Rose Quartz Chips

I have had two baggies of Rose Quartz chip beads that I bought from Fire Mountain back in December, and I have not even opened either of them until now.  I think I only intended to buy one of them, but in my bead-buying frenzy at the time I must have ended up with two in my cart...but they are so pretty, and of course, you can never have too many pretty things!  I wanted to use them finally for something, and I thought what better than to combine the chip stones with a vintage chain and a vintage brass bird pendant, and create a pendant with a warm, springlike feel.....Yes, I know a lot of my posts lately have been in relation to spring, because I am desperate for it to arrive!  Usually after part of a season has gone by I am bored with what I get to choose from to wear everyday and cannot wait to create new outfits by combining in pieces and accessories for the next season.  Winter has passed that point.  I am now pretty much all about spring!  Bring it on!  :)  Let the warm weather and sunshine abound!

Wire Wrapped Wednesday, January 19

This week's wire wrapped Wednesday post is a necklace that I made using a piece of pink wire I randomly found in my jewelry making supplies.  The interesting part about the wire is that it is actually 6 or 7 years old.  The wire was a scrap left over from my junior or senior year in high school when I made these wire wrapped candle Christmas gifts for all of my friends.  I was so excited to find it, and I had to use it for this necklace.  There was only a small piece left, and I used the whole scrap for this project.  I wrapped a piece of Italian onyx from Fire Mountain Gems as the main pendant, and then made it kind of into a tassel look with little purple beads dangling off of it.  The purple glass bead at the top also has significance, because I got that bead when I was in high school with my dad at the Pendleton Art Center down in over the Rhine.  My dad's friend Litsa used to own an art gallery there, now her gallery is Art Design Consultants near downtown Cincinnati.  We used to go to the old Pendleton building once a month for Final Fridays, a fun art event on the last Friday of the month.

A Bit of Geometry

Today, the necklace I want to show you takes inspiration from a lot of the geometric statement pieces that are huge for Spring 2011.  I made the necklace out of the beads and pieces from a broken vintage necklace that I got from my aunt.  I loved the wooden look of some of these beads, as well as the bright turquoise color of some of the beads.  I arranged them in such a way that they almost remind me of something Egyptian, maybe the colors have something to do with that too.  And any one who knows me knows that I love anything Egypt, so I guess it makes sense that that would inspire me.

Gold Pendant Necklace

Today's necklace is a necklace that I actually made wayyyy back in November and wore on Thanksgiving.  It is an extremely long pendant necklace.  The chain I used on it is from the "bag o' vintage" jewelry that my aunt gave me from the estate sale.  The bits and pieces I used to make the pendant part of the necklace are a vintage Victorian-esque cameo piece, another vintage piece that looks like it was originally part of an earring, and opalite beads that I bought when i visited Stacey Kay back in the beginning of November.  The beads were from a bead store in Medina called  Potomac Beads.  Apparently, this bead store is a franchise-owned store that has other stores around the country....I NEED to own one of these franchises.  When Drew and I were there, he even mentioned that he would want to own a store like this, for me of course.  So now I feel like I should make that one of my goals.  To own my own bead/jewelry shoppe! :)

 an image of me wearing the necklace at Thanksgiving with my sister :)

Jade Necklace

I was so excited when I was able to purchase beads from the Fire Mountain Gems one dollar bead sale a couple months ago....I got so many awesome beads for a dollar or less each!  And the great part was that all of the beads I bought were either real gemstones, marble, or a type of rock or stone bead, so it was a really great deal!  Today I used my Jade beads that I bought at the bead sale to create a statement necklace.  In my post from yesterday, I discussed that statement pieces are going to continue to be huge for Spring 2011, and the color of the jade beads I used in this piece will complement the bright spring colors.