czech glass baroque pearls I really loved. I had been planning for a while to knot them on linen in a simple, romantic necklace with a Green Girl Studios pendant. I had laid out the pearls with some other beads before and a Green Girl heart for the necklace, but then I ended up using the other beads for something else. When I got the pearls and heart out again today, I thought for a minute of including a pink bean bead by Heather Wynn Millican of swoondimples that said “xoxo” but it didn’t quite work. I surveyed what else was on my table.
At first I put together the large rose colored bead with the lucite flowers. I have loved those flowers since I got them in a challenge kit, and I loved how this little piece looked. I realized I couldn’t use the heart to dangle below it. I’ve found that putting a flat piece under a bulkier piece can make the flat piece sort of dangle in mid-air. So then I started looking for something more appropriately sized and decided on this Andrew Thornton eye heart. It actually looked pretty good, and I had one half of the knotting done when I decided I wanted that eye heart to be in a necklace with a harder edge. This flower piece I’d made reminded me of a sweet little ballerina, and it needed something different. But I still wanted to include an art bead.
In thinking what I had that would match the color scheme, I thought of a strand of Z-Beads by Sarah Moran. But the ballerina and the Z-bead didn’t really do each other justice. I knew I had some beads in this color family by Annica of Zesty Frog. Once I got into that box, instead of the beads I had been thinking of (which were too small) I saw this pendant.
It had nothing to do with the little ballerina thing or the other beads, but was it ever perfect for the primrose champagne Czech glass pearls! I had tried several necklaces with this pendant in the past, so when I finally found the perfect beads for it, I wasn’t going to give them up. I tried several things with this necklace as well. There was a lovely flower by Mary Harding that was very pretty with the pendant, but didn’t sit right. So in the end I went simple.
So, this necklace isn’t complicated and would not take me long to make if I had it as my original idea. But making for me includes a lot of playing and experimenting with elements until I find something that feels right.
It’s so elegant. I love it.
I do the same thing…make/take apart/remake! Lovely necklace with perfect proportions!
I am the same way. I tend to have an idea in mind that has been there a few days being refined and redefined. It never seems to work out the way I have planned though I always manage to keep one element the same.
Beautiful necklace. I have been really drawn to pearls right now.