New pretties

One thing I've been up to recently is making some jewelry. It can be tough to get excited about finicky, tiny work like bending loops this way and that - the essentials of jewelry making. But, with the way my place is set up, I make jewelry at the kitchen table. Once I go through the hassle of bringing out the beading design board, and the 5 plastic boxes that hold all the supplies, I usually make more than one thing before packing them up again.

There were a couple of neat pieces I made recently!

I spotted these white beads quite a while ago - so long, I can't even remember which craft store! Ack! Anyways, I bought two strands of them and knew I wanted to make a necklace to keep. I was thinking I needed something that I could wear with my work clothes. I knew I didn't want black, but I was hoping for something versatile. I considered pearls, but I decided to go in a different direction.

It's not exactly a statement necklace, but it does add some volume with a scoop-necked dressy t-shirt. Since I only own about a dozen of those (almost wishing I were kidding...), I knew it would come in handy!

I also made another, longer necklace that was all about these pieces:

I found these sweet quatrefoil connectors when I went to the fancy bead store looking for the chain I needed to make the lighter-shaded tree necklace. I originally made this one with some extra thin jump rings, and then some of them came open the first time I debuted this necklace. The result was a tangle of doubled-up chain. But, with some diligent un-knotting, and some sad but necessary throwing away of perfectly good but totally screwed up chain, I was able to put together the finished product!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! The only bad news was that I wore it for the first time with this really pretty kelly green t-shirt... and then felt like I was the world's oldest Junior Girl Scout. Note to self: leave bright green + quatrefoil for the middle-schoolers and wear this one with any other color!