Sunday 14 March 2010

A Little Bit of Bling

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to attend a jewellery making class at Mary Clare. Caroline was the teacher and is someone I know from chatting in the shop in passing. I have to say, she not only makes great jewellery, which is sold in the shop, but she is a fantastic teacher too.

The class was aimed at people, like me, that wanted to have a go with beads and wire but didn't really know where to start. It was a brief two hour course and tonnes of information was poured into my tiny brain and it left me dying to have a go with my newly implanted skills.

Of course once I got home, other projects got in the way and I didn't do any. So on Friday when my friend Rachael bought some components to make into a necklace I offered to put them together for her, using my new found skills.

This weekend I pulled out my new over the bed desk which Margaret the patchwork teacher gave me, propped up my pillows, turned on the radio and started playing with beads and wire. It has to be one of the most pain free crafting sessions I have ever done! I quickly put together the bits needed to make the necklaces. They turned out like this.



The idea is that both pendants can be hung from the same chain, so they needed to be easy to change over. I used the same technique on both pendants. I made a loop, with wire on the pendant and then threaded through a jump ring to sit on the chain. The jump ring allows the pendants to be slid on and off easily.



I really like the above glass pendant as it is so interesting, but I prefer the bright cheerful colour of the one shown below.



This pendant is actually sold as a button, but I think it works brilliantly as a piece of jewellery.

Once I quickly dispatched these pendants, I decided to make a bracelet for Rachael's birthday, which is coming up soon. I used a pre-made charm bracelet that has elastic running through and split rings attached to the chain. This gave me a very good base on which to start hanging my pretty green beads.



I bought a bag of mixed beads and added a few individual ones that caught me eye to fancy up the bracelet.



The above was one of the individual beads (the polka dot type one on the right). I love the way the light moves through this bead. One of the other individual beads is in the photo below on the left of centre. It is cylindrical in a more acidic green colour with pretty coloured speckles.



I love the way this bracelet turned out.



And I can't wait to see Rachael's face when she opens her present.



I've already bought more of these charm bracelets to play with, as I know they will make great gifts, come Christmas and they are a great way of practicing my jewellery crafting.

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