Many shades of green

For my sister

For my Mom

MY FAVORITE 

I made several necklaces of beads, buttons and bits pieces from other broken jewelry for myself & another for my sister. Both used green colored beads.
My mother saw my necklace and wanted one for her too. So I pledged to make her a necklace like mine.  The two green necklaces put a drain on my available supplies..so I changed a couple things, and used a variety of beads/findings..to "stretch" out my green beads (spacer beads and larger beads).
  I like stringing buttons and beads over a chain (instead of string)...saves a lot of time wiring and counting links.  But unless you have a very fine chain, you'll need large hole beads  which can get expensive.  The middle strand was seed beads and butterfly spacer beads on beading wire.   The inside strand was individual beads linked together. The outside strand was beads over chain. I used acrylic, wood, vintage buttons, glass, stone... A little bit of everything

I made these  for me!!!

Ball chain necklace

I've never worked much with ball chains...seems kind of cheap. But I found a decorative ball chain and gave it a try.  I had a beautiful faceted,  large drill hole, black onyx bead that I strung on first. I used two large drill hole fresh water"potato" pearls to encase the onyx bead, two pretty,  large-drill hole decorative silver metal beads, and two black glass pearls for the focal piece.     I had two more glass black pearl beads, so I "anchored" them on the ball chain with black crimp covers. To finish off the necklace I used decorative ball chain endings and magnet closures.  Simple, quick, and pretty.

I'm sure there are better ways to work with ball chain...but this was my first attempt.

All recommendations welcomed.

Beautiful... but lessons learned

I saw a necklace similar to this (left) and thought I'd try to make one like it.  This necklace was tedious and time consuming. Lots of crimp work which are not my favorite things to do in jewelry-making. Each strand started with a crimp and wire cover to make 

alike endings. Another crimp, beads, crimp.  Space, crimp, beads, crimp.

 I made 5 strands like this and worked all 5 strands through the starfish focal piece and voila! I thought I was done.
Or so I thought! I discovered the  fifth strand had not been strung through the starfish! 

What to do?  I took the closure apart..took this (above right)) blue strand out, and put the closure back together.  Whew! lucky! Sometimes I end up having to redo the whole thing for one screw up!! 

 The best news:  I took this lost blue strand and made it into it's own little necklace. 

Lesson learned:  Quality control--Check work before finishing a piece!!

NFS: But This necklace was somewhat expensive to make.
 To give you an idea of costs involved:

Blue beads, Lapis Lazuli stones 12.00

Purple beads: agate stones 3.00

Shiny Purple beads: glass seed beads 2.00

Metalllic purple: Magnetite beads. 7.00

Starfish: blown glass: (This was given to me..but a similar one..5.00 approx)
7-strand beading wire:  7.00
crimps: .05
Closures 4.99
labor 20+ hours ......  @7.00 per hr   140.00  = total  182.00 approx

Charmed by Betty Boop

BETTY BOOP:
   Occasionally when doing jewelry I come across something that just makes me giggle the whole time I'm constructing. I bought this Betty Boop charm for $1.00...added red, silver, black beads (the only colors fitting for Betty) to make this necklace. I laughed the whole time...I guess Betty Boop just "charmed" me LOL into finding my inner Betty!!! LOL LOL

Using leftovers

I had a piece of "fishnet" type material leftover from another project and decided to use it somehow in a necklace. I stretched it out into a thin rope and started beading the material with clear acrylic beads, black pony beads and painted wood beads.  I made a loop with the top long stand and crisscrossed the strands. I made a double knot and continued beading to the ends. I gathered the two ends and tied a double knot, enclosed the knot in a big hole wood bead, and pulled the remaining fabric out through the bottom.  Trimmed up the ends with scissors. Nothing fancy, but a great way to use up leftover bits of this and that.

Mixing mediums

I had just a little piece of vintage lace from another project, enough to maybe make a choker necklace...but tried something different.  I stitched onto the lace  freshwater pearls, little shiny vintage buttons and smaller seed pearls. Then I added this focal glass piece and a few metal beads on the bottom. I attached a coppery chain on the other ends of the lace to make a closure.  Always fun & usually challenging,  mixing jewelry mediums.

Purple MOP shank button necklace

Shades of purple...

I have a real affinity  for MOP shank buttons.
These buttons are dyed MOP shank buttons.
I love the smooth cool silky pearl feeling...even though just buttons.
I recently acquired a bunch of these buttons in all these lovely shades of purple..and decided to make a necklace. I didn't have quite enough to make a full strand so I pulled out my purple seed beads and finished the strand in matching beads. Not a fancy piece, but pretty colors, silky overlapping MOP buttons can be quite charming and feel lovely to wear!!