Road Jewelry...

I've been meaning to post pictures of these as soon as I got back, but I've been pressed for time as of late.  I made the three necklaces while Greg drove from Asheville to Philadelphia for the Bead Fest Wire show.  It was roughly a ten hour drive and I like to keep my hands busy.  Otherwise I succumb to a road coma and fall deeply asleep.  Oddly enough, I don't get motion sickness.  The only thing to worry about is jabbing yourself with the wire when there's a bump in the road.

The above piece is mostly metal.  I created a wire-wrapped link chain of stacked Thai silver rounds (from Na Bo Row) to feature the fine pewter Swirly Pebble bead from my family at Green Girl Studios.  I also used a lava rondelle from Talisman Associates, Inc.  I made the headpins in advance and used those to embellish a piece of chain with black diamond Swarovski crystals from Fusion Beads.

After Scarlett Lanson's Use the Muse contest, I fell in love with the natural brass filigree that was the muse component.  I used it in the above piece with a golden shadow Swarovski disk pendant from Artbeads.com and a vermeil spacer from Singaraja Imports.  I used the gold-plated seahorse woman from my family at Green Girl Studios as a hook clasp.  The Swarovski cuplink chain is also from Artbeads.com.  All of the other Swarovski crystals and pearls are from Fusion Beads.

This was probably one of the more challenging pieces I made on the ride up.  I started out by making Cynthia three different doll necklaces with these tiny vintage simulated pearls she had.  The tricky part was not crushing the pearls with the somewhat cumbersome pliers I was using.  The coral branch pendant and the starfish clasp, both in fine pewter, are from my family at Green Girl Studios.  The coin pearls and black/dark blue pearls are from Talisman Associates, Inc., and the copper-colored Swarovski crystal pearls are from Fusion Beads.