For the Bride

Please forgive this bad photo. White/crystal AB/pearl jewelry is hard to photograph, especially when you're in a hurry and have poor lighting. I'll be borrowing this necklace back from the bride sometime after the wedding to take high-quality images to show off.

When I showed my friend Helen the O. Bersten necklace in Rachel Nelson-Smith's Seed Bead Fusion, we both agreed that it was the perfect design to go with her wedding dress. Besides the white wedding color scheme, I made a few small changes to the design. Rachel used 5mmish freshwater pearls, and a single pearl dangle from the bottom of the pendant. I used 4mm Swarovski pearls, and decided to do 3 dangles, since the pearls were so small. Her original design had the necklace attached to the pendant at two points, but I decided to do a wire-wrapped bail on mine so I could hide the crimps in the back. Her design used two colors of drops to embellish the bezel, and I just used one, because it was all I had that matched the color scheme ;)

The O. Bersten component is fun to make. It's really dimensional and I can see a lot of opportunity for color variety... but I don't recommend doing it in various shade of pinks, otherwise the floral base will look like a little ring of boobies. Just saying...

Not quite white

Well, I went to start Snow Queen today, and it didn't work out because the Crystal Moonlight rivoli has a slight yellowish tint to it that looked bad against the white seed beads. Not to be deterred, brought up the Whimbeads website and ordered a plain ol' crystal rivoli instead -- as well as some chain, some Delicas, and some of those new-fangled size 15 Delicas. Because, you know, I had to make the order worth the cost of shipping (ok, I went beyond that. Maybe I felt the need for a little retail therapy...).

The annoying part in all of this is that I'm using the same color Delica and Japanese 11 for this project... and I accidentally dumped the Delicas into the 11s tube when I was cleaning up! Sorting them back out from each other will not be a fun task. I think I might save it for the Wednesday game, that way I don't have to worry about a cat jumping up onto my desk and mixing them right back up.

Anyway, in the meantime, I felt like I should bead something, so I made a green and green crystal bracelet, using some of the colors from the Turtle Talisman. I'm also going to make some earrings with a pair of the turtle beads and some crystals... That way if someone is so inclined, they could get a matching green turtle set. I'll list the bracelet and earrings on Etsy tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on when I get them photographed.

White on white on white on white...

The December theme for Etsy BeadWeavers is "Snow Queen." As luck would have it, I've had several snowy pieces planned for a while, but hadn't worked on them yet, because it wasn't winter. Tonight I decided to pick out the beads for the most appealing one, which has a "Crystal Moonlight" colored rivoli, and some matching briolettes.

If you've been following my jewelry for a while, you probably know that whenever I make an icy necklace, I tend to add light blue to the white, because I like color. But this time I'm forcing myself out of my comfort zone and working only in shades of white. I think it will make for a much icier, snowier necklace. It will probably also be a pretty bridal necklace, something which I am pretty much lacking.

I might need to order some 15s before I proceed, though. The best I could come up with were some plain matte crystal, and I think they're going to look too drab with the white-lined crystal AB Delicas and 11s. Plain white was too stark, and gilt-lined opal white was too yellow... and that exhausted my selection of white beads. I almost never work in white, preferring cream and ivory for neutrals, so I have almost nothing to pick from for this necklace!

Anyway, with any luck, this will work out better than my attempts for the November challenge did!