Happy Mother's Day!

I know Mother's Day was a week ago. As you may recall, it was a little bit of a hectic day for me. One of the things I did was to make my mom a necklace. I've been making jewelry for a while now, and I've actually never made a piece for my mom. It took me some time to figure out what she would want, because she's someone who doesn't wear a lot of costume jewelry. I've also never seen her wear a bracelet and I know she doesn't like dangly earrings. This actually simplified things: a necklace it was!

Here's the necklace in progress. Thanks for the bead board, coworkers! It would be pretty darn difficult to make a necklace in this style without one. I elected to use a group of larger beads separated and spread out across a long length, with smaller contrasting seed beads in between. While I'm sure you could work it out with a tape measure and some diligence, it's much easier with the board.

So, here's the finished product. I chose green lampwork beads with pink accents and then a blend of seed beads (from Joann) in a matte pink finish.

Here's a closer up shot of the necklace inside its box. I always stress about making sure I give my jewelry in just the right container. This is actually an old President Brie box. I eat enough of that stuff that I always seem to have boxes laying around. A while ago, I actually asked my mom what I could use to line them so the jewelry wouldn't rattle or get broken. She was kind enough to cut me several lining pieces out of scraps of quilt batting she had. I knew that she'd recognize it right away, and she sure did!

I decoupaged the top of the box just using a piece of scrapbook paper I thought she'd like. I had the stickers to spell out Mom (okay, one is an upside down W) and tied it up with a ribbon scrap I had lying around. I took this with me when I went to my parents' house and had planned to give it to her at dinner, which is when we typically exchange gifts other than at Christmas. But, when I got there I noticed she was wearing a sweater that was the same pink as the spacing beads so I gave it to her at brunch. She put it on and wore it for the rest of the day. Success!!